Solved Facebook feed reloading rapidly

[Pathduck]

If this issue is indeed caused by adblocker-lists as several users have discovered, then I doubt this is specific to Vivaldi, but rather to what block-lists are enabled. It might work in other browsers simply because these don't use adblocking or simply use different/updated lists.

For the Vivaldi adblocker, it's important to understand that these are publicly available lists, from several sources and managed by volunteers. Apart from possibly the DDG tracker list. Sometimes badly tested and too aggressive blocking rules make it into these lists. Usually they are reported to the list managers and fixed within a couple of days. There's very little Vivaldi can do about this.

Vivaldi refreshes these lists once a day or so, and sometimes it's enough to just force a reload of the lists by deselecting and selecting them again.

If someone who understands how blocklists work and with an FB account could investigate, they could probably figure out what specific rule is causing this issue. Probably best to recreate the issue using uBlock Origin, since the logger helps a lot figuring out what goes on.

[KimberTLEii]

I'm experiencing the same thing. I noticed it only happens on Pages that have a pinned post.

I own several Pages, so I went to my "testing Page" which didn't have a pinned (also known as "Featured"). Nothing unusual happened.

As soon as I Pinned a post, it started the scrolling. And actually, the posts DISAPPEAR from the timeline. If you scroll up, the posts you DID see are gone.

I had to open my page in Firefox to unpin the post, and the Page in Vivaldi worked, again.

This problem does not happen in Chrome or MS Edge.

[Thot]

@Pathduck Disabling “ABP anti-circumvention list“ fixes rapid reloading for me.![2022-06-27 15.24.59 vivaldi c038bb37f255.jpg]

[Pathduck]

@Thot Ok then for testing try to enable only the ABP Anti-cv list for FB, and see if the issue reappears, to make sure the issue is caused by that list.

My guess it's probably one of these rules:
https://github.com/abp-filters/abp-filters-anti-cv/blob/master/english.txt#L66

I do notice the Vivaldi list has not been updated since 13/6:
https://downloads.vivaldi.com/lists/abp/abp-filters-anti-cv-current.txt

The latest from ABP is here, updated today:
https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/abp-filters-anti-cv.txt

This happens sometimes, that Vivaldi's update job fails and lists are not updated.

If you want, you can disable the Vivaldi one and add the latest from ABP instead, see if that fixes the problem.

[Thot]

@Pathduck Enabling only „ABP anti…“ lets it happen again. Enabling only the EasyLists everything is ok. Said: I think it’s in „ABP…“

[Pathduck]

@Thot Fine - try with the updated list directly from ABP, see if it helps.

Someone might have to ping V team to let them know the lists need updating.

[Thot]

@Pathduck The „ABP List“ is updated, because I often put the hook in and out today, for testing. Still persisting.

[maxium]

@mib2berlin

To be clear click on the little "shield' next to the URL line and select "Block Trackers"

[Pathduck]

@Thot No, what I tried to say is, the list Vivaldi uses from its own server is outdated. It doesn't matter what the time in Vivaldi says, the file is two weeks old:

! Last modified: 13 Jun 2022 05:44 UTC

Disable the Vivaldi list, and try adding the updated list directly:
https://easylist-downloads.adblockplus.org/abp-filters-anti-cv.txt

! Last modified: 27 Jun 2022 14:54 UTC

[Thot]

@Pathduck OK—ABP filters activated; ABP anti-circum… deactivate helps. Can I then delete ABP anti?

[Pathduck]

@Thot OK if I understand correctly, it looks like this:

And then it works?

If so V team only needs to update their proxied file and it should be OK for all users.

[Thot]

@Pathduck Then it works!

[Guidant]

@Pathduck For me, I changed the inbuilt Tracker/Blocker to the middle option – "Block Trackers" and FB now appears to work normally.
Presumably that means Ads are blocked but Trackers are not.

Running Vivaldi 5.3.2679.61 on Mac OS X Mojave.
Running no other extensions or Ad blockers etc.

[Pathduck]

@Guidant said in Facebook reloading rapidly:

For me, I changed the inbuilt Tracker/Blocker to the middle option – "Block Trackers" and FB now appears to work normally.
Presumably that means Ads are blocked but Trackers are not.

The opposite - it means trackers are blocked, ads are not

From the investigation kindly done by @Thot above, it seems that a lack of updated blocklists might be the cause of a lot of these issues.

[Guidant]

@Pathduck Yes, of course you are correct – DOH.

Now I have those 'Sponsored' ads showing up on the right hand side of the page.

[Thot]

Thank you so much @Pathduck for your kind words. But, either way, without @Pathduck it would’ve been impossible and I learnt something new, by just doing it.

[Thot]

@Guidant That’s what fb is made for!
What’s with the EasyLists? I have no sponsered Ads there.

[thomasp]

This problem has now been fixed - as @Pathduck correctly noticed, a stale copy of the adblocker sources on our end was to blame. Once your copy of Vivaldi updates its adblocking lists, it should work as expected again. If you wish to force an update right now, you can go in to Settings > Privacy and Security > Tracker and Ad Blocking > Manage Sources, and toggle the lists that you are using off and on again.

[thomasp]

This post is deleted!

[Entryfee]

@thomasp I have applied this fix several times, closed and reopened the browser but the FB posts still update rapidly in succession
If i turn off ad blocker and leave it on block trackers only, it is fine