VERY IMPORTANT – There is a bug in some Facebook groups which enables members to be invisible to the group administrator. When this happens the group administrator cannot remove the member as they cannot see them on the members’ list. Normally to remove a member, the administrator simply goes to to the list of members where they also have an option to permanent ban a member. The implications of a member’s invisibility are very serious as you can imagine.
EXAMPLE – There is one prominent Facebook group where one member had an inappropriate picture and the administrator could not remove them. You can imagine the massive embarrassment it was causing to the group and the tarnishing of the brand for the group and company with such a picture. In this example the new member to the group had immediately adjusted their settings after joining the group and the administrator try as he might, could not remove him from the group. Be very careful who you add to your group, especially the open groups.
HOW – How did the group member become invisible? I have no idea. Neither does the group administrator for the group in question. Hopefully this is a bug that Facebook can quickly fix.
ALL GROUPS – I do not know if this Facebook bug or problem affects all types of groups (Open and Closed groups) or is a random problem or it just applies to specific types of groups.
MORE INFO – In the example above which was an open group, the guilty group member was visible to other ordinary group members but not the group administrator. To fix this the administrator appointed someone else as a admin on a temporary basis. The new admin was able to see the guilty group member and remove them. Have you had any problem with Facebook groups. I would love to hear from you. Send your comments please.
A very BIG thank you to Max Guadagnoli, power networker and marketing guru for all his help regarding the Facebook groups.
Any update on this? I’m having trouble with a member of my group and need to remove this person, but I can’t find the person. I tried pretty much everything I could think of, even creating a new user, join the group with this user and give this user admin right. Log out of my own FB, log in with this new user, and still can’t find this person! This is NOT acceptable Facebook. FIX THIS ASAP! It should be your number one pritority!
Ulrik, thank you for your post.
I am not aware of any patch for this problem. I know one group on Facebook that fixed their problem in a way similar to what you did. One member of the group was promoted
to admin and it was this new admin who removed the errant group member. You could try this, promoting an existing member of the group that you trust. However, there is no guarantee it will work. Still worth a short I reckon. All the best. Bruce
I have the same problem, I have an intruder who harrasses my group for years by creating new profiles with the same name. This time, he posts as he wishes, I see his wall posts on the Group, but I can not remove him, simply I don’t see him in members’ list so I can ban him. I even tried by appointing the second member for administrator. She tried to remove… ut same problem. His wall posts visible, can be removed, but he is still not visible under members’ list… If you have any solution, email with the solution would be greatly appreciated.
Best regards,
A.
Alen, thanks for sharing your experience. I am really sorry about your experience. I am not aware of a fix for this problem. I hope Facebook fixes this because it’s a big problem. If anything comes up I will post it here. All the best. Bruce
I have the same problem. Unfortunately, promoting another user to admin did not fix the problem.
I have filed a bug with facebook. It seems like other people are experiencing the same problem:
https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=1406032
https://www.facebook.com/help/community/question/?id=1443267
Had this problem, if you assign another admin it doesn’t work, get the UID of the nuisance profile off another member and follow these steps:
You need to get the Facebook UID of the person you wish to delete, this is the long number that shows up when you hover over their named profile picture, then you can delete them with that, or if you goto the persons profile page the UID should be within the url.
You’ll need Google Chrome to do this bit though
Go to your groups member list and right-click on the little X that appears next to someones name and select “Inspect Element” from the pop-up menu. You can select anyone’s profile for this but keep a note of who’s identity your using. For this example I will use the member John Smith as a type of ‘ghost’ profile
A window will open at the bottom of the screen showing the HTML code behind the page. The line will be highlighted in a slight blue within the HTML code. Their UID will show in this line. In this case using my UID so John Smiths UID number is 15691340329 . Now, lets say that the UID of the person you want to delete is 100054321 and they’re called Zachary Jones.
Right click on the highlighted line and select “Edit Attribute” . You can now delete the UID 15691340329 and replace it with 100054321. Be careful to keep the “quotation marks” that are around the UID.
Once you’ve done this click anywhere in the bottom window to deselect the highlighted element. Now, go back to the members list screen and click the X next to ‘John Smith’ or whoever you have selected as your ‘ghost profile ‘ name, as if you’re going to remove them.
Don’t worry, you won’t delete him, because you’ve modified the code behind the X. When you click on it, a dialog box will pop up asking if you’re sure you want to delete Zachary Jones.
You can then select “Ban permanently” for good measure if you want and click “Yes”
Now just close the lower window and you’re back to your normal group list. And ‘John Smiths’ or who evers profile you use will still be a member, and Zachary Jones will no longer be a member.
Thank you very much for this post Lee. I haven’t tried it out but I am sure it will bring relief to many group owners.
I tried this but many times but I delete only the ghost, can u please explain it if it works with u
Cheers Lee. Problem solved.
Thanx for the tip. I’m going to install Chrome & try it. However, I notice that some members don’t have a numerical ID. You hover over their icon and you get something like “bob.jones” or some other alternative name. I viewed the page source code and couldn’t find an equivalent number. Can an alpha term like this be used in the element attribute instead of a number?
Lee, thank you! Our group was blighted for days by a bad mouthed individual. As admin, not only did she abuse and block us, but we couldnt find her to remove her either……a nasty Facebook glitch that needs sorting!!!
Your UID switch has worked, I would love to be a fly on the wall tomorrow
You rock….THANK YOU from all the admin at ‘Items’
Thanks for your previous explanation. But in my case nuisance profile does NOT have UID instead it shows like this http://www.facebook.com/ghalib.khan1
What should i do to remove him from member list?
Your help will be appreciated.
Thanks
You have made the ladies of the admin group at a certain Group Page VERY HAPPY!! Thank you for your little tute. Just as an addendum, you can use Firebug for Firefox as well. It will do the exact same thing…kicking myself in the backside for not thinking of it myself, as I used to use Firebug to find people in Mafia Wars
Thanks for the tip
I am not alone here. I am the administrator of a group and I am facing the same problem like Allen. As soon as I make someone else an admin, the new admin is not able to see the fake profile. There are two fake profiles and they are posting all kinds of obscene and offensive comments. I am seriously waiting for some help. These are the two fake profiles which are annoying us: 1. https://www.facebook.com/sriman76
2. https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002770851120&sk=wall
At least please report them and help us from getting them banned from facebook.
I’m havin this problem. My problem is that I’m invisible to myself i.e. I cant find myself in the Members list in a group that i join. Also I never recieve notifications from the group not even when a fren of mine post on the group’s wall.
I DID WHAT LEE SAID WITH THE UID METHOD AND IT WORKED !!! SOOOOOOO AWESOME THANKS FOR YOUR HELP !!! I WAS SOOOO ANNOYED BY THIS PERSON AND THEY WOULD NOT COME UP IN THE MEMBER LIST BUT YOUR METHOD PROVED SUCCESS ! NOW THEY ARE IN THE BLOCK LIST ! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THANKS AGAIN !!!!
I’m curious if there’s any similarity between any of the groups this is happening to? Ours is a group for supporters of Republican Presidential Candidate Herman Cain. I know the people behind facebook are very liberal, so I just wonder if there’s a connection between the groups. Call me paranoid, but I certainly wouldn’t put it past them.
Groups from all cover the world have this problem. Groups for all kinds of stuff. Politics, computers, games, toys, photography, super mario if you want. Don`t assume that all things revolve around US based groups and there is some conspiracy – they trouble us because we support bla bla.
And yes, i have the same problem in one of my groups (and it`s nowhere close to american politics). Yesterday the hack with the editing of the elements worked, today it doesn`t. Just another FB bug.
i have the same problem but the member that i want to ban or remove has no id all what he has is : http://www.facebook.com/med.docs?sk=wall so how could i remove him please help as fast as possible am admin of my work page
thanx for help
I think this thing happens when somebody enters into group and then Blocks administer’s id in his/her profile. As a simple rule we can not see anyone who has blocked us so we dont see them in group also and cant delete. Others can see because they are not on block list…
The solution given by Lee is great!!It works 100%…thanks man..kudos
Mr Lee , you are great. This solution really works. Thanks a lot.
It worked for me too Lee.. .thank you very much.
Mr Lee, UID method is not working for me, may be its in new groups.
The code isnt showing the User id its showng directly Name I tried replace the ghost user name with the existing one but itsn’t working.. Pls fix this bug
Yup mr, Lee thank you very much, I Got it, did it UID method is working perfectly,
It is not a problem of beinb blocked. I can see all the posts and I can even delete individual posts as well as the OPs of the culprit. The only place I cannot see the culprits is when I go to the member’s list for the group. It is an open group and we add members each day.
I did as Lee suggested and I saw the current culprit go away. I will do it in the future with anyone who causes the troubles. I have been tearing my hair out over this problem for about a year. We have half dozen admins and at times someone can find the culprit and ban them; at other times no one can see them.
Thank you Lee!
Dear,
I have group Quettaonline on facebook which is very active group of facebook we are using this group for positive activities.
my view about group is there should be level of admins. all admin should not with same rights mean if i allow one admin to remove post and other to remove user. in this of security admin can remove the group creator which is really not good as i am not admin in my one group.
there also should have option for admin to allow only selected members to post.
one more option we should have option to make post top story i mean Priority bases post.
i have very good experience of group and i want to share my skill with your team i can do analyse facebook mistakes and also give u solution with flow chart
Regards
My friend created a group few days ago but we are promoted some one to admin now that person removed the group creator from admin panel how can get his group from him?
We just had this problem, and every new admin we appointed was not able to see the member, they could if they were not admin. It took almost 24 hours of non stop work on all the admins part to get rid of this individual. Facebook need to vamp up some security on here. The stuff that was happening yesterday was not cool.
Ok, if they have a name in their url rather than a set of numbers then go into their profile page. Right click on their profile and click “view source” and press Cntrl+F while your in the notepad. this will open a search bar at the bottom of the page. in the search bar type in id= and it will highlight everything in the code with that ‘id=’ in it. by looking through these highlighted sections you should find sooner or later it will say something like .php?id= and then 9 numbers. this will be their uid. you can test to see if it is theirs by going to the url at the top of your own facebook profile and exchanging their numbers for yours in the url then hitting enter. if the numbers are correct it wil take you to their profile.
Be aware that the first id= you come across will be yours so make a note of your numbers so you can discount any search results that finds you.
hope that helps
I am Experiencing the Same Problem in a Newly Created Group Just Yesterday and I Cant Even See The Option To Add Any More Admins. Only 4 out of 30 Members are Visible to Me No Matter Whatever I do or However I change Settings to Open, CLosed or Secret. This is really Frustrating and I Wonder Why The Admins are Not Working on It.
I See That This Post Was Created in September 2011 and I have Experienced this Problem Today Which Means face Book Admins are Either Least Bothered to Fix It or There is Some Real Strategy Behind It. I Have More Than 20 Groups on face Book But Why Did I Face The Problem Only Where I Have Shared Some Info About The Black Tactics of Global Politics? It is a Group named Black Door Politics and I am Only facing this Problem There I even Recreated a New Group With Same Name & Problem Occurs Again While I Created a Group on Business Economics at The Same Time and It has No Issue.
I Now Seriously Doubt It Must have Something to Do With The Nature of Group and It is Done By Face Book Administration.