We have a simple app that summarizes the total number of mentions your instagram account gets using the IG-User/tags endpoint on the graph api (https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instagram-api/reference/user/tags/)
The pre-requisite of the app is the user has their fb account linked to their IG - Business or IG - Creator account.
Unfortunately every time we've submitted it for review so far it has come back with the same comment from FB:
"Although we were able to login to your app using the Facebook Login authentication, we were unable to test the steps to connect an Instagram business account. As a result, you'll need to implement an integration flow for an end user to connect their Instagram business account(s)"
Now as I understand it there is no way I can get the user to link their IG account to FB or to a FB page using the API. The "link account" action is purely handled using the Instagram app. Or am I missing something here.
Well after 3 weeks of back and forth with multiple seemingly segmented facebook support teams I have been able to get this permission from them.
Turns out that there's an unexplained flow here:
This is verbatim from the information I received from their chat support (but is not found anywhere in the documentation)
"You have needed to provide Test Users on your App Dashboard, grant the test user the Instagram_manage_comments permission and then provide us with the login details. We would then link that to an internal Instagram Business Account."(sic)
The part where they link an internal business account to the test user happens on their end and outside the scope of the app. I confirmed this and even then I failed the review multiple times because apparently the steps to approve IG business permissions have not been standardized yet and sometimes the approver simply doesn't know what needs to be done. It's a strange state of affairs and the answer it seems is to just keep pushing.
I'm having the same problem and looking forward to see some comments to your post since the first day. But I started to think it will never come.
I believe they want a new user to start with minimum permissions (which is the email permission) and add other permission only as they are needed. This requires a mechanism in your app that guide a new user logged in with only email permission to give other permissions (e.g. taping a button that opens up user’s IG business account needs instagram_basic and manage_pages permissions. Or taping “post comment” button needs manage_comments permission.) So your app should open up a window that the user can give permissions when any of these events fires. (or when user decides to take permission(s) back)
This is what I understand from “steps to connect an Instagram business account”.
But I am not sure if my understanding is correct. I would definitely like to hear if you found any solutions.
I'm also having the same problem as you as I'm developing similar service to IGBlade (https://igblade.com) & Social Blade (https://socialblade.com).
I'm beginning the wonder if I should change my app review request so that I would inform Facebook that the permissions my app is requesting work serverside and therefore there's no need to implement an integration flow for an end user to connect their Instagram business account(s) to my app.
Any thoughts?
Here is what I have done to get the approval
Create a Facebook test user with correct permissions
Log in with this user
Create a Facebook Page
Edit settings on Facebook Page and add Instagram Business account (personal one)
Submit Facebook review with both credentials (Facebook test user + personal Instagram user).
Wait for review and do not forget to change your personal Instagram user password after the review.
I've spent the better part of a day researching this and thought I could figure this out on my own, but no luck.
Here's the situation, I have FB authentication in a mobile app. This is working fine. A user can log in and I can access the public profile data, etc.
The issue is that I would like to have NEW users or first time logins to create new records in my private database, because I am looking to store more than email, and FB id. For example, favorite items. I can also accomplish this easily enough with a post to (www.mywebsite.com/api/users/).
So, the REAL issue is that I don't want to have a route that simply allows people to add users to my database, willy-nilly.
Is there a way to pass the access token to an API route to ensure that a user can only add a new user-record to the db IF they have a valid FB login?
I've set up the famous "auth/facebook" route that is popular on the web which also works great, until I access it from my app. It then throws X-origin errors (I believe in part due to the callback route).
this post was similar, but still doesn't quite cover it.
Authenticating against a REST API with iOS client using Facebook SSO as the only login mechanism
Please help!
Thanks,
Wayne
After another two days of digging, I found a rather simple solution.
The facebook graph API will allow you to submit the access token to recieve basic user data.
So my solution is now this:
1. Use cordova-facebook4 plugin to authenticate within the app. (You can find details here: https://github.com/jeduan/cordova-plugin-facebook4
2. Send the FB id AND authentication token to my server route, like this: `myapiserver.com:1234/auth/facebook/<token>/<id>`
3. On the server side, send an ajax request to https://graph.facebook.com/me?access_token=<token received from the
cordova plugin>. This will return the name and FB ID as JSON.
4. On the server, compare the ID returned from facebook to the ID sent with the request. If they match, add the new user, if not, do
not add the user and return an error. Of course, the server will
not allow a new account to be added to the system if that FB id is
already in use.
At this point, it seems that the worst harm that could be done is for someone to hack another person's FB account, get their token and ID and THEN use that to create a user on my system for that person. Which seems pointless enough that I'm not going to worry about those attacks.
Please comment if you know of a better solution or I missed a security vulnerability.
Ref: How to get the Facebook user id using the access token
I have a site that logs in using Facebook. The first time a user logs in, they get a pop up from Facebook explaining all the parts of the user FB profile my site will have access to. After accepting once, though, they don't get this pop-up on subsequent visits. Is there a way I can ensure that the user always sees this popup?
Update:
I'm trying to find a way to do this during development, so that I can see the list every time. I don't really need this in production.
they see it because it's the standard OAuth workflow to accept the terms of the application they are authorizing through facebook. Once the auth is complete, they are sent directly through, no reason to ask them for auth over and over.
EDIT:
Based on your update, the list is visible through your application settings in Facebook. you can use facebook's api to get these users.
You can build a "Fake Login" - there you can show your terms again. So your clients got a better feeling. ;-)
In work I got a task (we MUST work with ASP Classic by the way): when user posts a blog, a link to that blog should be posted automatically on user's facebook timeline and in his twitter. I made everything working, but there is one problem: user needs to be signed in to post. I've made the cheking if he's logged in, and if not he must log in.
But I need to avoid the logging-in step and make it automatic (by sending user's username and password as part of the data sent to twitter/facebook or something like that), but I can't figure out how to do that or if it's even possible at all.
Any ideas? Would greatly appreciate any help.
P.S.: for the twitter part I used http://scottdesapio.com/VBScriptOAuth/
for the facebook part I used a combination of: http://snipplr.com/view/61108/facebook-app-login--authorization-entirely-clientside/
Everything works, but is it possible to automatize the user's sign-in part?
Finally I managed to make the both things automated...
The problem with Twitter was that I didn't store request token in session, that's why I got "Could not authenticate you" error.
Can't remember what I did wrong with Facebook (some co-workers helped me out), but I guess I didn't make proper http requests...
So the answer is: yes, it is possible to automatically post to Twitter and Facebook without user sign in.
If I am not wrong then your logged in user in facebook for current browser is not authorize for your app.
I think you should try googling about "How to authorize users into app". OR
If you don't mind I am giving you the direct URL to go to that setting page for your app:
https://developers.facebook.com/apps and then go to your app then after from left side bar go to roles and then after click on test user tab from top of page and then click on add button it will opne one pop-up to add a user.
In app you have to add test user for testing purpose and have to login for that added test user, so added user will be authorize for that app and you will be able to test.
Thank you...
I'm aware that there are many questions about Facebook access-tokens and the grief they cause, but despite much experimentation and reading many frustratingly vague blog articles (FB and otherwise), I'm still struggling to get a clear answer to my needs. Let me succinctly break down my process so far:
I am creating a site that, server-side, needs to pull the posts/statuses from a single Facebook Page
I am an admin of that Facebook Page
I have created a Facebook App
Using the Facebook Graph API Explorer, I've generated a short-lived key, connected to my app and my account, that grants permission to my account to view the access-tokens for my pages
I've converted my short-lived key to a long-lived key (60 days) ala scenario 4 from this
And here's where I am stuck. My 60 day key works fine for my server to pull the info needed from the page, but as far I can tell, there's no way to programmatically extend that 60 day key. I also do not know of a way to generate a new short-lived key without manually going to the Facebook Graph API Explorer and creating one.
Since it is my server making the requests to the Facebook API and not a user-based system (where I could easily request that a user authorize the Facebook app again), this creates a very clunky system. Since Facebook deprecated offline_access, is there really no permanent way to have my server pull info from my own page? Will I really have to create a new key by hand and manually update my server with it every 60 days?
Or is there something I'm missing?
Update:
The step-by-step guide that was previously found here has been migrated down into its own answer.
These are the steps that were previously in the question - they have been migrated to this answer.
Having found that it is possible to generate a Facebook Page Access Token that does not expire (with help from #Igy), here is a clear, step-by-step quide for all those looking to the same:
Make sure you are the admin of the FB page you wish to pull info from
Create a FB App (should be with the same user account that is the page admin)
Head over to the Facebook Graph API Explorer
On the top right, select the FB App you created from the "Application" drop down list
Click "Get Access Token"
Make sure you add the manage_pages permission
Convert this short-lived access token into a long-lived one by making this Graph API call:
https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token?client_id=<your FB App ID >&client_secret=<your FB App secret>&grant_type=fb_exchange_token&fb_exchange_token=<your short-lived access token>
Grab the new long-lived access token returned back
Make a Graph API call to see your accounts using the new long-lived access token: https://graph.facebook.com/me/accounts?access_token=<your long-lived access token>
Grab the access_token for the page you'll be pulling info from
Lint the token to see that it is set to Expires: Never!
That should do it. You should now have a Facebook Page Access Token that doesn't expire, unless:
You change your Facebook account password
You lose admin access for the target page
You delete or de-authorize your Facebook App
Any of these will cause the access token to become invalid.
If you are getting (#100) Tried accessing nonexisting field (accounts) on node type (Page), go to the Access Token Debugger, copy the value of User ID, and use it to replace the "me" part of the URL in step 9.
This is covered in the Offline Access deprecation document
Use the 60-day token for the page admin to retrieve a Page Access Token (via /PAGE_ID?fields=access_token or /me/accounts) - the Page access token will not have an expiry time
An approach that works in 2019
I was recently trying to achieve something similar (to the use case described in this thread), but I wanted to make sure to respect Facebook's current policies, so I did a little research and here I'm sharing what I found.
My use case
So, as I said already, my use case is very similar to the one described here; that is:
I'm doing some work for a school district.
They are using a software tool to manage pretty much everything that relates to school transportation.
That tool allows them to send email notifications (to subscribers) when they publish bus delay alerts and school closure alerts.
A lot of people in the community follow the organization on their Facebook page, and that's the only place they look for those alerts.
So an employee of the organization has to manually publish each notification on the Facebook page (in addition to creating it in the transportation software). Moreover, those notifications eventually expire (or are simply deleted before they expire), so the employee has to go back later on to delete them manually as well.
It's a waist of time, so what we are trying to do here is to develop as simple system that periodically polls the software tool's database for new (and expired) notifications and update them (i.e. add and remove) on the Facebook page.
This is, in my view, a legitimate use case, but I wasn't sure how to implement it in a way that's in line with Facebook's policies.
The accepted answer
I followed the steps of the accepted answer and it worked, except that things appear to have changed: now, even though the generated page token does not expire, access to data does expire after around 60 days. You will see that as well if you follow the procedure and inspect the page token in the FB Token Debugger Tool.
Besides, the fact that the generated page tokens are tied to the user account is also unfortunate, because if the user updates his/her password, then the page token also gets invalidated.
How to do it in 2019
After several hours of research, I stumbled upon the following Facebook documentation article: Business Login for Direct Businesses.
It turns out that it is now possible, following the steps described in the above article, to generate a page token that is not associated to any particular Facebook user account and which will not expire (unless the FB App gets deleted or the underlying application token gets deleted, you know...)
So here are the steps and the most important parts:
You need a Business Manager account.
Verification will be required and a digital contract will have to be signed.
You need to add the target Facebook page to that account.
You need to create a Facebook App, and transfer that app to the same Business Manager account as well.
The app will have to go through Facebook's review process, because the following permissions will be needed: manage_pages and publish_pages.
Important note For the posts made using the generate page token to be visible to users other than the application administrators, that app will need to have been published and approved.
You may still experiment with the concept without submitting for review, but the posts won't be publicly visible.
In the Business Manager account (only after your app and page have been added to the account), you need to create what's called a System User, and give that user admin role (or permissions) to the target Facebook page.
A system user is owned by the Business Manager account, and isn't tied to a specific user. My current understanding is that one major use case for a system user is programmatic access to Facebook's Graph API (just what we need).
Then, for that system user, you need to generate a access token (which will be never-expiring). You will be prompted to select for which app. You will then select your target app.
You will then need to use the generated app token to generate a page token, which will also be never-expiring. The procedure is described in this article as:
GET /<PAGE_ID>?fields=access_token&access_token=<SYSTEM_USER_ACCESS_TOKEN>
That's it.
That token will never expire, and it won't be tied to a particular Facebook user, so it's exactly what we need!
The last part is to make sure that your Facebook app gets approved by Facebook. It's in fact the most important part, because the whole procedure is worthless if people don't see our posts.
I wanted to know for sure that I could rely on the above procedure to build something for my client without Facebook rejecting it in the end, so, beforehand (i.e. before starting to work on my client's project), I went through the whole process of creating a page, an app, a Business Manager account, etc. I verified my business. I submitted my app for review. In my request, I was very specific about my use case and emphasized that the app was for "self-use" (i.e. that the organization is developing an app for itself, not for other Facebook users). I got approved without less than 24 hours.
A few other notes about the app review process:
I had to select a platform for the app, so I selected website.
I had to indicate why the app needed the two permissions and how it was going to use them.
I had to indicate why the reviewer would not be able to sign into my app and try it (i.e. because the app will be used by a worker process).
For the mandatory screencasts, I simply presented manual operations in the terminal using the curl utility (to generate the page token and make posts to the Facebook page). I also showed how I was using Business Manager to link the system user to the page and generate a token, and so on.
Again, I was very specific about my use case, and I think that that helped.
I hope this information will be useful to people with similar use cases.
Many thanks to #redhotvengeance for step-by-step guide.
After some time, now there is clearly described in Facebook documentation:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/facebook-login/access-tokens/expiration-and-extension
Extending Page Access Tokens
Apps can retrieve a page access token from Page admin users when they
authenticate with the manage_pages permission. If the user access
token used to retrieve this page access token is short-lived, the page
access token will also be short-lived.
To get a longer-lived page access token, exchange the User access
token for a long-lived one, as above, and then request the Page access
token. The resulting page access token will not have any expiry time.
You can also copy and past from the app dashboard on facebook.
The steps:
Go to https://developers.facebook.com
Select your app in the top right corner of the page
(pic of what it looks like)
Click on Messenger from the options on the left (it will go to setting automatically) (pic of what it looks like)
Go to the "Token Generation" section in the page. Select what page you want to generate the token for. (pic of what that section looks like)
The copy and past your page token where ever you need it.
Keep in mind that while in theory your token won't expire, that it is directly tied to what ever facebook account your logged into. So say you change your password or you remove the permissions from between your account and your app then your token won't be valid any more.