Groups/Lists Missing in Facebook Chat

[itsonlygeorge]

Up until this morning all of my Facebook friend lists/groups showed up in the Adium Contact List as they were grouped in Facebook. Now they are all in one massive 'Facebook Friends' group. (It used to be arranged by lists as on Facebook, now its one massive mess)

Is there anyway to fix it so that Adium will parse the lists from Facebook?

I really dont want to go through all of my contacts to make new groups in Adium and manually organize my contact list. The whole point of organizing my contacts in Facebook was so that I can see who is online in each group/list as they were on Facebook. Having one massive group for Facebook is super annoying now...

I updated to the new version of Adium, 1.4.4, and it's still the same one massive Facebook group. Same on the old version 1.4.1. It probably has something to do with recent changes to Facebook Chat on their end, and not Adium, but I am hoping there is a work around. Anyone else having similar problems?

[ChrisJ]

Same problem here. One of the things I liked about Adium (when it was working) was that it continued to sort friends online by the lists I'd set up in FB, even after FB took away that functionality itself. Seems like that reduction in usability has now migrated.

(FB has been no end of trouble ever since it unceremoniously revamped the whole chat system last summer... )

[itsonlygeorge]

Same problem here. One of the things I liked about Adium (when it was working) was that it continued to sort friends online by the lists I'd set up in FB, even after FB took away that functionality itself. Seems like that reduction in usability has now migrated.

(FB has been no end of trouble ever since it unceremoniously revamped the whole chat system last summer... )

Agreed. There has to be a solution. The lists are still on FB, and there must be some way to reference them via the API. It would be awesome if someone could write a plug-in or script that can sort the Contact list for FB using those list... I was hoping there was an already existing work-around. My FB has been working (with the exception of chats getting lost occasionally if I had FB open in a browser window) just fine, and up until this afternoon I had my contacts in their lists as on FB.

Looks like I'll be using Google+ a lot more... hopefully more people will use it and functionality will improve. Google has a slightly better track record in regards to privacy and certainly stability and sanity. Why make system wide changes to the entire platform every 6 months? If it isn't broken, stop fucking with it.

[Sparky]

I just noticed this change tonight. Affects "real" Adium 1.4.4 Facebook accounts as well as a test XMPP/Jabber account attached to Facebook. I updated Adium at work this morning and didn't see anything wrong with grouping Facebook IM contacts, so I wonder if this change is on Facebook's side.

I can re-combine Facebook contacts with the appropriate metacontacts and they do disappear from the "Facebook Friends" group in the contact list. However if I bounce Adium those contacts then appear twice--once under the "Buddies" group (where the metacontact lives) and once under the "Facebook Friends" group. I guess I'll double-check my metacontacts and then collapse the "Facebook Friends" group in the contact list.

[abbyquack]

I really dont want to go through all of my contacts to make new groups in Adium and manually organize my contact list.

i actually DID go through all my contacts and manually organize them in adium, and when i restarted, not only was the "Facebook Friends" group back, any group i had made that contained only facebook contacts had disappeared. so don't waste your time trying that.

[itsonlygeorge]

Sparky: Do you group multiple IM aliases under one contact in Adium?

Ex: John Doe would have entries for FB, AIM, and GChat all associated with the same "name" of John Doe on the buddy list? Or am I missing something?

How do you change the metadata for contacts? I hope this isn't on an individual basis?

Is this just creating new groups in Adium and placing FB contacts into them manually? (This would make sense that the names would show up twice) I'm guessing if thats the case that if you suppress the "Facebook Friends" group in Adium, they would still stay in your created groups?

It seems the change is definitely on the FB side... they're always meddling with things they dont need to be...

i actually DID go through all my contacts and manually organize them in adium, and when i restarted, not only was the "Facebook Friends" group back, any group i had made that contained only facebook contacts had disappeared. so don't waste your time trying that.

So much for that idea...

[Sparky]

Sparky: Do you group multiple IM aliases under one contact in Adium?

Ex: John Doe would have entries for FB, AIM, and GChat all associated with the same "name" of John Doe on the buddy list? Or am I missing something?

Yes. I have five accounts active in Adium (AIM, MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk, and Facebook) and I combine contacts from each of the services into a single metacontact (I think Adium calls them "Combined Contacts") that represents one human.

How do you change the metadata for contacts? I hope this isn't on an individual basis?

I can drag and drop contacts onto each other to combine them--otherwise I can right-click on the combined contact and "Expand Combined Contact" to see the various IM accounts associated with each combined contact. I also can "Get Info" for the combined contact and see the IM accounts associated with that combined contact in the "Advanced Settings" tab.

Is this just creating new groups in Adium and placing FB contacts into them manually? (This would make sense that the names would show up twice) I'm guessing if thats the case that if you suppress the "Facebook Friends" group in Adium, they would still stay in your created groups?

I'm using existing groups (as opposed to new). It looks like Adium no longer can perform the user list management tasks (e.g. creating a "Buddies" list in Facebook and then taking a Facebook contact and placing them in that list) and also cannot read at least some of that group information. My combined contacts that contain Facebook IM accounts now both show up in the desired group ("Buddies") and the generic Facebook group ("Facebook Friends"), however contacts that only have Facebook IM accounts now do not show up in my "Buddies" list at all.

[Robby]

Facebook Chat contacts cannot be managed by Adium. Facebook does not allow for that and I don't think it ever did.

The Facebook group used to be called "Buddies" and is now called "Facebook friends", that is what I am seeing.

I would not advise combining Facebook contacts with others.

[Sparky]

It appears Robby edited his post above while I was composing my reply. It appears he addresses the questions I asked below.
-------
Can Adium read group information from Facebook? For example, I have a "Buddies" Friend List in Facebook yet Facebook contacts in Adium appear in a "Facebook Friends" group in the contact list. Adium appears to be told by Facebook IM that the Facebook contacts are part of a "Facebook Friends" group so it is displaying a contact in that group as well as displaying the combined contact in the "Buddies" group.

It appears Adium understands the concept of a combined contact existing in a group (I'd guess combined contacts are part of Adium's local collection of information and wouldn't be affected by Facebook IM server-side changes). Non-combined contacts which only exist in my Facebook account now do not appear in the "Buddies" group in the contact list.

I'm not sure where to rename the "Facebook Friends" group inside Facebook's interface so Adium isn't told that's the group where those contacts reside. I don't even know if it's possible. And I completely understand it if this issue lies with Facebook changing their API and interface more frequently than it changes it's underwear.

[zac]

Facebook recently removed support for their serverside groups in XMPP, much like their web client no longer displays these groups.

Now Facebook does not support any concept of groups in chat, which means no level of manipulation will allow the contacts to move.. the next time Adium talks to the server, they'll be back in their serverside group.

[zac]

Facebook Chat contacts cannot be managed by Adium. Facebook does not allow for that and I don't think it ever did.

The Facebook group used to be called "Buddies" and is now called "Facebook friends", that is what I am seeing.

I would not advise combining Facebook contacts with others.

"Buddies" is the libpurple/Adium name for "The group for contacts without groups". It's the default, and FB *would* put contacts there save for a libpurple bug which made the transition from "having groups" to "not having groups" fail badly.

[Sparky]

Facebook recently removed support for their serverside groups in XMPP, much like their web client no longer displays these groups.

Now Facebook does not support any concept of groups in chat, which means no level of manipulation will allow the contacts to move.. the next time Adium talks to the server, they'll be back in their serverside group.

Of course, Facebook! Who wouldn't want a giant list of contacts rather than a curated group of contacts you might actually want to talk to?

Thanks for the information--guess we'll just have to deal with it to get to play in Facebook's garden.

[itsonlygeorge]

Facebook recently removed support for their serverside groups in XMPP, much like their web client no longer displays these groups.

Now Facebook does not support any concept of groups in chat, which means no level of manipulation will allow the contacts to move.. the next time Adium talks to the server, they'll be back in their serverside group.

So there is no way to get the list data from FB and recreate some way of sorting contacts in Adium? That's just friggin great. So now I have to stare at a giant completely unordered list inorder to figure out who is actually online.

I do mind, the Dude minds. This will not stand, ya know, this aggression will not stand, man. The Dude abides.

[AriaPictures]

so can someone tell me why it is still working in adium 3.xx and when adium undated to 4 the lists on my facebook friends is now under one heading?

but look at it in 3.x.x and the lists are separated... what did adium do?

[itsonlygeorge]

I am pretty sure that the change was on FB servers, and not Adium. It was working until yesterday on Adium 1.4.1. I may try using 1.3.x to see if it works. I hope it does... It might have something to do with a previous version of lib_purple, but one of the dev's can probably confirm this.

[zac]

Previous versions of Adium pretended to be a web client and, very unreliably, used chat as though it were. It supported lists as long as the chat interface supported it, and it's unlikely whatever mechanism it uses/used will continue to function in the future.

The current version of Adium uses Facebook's official XMPP protocol. Think of it as like Google Talk. The only fancy thing Adium does is allow you to log in through the normal Facebook interface, otherwise it is entirely Facebook's XMPP implementation that governs how things operate.

This is definitely a server-side Facebook change, and I do not think Adium will be hacking around trying to emulate lists again. From an outside perspective, Facebook has abandoned the idea of lists for chat, and has relegated lists to be more dynamic and less user-managing.

[itsonlygeorge]

So we are stuck having a giant completely randomly ordered list that contains only FB contacts? And they cant be added to groups created in Adium for organization? This doesn't seem right... I understand that this issue is cause by FB and not Adium, however this is still unacceptable. There has to be some way to organize FB contacts that is permanent and doesn't change with the whims of FB's developers. I'm sure many people would be happy with a hack or workaround that lets them organize their FB contacts in some sane manner. What are the chances of a script or plugin being able to add this functionality? Is it possible to access friend lists created on FB through the FB API or the FB XMPP protocol? If so, I imagine that a simple sorting algorithm could create groups in Adium regardless of how they are on the FB server.

[blue_j]

Hi there,

I might be missing something here (and if I am: I'm sorry) but if server-side list support is the problem, is there a reason why Adium can't store group/list settings locally?

It wouldn't even need to be a FB-specific hack like the old Adium. It could be a general, connection-level preference that says "Ignore the groups sent down from this server and display contacts as the user has organized them." This way, Facebook can ring-up Adium and say "John Smith has signed on, and he's in the 'Buddies' list.. or 'Friends'.. or whatever we're calling it this week." When it's time to relay that info to the user, Adium sees it has locally-defined groups enabled for this facebook account and says "Hey, John Smith is online. I'm going to slip him under 'Coworkers' on your contact list since that's where you put him last week."

[itsonlygeorge]

Ideally, Adium would take the already made lists on FB and translate them into local groups... those lists still exist on FB and its a pain to organize hundreds of contacts in Adium that may not even be online... I see no reason why this shouldn't be possible.

[ChrisJ]

Facebook recently removed support for their serverside groups in XMPP, much like their web client no longer displays these groups.

Now Facebook does not support any concept of groups in chat, which means no level of manipulation will allow the contacts to move.

...From an outside perspective, Facebook has abandoned the idea of lists for chat, and has relegated lists to be more dynamic and less user-managing.

Just griping here, but what I would love to know is WHY. This seems like a clear-cut case of FB finding a perfectly useful piece of user functionality—that they'd spent considerable time and effort creating in the first place—and just taking it away for no apparent reason, with no new benefit in return. I know probably not a lot of FB users bothered to customize their lists, but how were those who did posing any problem?