Permissions to Read Likes via Graph API - facebook

Question

Since the REST API has gone, I need to find another way to read the likes for pages of our webapp.
According to the Graph API docs, the following should return the likes for any object (such as a page):
https://graph.facebook.com/v2.6/{PAGE-ID}/likes?summary=true
Oops, An access token is required to request this resource. Turns out, instead of a real token, you can also build an ad-hoc token witht the app ID and secret:
https://graph.facebook.com/v2.6/{PAGE-ID}/likes?summary=true&access_token={ID}|{SECRET}
The above returns a JSON payload, however, it's empty even though I'm trying this with a page having almost 200 likes:
{
"data": [
],
"summary": {
"total_count": 0,
"can_like": false,
"has_liked": false
}
}
Maybe a permissions problem? The app domain and the page URL domain are identical.
Big thanks for any hints to solve this riddle!

Answer 1

It does work with a simple App Access Token too, but i assume you get the wrong idea about that endpoint. There is no way to get the "Page Fans", you can only get "other Pages the current Page likes" with it. Just try this with your App Access Token:
https://graph.facebook.com/bladauhu/likes?access_token=APPID|APPSECRET
It should return the following JSON:
{
"data": [
{
"name": "FKK Scibes Skulls",
"id": "1391253501090151"
},
{
"name": "Dodgeball Austria",
"id": "387249994631552"
},
{
"name": "Turbojugend Scibes",
"id": "105248832848054"
},
{
"name": "HYDRA! Das endgute Satiremagazin.",
"id": "167084486537"
},
{
"name": "VLÜ Hydra",
"id": "113680962002559"
}
],
"paging": {
"cursors": {
"before": "MTM5MTI1MzUwMTA5MDE1MQZDZD",
"after": "MTEzNjgwOTYyMDAyNTU5"
}
}
}
More information about Tokens:
http://www.devils-heaven.com/facebook-access-tokens/
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/facebook-login/access-tokens/

Answer 2

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/apps/changelog#v2_6_changes:
The likes field on the Page node has been renamed to fan_count
As luschn said in their answer, likes are the other pages liked by that page; if you want to get the number of people that like the page itself, you need to request fan_count.