Strange cookie-related problem with accessing Facebook Page with fb.me URL

Question

When I'm accessing my site via regular (?) URL:

https://www.facebook.com/{sitename}/

I can see clearly that I'm logged in.

When I'm accessing the very same Facebook Page using the very same browser (newest Firefox), without closing that browser (so session cookies are not purged), using fb.me URL:

http://www.fb.me/{sitename}

I'm logged off, but when I provide (correct!) login and password, FB hits me with message saying, that I can't login, because cookies are required and are not enabled on my browser.

What is this or what am I missing?

This is the weirdest thing I have ever found on Facebook. Not only my cookies are enabled (since I'm logged in, when using regular URL) — just double checked that — but also I'm able to keep myself both logged in and logged off to the same Facebook Page in two separate tabs.

Restarting Firefox brings no change it above mentioned situation.

Answer 1

I've done a bunch of experimentation. I used Chrome, but I was able to replicate what you were seeing.

fb.me is Facebook's URL shortening service. Among other things, any profile or page with the address www.facebook.com/{address} can be entered as fb.me/{address} and should, in theory, redirect to the former.

What I think is happening is that Facebook doesn't quite have their redirect code set up properly. See if you can confirm:

• If I put fb.me/neildegrassetyson in my browser address bar, I get successfully redirected to https://www.facebook.com/neildegrassetyson.

• However, if I put www.fb.me/neildegrassetyson in the address bar, there's no redirect. The Neil Degrasse Tyson page is displayed, but I'm prompted to log in. If I try to log in, I get caught in the login loop you describe in your question.

I surmise that the fb.me domain purposely has cookies disabled at the server level, so while the Facebook code is trying to work, there are no cookies for it to work with. The code then, mistakenly, identifies the lack of cookies as a problem on your side.

It would seem that Facebook has fb.me set to work correctly, but www.fb.me is not. This kind of makes sense; those four extra characters kind of defeat the purpose of an URL shortener.

It's also important to note that https://fb.me/{address} will redirect to https://www.facebook.com. Oddly enough, https://www.fb.me/{address} displays the same behavior as http://www.fb.me/{address}.

Remember: www.example.com is not the same address as example.com. Most sites are configured to redirect one to the other, but not all. (My local school system, for instance, has a website that doesn't work at all if you enter the address without the "www".)

So, the solution to your problem is to use http://fb.me/{address}. Leave off the "www" and use "http" rather than "https".