Facebook layout problem with Mac

This is certainly not earth-shattering, but it is annoying. Last week for some reason the left sidebar on my Facebook homepage started displaying at the top of the page, rather than to the left. What is normally at the top of the page is below my picture and the partial list of friends, newsfeed, groups and apps listing. It is squished right beside the right sidebar, which lists upcoming events and the eleventy-millionth time my son has poked me. I’m not finding anything in Facebook’s Help topics.

I suspect this has to do with this particular Mac, because I was on Facebook at home on a Mac over the weekend and it displayed normally. The PC here in my office displays my page normally too. Any ideas?

pout

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What browser are you using? Can you try it in a different browser on the Mac?

Have you tried clearing your cache on the browser you are using? You might need to Google for directions.

OK, tried it and it displays fine in Safari. I poked around trying to find the clear cache on Firefox but didn’t immediately see it. Thanks, Zip.

If we have similar versions of Firefox you can go to Tools - Clear Recent History and un-check everything but “Cache” and run it. That should delete the old version of the Facebook CSS file that you have and force your browser to get the latest one.

Bah. I Googled, I found, I cleared and … no change.

Yeah, Facebook is rolling out a new “ticker” feature and is randomly choosing people to use as guinea pigs – including me. :frowning: I hate the ticker feature. I’ve found two ways to get back to the original layout:

  1. Use Windows (ugh!!), and run Internet Exploder in “compatibility mode” OR

  2. (this was my Mac fix, and it works really well) Use Firefox, download and install the “User Agent Switcher” add-on, and for Facebook sessions, have User Agent Switcher set to Internet Explorer 7. At first Facebook will complain that your browser is out of date, but once you close that message, you won’t see it again. Things will be back to normal at this point. Just remember that ALL pages you visit will think you’re on IE 7, though, so if you browse to another site, set User Agent Switcher to “Default.” (It automatically goes back to “Default” when you close Firefox.)

Since it’s a real thing that FB is doing, you might want to try removing your cookie and see if it sets you back to using the non-altered design.

Go to Tools - Options - Privacy and click on the link that says “Remove individual cookies.” Search for Facebook. All of the cookies you bring up, even if they say some other domain name, are related to Facebook (the other domain name ones are for other sites that use Facebook widgets.)

You can either delete all of the cookies you find in your “facebook” search or just the ones where “facebook.com” is in the first column.

NOTE: YOU WILL BE LOGGED OUT OF FACEBOOK WHEN YOU DO THIS SO MAKE SURE YOU KNOW YOUR LOGIN INFO BEFORE YOU DO IT!

If it is a real thing Facebook is doing why is it only doing it on one machine/browser?

Because that machine and browser has got the random cookie that says “do it!”

Ah.

I can’t find “Options.” It isn’t under Tools in my menu. :confused:

Perhaps this article will help? But you want “Show Cookies…” button.

Thanks so much for your help. I did find it, under the file menu, preference, then security. I killed every cookie on my machine and it still shows up that way. I guess I’ll have to live with it?

Scattered Frog, I don’t think your fix will work for me, and it sounds a little over my head anyway.

Thanks again, everyone.

I’m having the same problem, but on a PC. My Mac is displaying normally.

For me, my header bar is shifted left while the main display is still centered. The misalignment is odd, but livable with. I’m currently using Chrome when I go to FB because I play a game that apparently has issues with Firefox, which I use everywhere else.

I decided to just keep Safari open for Facebook. I can’t seem to avoid the problem otherwise.

Is this the same thing that has broken text magnification on Facebook? I have to make the text rather tiny, otherwise the sidebar becomes a middle bar.

And I think it is ridiculous that no one seems to have come out with a per site User Agent Switcher.

Every site (well, almost every site) does A/B testing from time-to-time. Since it’s affecting your account in one browser, but not the same account in another browser, you’ve probably gotten randomly selected in the test with a cookie. (That is to say, the test status is attached to the browser, not to your account.) This is a really half-assed way of doing it, for obvious reasons, but I get the sense that Facebook does a lot of things half-assed.

Anyway, clearing your cookies and logging back in will run the test logic again and you may or may not be placed in the same test group. Worth a try, though.

Also, look closely and there might be a survey or other way of proving feedback on the new layout. If so, provide feedback! Quietly “making the layout go away” might work for now, but it won’t work in 6 months when Facebook decides to roll it out to everybody on the system.