I am unable to ask friends for lives or help. The place to do this comes up and then disappears ?

@superplayer, which device are you playing the game on? Android, Apple, PC?

Welcome to the Community by the way 🤗

So sorry for the delay on getting back to you guys.

So, if you're still not able to ask friends for lives, try removing the game from Facebook and install it again. 

First of all don’t worry as this process will not delete your progress. As soon as you reinstall the game you will be back on the same level as before.

In order to delete the game from Facebook please follow these steps:

Go to “Settings => Apps” and press the “x” next to the game app.

Now clear the cache for your computer: http://www.wikihow.com/Clear-Your-Browser's-Cache.

Hope this does the trick