I have a Facebook app (canvas app), let's say https://apps.facebook.com/test, that redirects and works as expected on the desktop (on all browsers that I have tested).
On mobile phones (both from the FB app and the browser) the path gets redirected to https://m.facebook.com/apps/test/?ref=web_canvas, which gives a "This page cannot be found" error. Why?
This has been reported as a bug to Facebook and Facebook has confirmed it as a bug. They have not provided a date on when the fix will be ready.
You can follow the status of the bug here:
https://developers.facebook.com/bugs/1051463851558493/
Update: Facebook have (since the information struck-out below) completely removed support for this. The thread about this is here:
https://developers.facebook.com/bugs/1051463851558493/
The top-level information is:
We have now deprecated Mobile Canvas URL. This means that you will no
longer be able to direct to a website/app directly within the Facebook
mobile web based upon the external destination URL you have specified
in the 'Mobile Site URL' field for the app on developers.facebook.com.
Furthermore, we have removed the 'Mobile Site URL' field from the app
setup going forward. This deprecation also applies to apps that were
previously whitelisted.
So it's time to move away from this functionality, and either integrate the newer FB Instant Games functionality or just link to an external website as having your canvas app hosted inside the FB mobile app simply isn't possible as it was in years gone by.
Facebook has disabled mobile URLs working by default:
We recently identified a handful of apps misusing our mobile App Center to redirect people to unauthorized sites. As a precaution, we have temporarily turned off the ability for developers to direct to a destination URL for any app in the "Mobile Site URL" field on the dev site.
Now if you wish for this functionality to work, you need to be logged into Facebook and then go to the following URL:
https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/588209321338256
This URL will effectively put your request in a queue, for someone at Facebook to manually verify your app configuration isn't malicious, and then enable the redirection. I do not like posting this answer, as I know it will eventually become invalid, but as of today it is the only answer. As stated by Scott, you can follow progress on this issue here:
https://developers.facebook.com/bugs/1051463851558493/
Please ignore the fact it claims the issue has been 'Fixed' as Facebook count the above workaround as a fix. If you read through the comments on the bug you can note the waiting time to get the URL fixed (on a per app basis) is typically several weeks.
On May 28th, 2017, Facebook confirmed that the Mobile Canvas URL has now been deprecated. Any apps already using (and white listed) will stop working, and no new apps will be accepted.
Hi everyone,
First, please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in getting
back to you with an update on the status of Mobile Canvas URL. I
understand your frustrations, particularly if you submitted your
details via the form and were waiting on a response.
We have now deprecated Mobile Canvas URL. This means that you will no
longer be able to direct to a website/app directly within the Facebook
mobile web based upon the external destination URL you have specified
in the 'Mobile Site URL' field for the app on developers.facebook.com.
Furthermore, we have removed the 'Mobile Site URL' field from the app
setup going forward. This deprecation also applies to apps that were
previously whitelisted.
The Mobile Canvas URL feature is a vestige of a long ago deprecated
product called Mobile Canvas. Facebook maintains a high commitment to
quality, so we don't want to leave unsupported products active —
especially when they continue to cause bugs for our developers. Going
forward, we're recommending you take advantage of the well-supported
Facebook Games on Web product to drive traffic to your app.
We've also introduced Instant Games which lets people play mobile
games within Messenger and Facebook News Feed. We invite you to sign
up for our closed beta program. We believe letting people play games
together on Facebook is a powerful experience for both players and
developers.
If your app is still set up to rely on Mobile Canvas URL
functionality, we recommend taking the following actions:
If you're using Mobile Canvas to link to a page on mobile web, you need to update your app to handle the redirection in the desktop
iframe. User interaction is required to redirect away from web canvas
as our Platform Policy does not allow automated redirects from canvas.
If your app was previously whitelisted, you will need to take action as this deprecation supersedes any workarounds you have in place.
Thank you for your understanding as we continually improve the
products and services we offer to both developers and players. Again,
please accept my apologies for the wait in getting back to you with
this information
Best regards,
Tim
See this thread https://developers.facebook.com/bugs/1051463851558493/
Related
We have been trying to get facebook approval for the use of an existing, already approved (with other people using it) third party extension for magento 2 that helps a user design photo albums. We would like to enable our customers to have access to their facebook photos when designing photo albums.
The initial app review was submitted at about the time facebook started making all of it's changes and thus sat idle for three months as they changed some of their internal policies and handled the subsequent backlog. It was even cancelled at one point requiring us to re-submit it.
Most recently, it finally received a review and was rejected because facebook confused the photo behavior with the login behavior.
I'm not trying to re-submit the review request with more details to show that it's a different piece of software performing a different function from the login-with-facebook but now (unlike the first time) I'm getting an error when using one of the test accounts:
Can't Load URL: The domain of this URL isn't included in the app's domains. To
be able to load this URL, add all domains and subdomains of your app to the App
Domains field in your app settings.
This error didn't appear when I created the 'experience' video 3 1/2 months ago so presumably it's something new from facebook's end as the settings in the app haven't changed. I can only guess as to the cause, but the third party app uses an end-point that is not on our domain but is instead one of their domains for their designer hub which actually handles the album design. The plugin is the MediaClip album designer and the end point is on photos.mediacliphub.com
But the facebook app settings won't allow me to add photos.mediacliphub.com to the App Domains saying:
App domains must match the domain of the Facebook
Web Games URL (https), Mobile Site URL, Unity Binary
URL, Site URL or Secure Page Tab URL. Please correct
these domains: photos.mediacliphub.com
Of course since we are the only one of their customers sitting in the middle of a review process at the moment, I'm having a hard time convincing mediaclip that it is a problem with the urls/changes-at-facebook. (especially since I am not entirely sure of that myself)
Facebook, meanwhile has closed itself off from the world in regard to any means to contact support with an actual specific question or inquiry. I've tried joining the Facebook Developers group on facebook and posing the question but so far it hasn't received a single reply or comment.
If anyone knows what might be going on or has any suggestions, it would be greatly appreciated for as of this point, I can't even re-submit the review request if I'm receiving errors in the experience as it will just get rejected.
Excuse me for the confusing title. We have programmed App which runs with in the Facebook. It can be accessed over the desktop/notebook browsers. However it is not accessible/available if I login to the Facebook app on my iPhone and go to the APP list. Following scenarios does not work.
1) If somebody sends me the invitation to use the APP using Facebook message. If I now login to the Facebook-app on my iPhone and go to the messages and click on the invitation, I see the error. "Page not found". This works perfectly if I login to Facebook using browser (on laptop or iPhone)
2) On my iPhone, in the Facebook APP, if go to list of my APPs then our APP is not available in that list. (Other apps like candy crush and so on can be found)
Are we missing some configuration?
Thanks in advance.
Best Regards
You are talking about a canvas app?
Those are not available on mobile, and never have been. But you can specify a Mobile Site URL in your canvas settings – users on mobile devices, that follow a link to your canvas app somewhere will then automatically be redirected to that external address.
Little cave-at: This has been disabled on a larger scale by Facebook recently, because some people where using it to redirect users to malware sites. Therefor now you have to get your app “white-listed” before this will work. Check this bug report, the FB engineer mentions are form where you can request this: https://developers.facebook.com/bugs/1051463851558493/
Is it possible to submit my 3D WebGL HTML5 / Facebook Canvas app to the App Center, even though it does not use the Facebook API? It isn't integrated with Facebook in any way, other than, being embedded in..
https://apps.facebook.com/flappy-wheels/
..from a Dropbox-hosted URL, if that even counts as a technical "Facebook integration" - which I doubt, as no API usage or Facebook signup or login required to even play it.
I keep on trying to submit it for App Center review but it insists to think I'm using the FB API when I'm not. Does this mean usage of the FB API is absolutely required for App Center submission? What if I dont want my app logging in to people's Facebook accounts? What if I don't want it accessing their personal information, or posting for them, or any of that jank? What if I just want it to be a game to simply be played embedded in a FB app URL, with no actual FB integration or interaction? Can that not be put on the App Center?
It thinks I need 3 permissions, one of which is logging in to people's accounts, I think these 3 permissions are put there in settings by default, how do I removed those permissions from my app settings, as those permissions listed aren't being used in my game, as it isn't using any FB permissions?
A smaller question on the side, what is the "tagline"? Like, it is the keywords / searchable tags, right? I'm used to them being called just "tags" and not a "tagline" so just to be sure I know what it is.
Thank you so much for any help or suggestions!
Yes you can always submit the html5 game on facebook canvas but for App Centre listing its necessary. Also using dropbox, github hosted sited will have less server resources allocted to them and hence high load time - i recommend to use any other hosting services out their, but remember https is a must.
Tagline is like a punch line for any product just go on the same theme.
This question already has an answer here:
Closed 10 years ago.
Possible Duplicate:
Facebook says my app will be impacted by breaking changes
Because of the policy changes that will be changed on december 5th (https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2012/09/05/platform-updates--operation-developer-love/) I have received a notice from facebook with the following alert:
Your desktop web game hosted primarily off Facebook currently accesses user connections when authenticating and/or requests additional permissions beyond age, email, and publishing permissions. This is no longer allowed per Facebook Platform Policy I.13a:
I have no idea what i'm doing that i'm not supposed to. I run an app on facebook (apps.facebook.com/...) so how can my app be "hosted primarily off Facebook.com" ?
So i have 2 questions.
How can i make sure that my app is now up to date. The information in the mail is very limited, so i can only guess what i'm doing wrong.
Secondly: Is there any way to test that my app is now okay, since facebook will put restrictions on it on december 5th
Does your app on Facebook (aka Canvas app), implement an iframe inside the iframe provided by apps.facebook.com ?
The iframe provided by Facebook has id="iframe_canvas".
If you implement an iframe of your own inside the FB iframe with id="iframe_canvas", then you might get this message.
You choices are to remove your iframe, or make sure you originate all your API calls from the FB iframe (not from your iframe).
We have a post on a FB wall. It points to http://tinyurl.com/{something}.
When the link is clicked in a non-mobile web browser, it works fine: TinyURL redirects the user to our web site using the appropriate URI including a special querystring.
When the link is clicked in a mobile web browser on my Android, it fails with the error in the title of this question.
When the link is clicked in the FB native app for iPad and in Safari on the iPad, it works fine.
I have tried adding our URL to the Mobile Web setting in the Basic Settings tab of the FB App configuration. That results in all links pointing directly to the root of our web site with a funky set of parameters in a querystring -- in other words, it doesn't follow the TinyURL in that particular case. The funky parameters include "refid", "ref", and "ft".
So primarily my question is: Why, when I specify the URL in the Mobile Web setting as described in the previous paragraph, does it redirect to our main URL instead of the TinyURL link originally called for?
I think this is something Facebook broke very recently (perhaps even today?). When a user clicks on any links to our app from inside the Facebook native iOS app, they get this error "Either this application has not configured its Mobile Web URL or the URL could not be verified as owned by the application. Unable to redirect." We had never set a Mobile Web URL previously, and everything had been fine since we launched the app over a year ago. We sent all mobile clicks to the same URL's as desktop browsers and handled the mobile rendering server-side. We have not changed our application domain inside the App Settings or anything like that.
In the App Settings, can set a Mobile Web URL to our homepage and the link works (and the error message goes away) but that's not the desired behavior at all - it would mean that all links end up at the same Mobile Web URL regardless of what the link was!
Was this change made on purpose by Facebook and if so why? There's been no mention of this whatsoever on the Developer Blog.
Update 3/21 8:10am PST:
I've since found this to be a widespread problem, not just for a few apps. Just by clicking around I've seen this error on posts to weather.com, youtube, msn.com and a dozen others. It happens on both clicks from the Timeline as well as the News Feed (although strangely sometimes the same post works on one, but not the other!), and from the m.facebook.com mobile web app as well as the native iOS app.
I commented on http://developers.facebook.com/bugs/302635863137683 but no word from Facebook yet. I can't believe more people aren't talking about this right now, this is a major bug.
In your app, go to Settings -> Add platform -> Website
Add both, Website URL and Moblie Website (Yes, you need these both), then your app will be able to be opened from facebook native app.
You will also need the FB Canvas.
Same here, I recently noted that all links of items shared with our Adroid or iPhone app are broken. This only happens with the mobile version of Facebook the Desktop web version is still working. What is actually wrong on the mobile version is that the original shared url is replaced with a m.facebook url that ends with "?ref=unknown&refid=0&ft=fbid.332036910178718%3Ainterface.m_touch%3Ac.m" When user click on it Facebook is redirecting the user to the App's "Mobile Web URL" + "?ref=unknown&refid=0&ft=fbid.332036910178718%3Ainterface.m_touch%3Ac.m" instead of the original shared url.
My opinion is that this is an issue of Facebook that is redirecting the url to the wrong location, "Mobile Web URL" instead of the original post url.
Ok not working. What is going on, 1st directed to something about itunes url. I am on an Android not an Iphone. Sad state when an disabled person is unable to gain access the same as others. This is bad for all users.