Facebook changed a lot in 2020 with its redesigned layout. While we’re open to changes and improvements, we expect them to be tested first. With the new Facebook, bugs are very common and the newest bug we encountered is the error ‘Select a story to open’.
We encountered this bug while trying to view a Facebook story of a friend. Everything looked normal until we clicked on their story and we were presented with the following error.
‘Select a story to open’ bug explained
We believe that this bug occurs when the owner deletes the story and someone tries to view it at the same time.
The thumbnail might persist in Facebook’s cache on the user’s phone and show that a story exists. When in reality, the owner might’ve deleted it a few seconds ago and the change might not have reached our device.
On our device, the story seems to exist. When we open the story, the app tries to fetch some data which no longer exists and thus shows this weird error.
It’s possible that Facebook might change this scenario to a more well-defined error. Like in the case of deleted posts, we just see a message saying the post no longer exists. Something similar might come out for stories too.
How to fix ‘Select a story to open’ error
The data we’re trying to fetch has been deleted and until the owner of the story uploads it again, there’s no way to see it.
It could also be the case that the story exists and there’s some technical issue that prevents you from viewing it. If you’re on good terms with the owner of the story, you could ask them to upload it again since you’re having difficulty viewing it.
We cover cryptic errors all the time and if there’s something that you can’t fix, do reach out to us on Twitter @awsmtips and we’ll try to solve it for you!
I love understanding how different technologies work and explaining them to people. From tech guides to opinions, everything is interesting to me. Other than that, I enjoy writing about various science-related topics and conversing with people.