Why can’t I post comments on Facebook? – The reason

Engaging and interacting with others is kind of the whole point of Facebook – or that is what its intentions were when it first launched anyway.

The most popular types of interactions on the platform, at least in terms of posts, are ‘likes’, ‘comments’ and ‘shares’.

So what do you do when you go to make a comment on someone’s post only to realise that Facebook isn’t allowing you to?

If you’re currently encountering this issue, then you’ve landed in the right place. In this article, we are going to look at the most common reasons behind this issue and let you know if its possible find a work-a-round for each one. Let’s get into it.

Why can’t I post comments on Facebook? The most common reason

The most common reason why you won’t be able to make a comment on a Facebook post is all to do with the privacy and security settings on the platform.

Each user is able to tailor their privacy settings to their requirements, including who is able to comment on their posts.

You are able to do this on an overarching basis for every post you make on the app, or on a post by post basis.

If a Facebook user has adjusted their privacy settings to block you from commenting on their posts then Facebook won’t allow you to write or post a comment on their post.

There is no work-a-round for this, other than asking the user in question to change their privacy settings to allow you to comment.

If after discovering this you are interested in changing your privacy settings in relation to comments, then please follow these instructions:

For every post

1. Log on to your Facebook account via the mobile phone app.
2. Select the three lined icon on the bottom right hand side of the screen and select ‘settings and privacy’, followed by ‘settings’.
3. Scroll down to ‘Privacy’ and select ‘Public posts’.
4. Under ‘public post comments’ select who you would like to be able to comment on your posts.

For an individual post

1. Log on to your Facebook account via the mobile phone app.
2. Find the post you want to change the privacy settings of.
3. Select the three dotted icon on the top right hand side of the post.
4. Select ‘who can comment on this post?’.
5. Change the settings to reflect who you want to have commenting rights on that individual post.

There is another common reason why you might not be able to comment on a Facebook post, let’s take a look.

A loss of internet connection

If you’re having a flick through your Facebook newsfeed and your internet cuts out, you won’t know until you try and interact with something on the platform.

This is because your newsfeed will already be loaded from when you did have a connection, therefore scrolling won’t be an issue.

However, when it comes to writing a comment on one of the posts on your news feed, you will soon realise that something is wrong as the platform won’t allow you to submit a comment without an internet connection.

When this situation occurs, you will receive an error message underneath your attempted comment that reads ‘will try to post again when online’, implying that you must be currently offline.

As a result, it is always worth double checking that you are actually online while browsing Facebook. In order to do this on an iOS device, please follow these instructions:

1. Go to the settings app on your device.
2. Select the Wi-Fi tab.
3. If you can see a tick next to one of the available networks then it means you are online via a Wi-Fi connection.
4. If you don’t see a tick, then try connecting to one of the available networks. Please note – you are more than likely going to need a password for this. The password can typically be found on the Wi-Fi router.
5. If Wi-Fi isn’t working for you, then go back to the settings tab and select ‘mobile data’.
6. Tick the sliding bar next to mobile data so that it is displaying green.
7. If you are in an area with decent signal then your phone will connect to the internet via a 3G, 4G or 5g connection. Look at your phone’s header menu to see which one of these has been established.
8. If you are in area with no, or poor, signal then forget about connecting to the internet via mobile data. In this instance, you will either have to wait until you can connect to a Wi-Fi router or in an area with better signal.

If you have a pending post that doesn’t resolve, there’s a good chance that you may have internet connectivity issues.

It could also be an indication that there’s an issue with Facebook’s servers. In this scenario, there’s not much you can do aside from wait for them to fix the Facebook app.

Conclusion

To conclude, the most common reason why you may be struggling to make a comment on a Facebook post is down to the post owner’s privacy settings.

It’s a pretty common issue, like when you can’t add someone on Facebook, which is another relatively frequent occurrence.

We always say to respect other people’s privacy on social media so if they have you blocked from making comments then respect their decision.

If that isn’t the reason why you can’t post a comment then it will almost certainly be to do with your internet connection. Please use the above steps to get back online.