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And we were doing it because Facebook was pushing their messenger app, when the normal Facebook app handled it just fine.

They just simply decided one day, oh hey let's redirect the messages page on the Facebook app to a static page saying "download messenger" and not give any access to the messages, including view-access. Even when you get a notification on your phone about a new message.

I actually liked that I could use a messenger app without all the rest of the stuff that I never used. But I think they split it back then because they wanted to have something more similar to whatsapp (which wasn't theirs yet) - They apparently let you use a phone number to log to messenger too.

You can actually view messages on the mobile web app (or you could earlier today, anyway). On my phone, clicking on messages tells me to download messenger. If I ignore that and hit all messages, it nags again, but eventually does it.

FWIW, I discovered this because Messenger would not show me a group chat that I was added to by co-workers (who I'm not friends with on FB).

Edit: just realized you were referring to the app, not the site. My mistake.

I really wish I could fix all bugs at my workplace like that.

It will just work itself out naturally.