Sod's Law is all pervasive!
Literally minutes after my last posting, a client turned up who I'd not see since 2015, when the problem he'd had was trying to regain access to Facebook on an unbranded tablet - something I'd fixed four months earlier on that and another tablet.
Today, the problem was just the same - but with an iPad.
Oh, and he'd also forgotten his Gmail password and his Apple ID password.
"D'oh!"
Well, the Gmail and Apple accounts were linked to his mobile phone, which he'd not brought along.
Double "D'oh!"
So off he went back home to get the phone.
On his return, I sorted out Gmail easily, likewise Apple but Facebook (which, it later turned out, was also linked to his mobile phone) was a whole lot more problematic and I don't think we'll know before Monday (day after tomorrow) if my efforts were effective.
I tried three ways of getting him back into Facebook.
First thing was for him to select, from a list of names, various people pictured in his Facebook-related comms.
He couldn't identify a single one and, at that point, I realised he needed reading glasses and had brought none.
Treble "D'oh!"
I'd like to be able to say that I always have a pair handy for just such an occasion but that would be economical with the truth.
Mind you, if my wife didn't need reading glasses and didn't always have a pair somewhere nearby, I doubtless would invest.
So, wearing my wife's, rather fetching, reading glasses, he looked again at the images and after quite a long while admitted that he didn't know the names of any of the people pictured.
Quadruple "D'oh!"
Tried another method - picking from a list of contacts five whom he'd messaged [chatted with?] in the last two weeks.
He picked five relatively quickly (relatively is a relative word) but turns out that, in fact, he'd had comms with none of the people listed in the last two weeks. He wasn't even sure when Facebook had kicked him off!
Quintuple "D'oh!"*
[* Thanks to Quora for this and any subsequent 'uples']
Finally got round to trying a reset via his phone only to realise [thanks to Google] that the reason that hadn't worked - though the reset code appeared to be accepted - is because there would be a delay of 24hr+ before the account would become available again.
Sextuple "D'oh!"
I am, of course, expecting to hear from the client again on Monday, telling me that he still can't get into Facebook.
Did I say earlier that passwords are the bane of my life?
Sorry, I must try not to exaggerate in future.
I walked away from Facebook a few months back when the big political scandal hit but had never been much of a fan.
For that reason - and its pain-in-the-behind problems regaining access - I really must try to convince all my clients to give it the push.
UPDATE - August 21, 2018
Turns out that what was stopping the resurrection of the Facebook account was the final step.
This involves you being presented with a list of commercial postings.
So the client (actually me with him looking over my should) had to choose which to delete that were NOT the client's own.
There was around 60 of these and if you try to delete them, then you get stuck.
You could wait until the end of time.
That's because ALL of them were made by the client.
But there is no option to skip this step!
However, it is possible not to delete any - trouble it's not easy.
There is no "all" button and each page scroll only shows three items, so it takes an age to untick all the items if, like the client, there are lots of them.
What a totally stupid way of doing things.
Be nice to think that a company that makes billions from the web could have done a whole lot better but, hey, they're going to go down the tubes (with luck), so they're probably not worrying about things like interface design or helping their customers, just conserving cash.
Astonishingly, there is no phone number to call and no live chat alternative.
