Facebook is a massive online space, with active users from all corners of the globe.
Although most of your timeline will consist of posts from people you are friends with on the app, posts from groups/pages you’ve liked, there is also the chance that you’ll stumble across public posts from people you don’t have as a friend on the app.
When this occurs, the content they are sharing may flag up with a Facebook error message that reads ‘sorry, this content isn’t available right now’.
If you are wondering what this message means and why it pops up, we are going to examine the error message and look at the most common reasons for it. Let’s get started.
Sorry this content isn’t available right now – The most common reason for this message
The most common reason why this Facebook error occurs is if the person who originally posted the content has deleted the post.
If the post has been deleted then the post’s content will disappear but it may well take a little bit longer for the news feed to register the deletion so it will look like the post is still there, juts without the actual content.
For example, if someone posts a photo to Facebook but then decides that they don’t like it and deletes it then your news feed will momentarily show a screen that says ‘Joe Bloggs has posted a new photo’ but with the ‘sorry this content isn’t available right now’ error message.
If you are looking to delete something off Facebook then the process couldn’t be simpler. Simply select the post that you wish to remove, select the three dotted icon on the upper right hand side of the post and then select ‘delete’.
Your friends will then momentarily experience the ‘sorry this content isn’t available right now’ message until their news feed successfully refreshes.
It could can occur when you land on a deleted user profile too. When Facebook users delete their account, sometimes their messages stay in place.
This is a pretty common Facebook error, and there are plenty of other reasons why you may be seeing this particular error message. Let’s take a look at some of the other most common ones.
Geographical issues
As mentioned at the top of the piece, sometimes people you don’t even follow on Facebook can sometimes find their way on to your news feed and its entirely plausible that some of these people can be from countries far and wide.
If these people are sharing video or image content that is copyrighted to their country then you may well receive this error message.
The reason why you might get this error message when this happen is because it could be illegal for that content to be shown in the country that you are accessing Facebook from.
If you are desperate to see said content then your best bet is to click on the person’s profile, find out where they are from and then connect to a free VPN from that country.
The error message should then disappear when you remove country restrictions, meaning you will then have access to the content.
A change in privacy settings
Again, this is issue is typically reserved to accounts that you aren’t friends with (although it could technically happen with friends too).
If a someone has posted a status/photo/video and set the posts privacy settings to public – meaning absolutely everyone on Facebook can see it – then there’s every chance it could find its way on to your news feed, by one of your friends liking, commenting on or sharing it.
If the original poster then decides that they don’t want the whole world to be able to see their post anymore, then they can go in and edit the privacy settings to make it so only their friends are able to see it.
If this happens, then your news feed may still be acknowledging that the said account has posted something, just with the ‘sorry this content isn’t available right now’ error message sitting in place of where the content originally was.
Connectivity issues
If you’re mid-browse on Facebook and your internet suddenly dips out then richer content such as images and videos are likely to go blank and display this error message.
It could also happen if you’re halfway through watching a video and your connection dips.
One way to get around this problem is to ensure that your phone automatically switches to mobile data when a Wi-Fi connection isn’t possible.
To do this on an iPhone you need to head to the settings app, select ‘mobile data’ and then ensure that the ‘Wi-Fi Assist’ toggle is switched on. This can be found right at the bottom of the page.
Conclusion
To conclude, there isn’t a simple explanation when it comes to the ‘sorry this content isn’t available right now’ error message due to the fact there are several reasons why it may be showing on your Facebook news feed.
You can generally do a lot with Facebook, like seeing who viewed your profile recently and unsending Facebook messages.
We hope that you now at least understand the most common reasons for it and some possible workarounds for if you are finding that the message is popping up on a regular basis.
