Facebook API Error Message

The easiest way to check whether you’re trying to display posts from a personal profile instead of a page is to view your page on Facebook and see whether you have ‘Friends’, ‘Likes’ or ‘Members’. Profiles have ‘Friends’, pages have ‘Likes’ and groups have ‘Members’. If you have ‘Friends’ then it’s not a page, it’s a personal profile.

Solution:

Due to Facebook’s privacy policy you’re not able to use the plugin to display all of your posts from a personal profile, only from a public page, as posts from a personal profile are protected for privacy reasons. You may have limited success in displaying certain posts from a personal profile but most posts are not able to be displayed.

If you’re using the profile to represent a business, organization, product, public figure or something else other than yourself, then we’d advise converting your profile to a page per Facebook’s recommendation:

 http://www.facebook.com/help/175644189234902/, as there are many advantages to using pages over profiles. It is in fact against Facebook policies to use a profile to represent something other than yourself (see ‘Why should I convert my profile to a page’ in the link above).

Once you’ve converted to a page then the plugin will be able to retrieve and display all of your posts.

Some posts are filtered out by the plugin as they aren’t useful, such as ‘__ commented on their own status’, or if you are choosing to only show certain post types. If the post limit isn’t high enough then there may not be any relevant posts to display.

Solution:

Try increasing the post limit for the feed to be 10-15 higher than the number of posts you are trying to display. This setting is located under Easy Social Feed -> Facebook -> Use (Display) -> Number of posts to display. The maximum post limit is 100.

The feed you’re trying to display has to be a publicly accessible page. If your page has any restrictions on it (age or location) then it means that users are forced to sign in to Facebook in order to view your page. This isn’t desirable for most pages as it means that it isn’t accessible by people who don’t have a Facebook account and that your page can’t be crawled and indexed by search engines.

An easy way to determine whether your page is set to public is to make sure you’re signed out of your Facebook account and then try to visit your page. If Facebook forces you to sign in to view your page then it has a restriction on it.

Solution:

You can remove any restrictions by logging into your Facebook account and going to the Settings for your page. You can then remove any Country Restrictions and Age restrictions. Once removed this will allow the Easy Social Feed plugin to access and display your posts.

If your page is fairly new then it may not actually have an eligible post that the plugin can display. Notifications such as ”changed the cover photo” or ”created a page” are filtered out and aren’t displayed.

Solution:

Try creating a new post on your page and then viewing the plugin’s feed again.

When creating a new Facebook page it isn’t actually published publicly until you click ‘Publish’ at the top of your page. If it isn’t published then the plugin isn’t able to retrieve your posts.

Solution:

Check the top of your page to see whether there is a ‘Publish my page’ or similar button.

Follow the directions carefully to ensure that you’re using the correct Facebook ID. If unsure, try removing your current page source and redo the connection process.

Finding your Facebook Page ID

If you have a Facebook page with a URL like this: https://www.facebook.com/easysocialfeed/ then the Page ID is just easysocialfeed.

If your page URL is structured like this: https://www.facebook.com/easysocialfeed-1234567890 then the ID is 1234567890.

If your page URL is structured like this: https://www.facebook.com/pages/easysocialfeed/123654123654123 then the Page ID is actually the number at the end so in this case 123654123654123.

Groups

You can find the ID of your Facebook Group from the URL, like so: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1234567890

Testing your ID

You can double-check your Facebook Page ID by just putting it after facebook.com/ and seeing whether it takes you to your Facebook page or group. If it takes you to your Facebook page or group then the ID is correct.

Once you have your ID you can copy and paste it into our Pro version demo to try it out.

If you’re using your own Access Token then the easiest way to check whether it works is to test it in the Facebook Access Token Debugger. Paste the Access Token in the field and click Debug to see whether or not it’s valid, and for which page IDs the Access Token is valid. If you get an error message, the page ID is missing or is missing the pages_read_engagement ‘scope‘, your token is invalid.

Solution:
To fix this issue, first ensure you have the latest version of the plugin. If not, update the plugin to the latest version. Then, update your Page Source in the Settings tab for the specific feed.

In order to retrieve your posts from Facebook, the plugin requires a few basic PHP modules which are enabled on the majority of web servers by default. If these are disabled on your web server then it may be the cause of the problem. You can check this by going to the plugin’s Settings page, clicking on the Support tab and then scrolling down to your System Info section. Click Expand. In the section labeled ## SITE/SERVER INFO: ## you should see the three items and whether they are active:

• PHP allow_url_fopen
• PHP cURL
• JSON

Solution:

If JSON is marked as No, then this means that JSON isn’t running on your website server. You should contact your web host to request that they turn this on as it is required in order to use this plugin and many others.

If both PHP allow_url_fopen and PHP cURL are marked as No then it means that both of these PHP extensions are disabled in your server’s php.ini file.  If you are familiar with editing this file then you can enable one or both of them yourself, otherwise, it’s recommended that you contact your web host and request that they enable one or both of these extensions on your server.

If only one of either PHP allow_url_fopen or PHP cURL is marked as No then the plugin should still function as expected, but if PHP cURL is marked as No the image resizing and GDPR functionality will not work.

If you’ve gone through the troubleshooting steps above and your Facebook Page works in the demo then there may be an issue with your site connecting to the Facebook API. This is usually caused by a security setting on your website’s server and can be remedied by your hosting support team.

If you request too much data from Facebook’s API then it will occasionally send back an ‘unknown error’ message. Facebook has certain limitations on its API and doesn’t allow you to retrieve too much data in one request and put too much load on their servers.

Solution:

If you’re requesting a high number of posts or have the post limit set very high then try reducing the post limit. You can do this via the setting located under Easy Social Feed -> Facebook -> Use (Display) -> Number of posts to display

Facebook’s API may be unreachable temporarily. Try waiting a few minutes and then try again. You can clear the plugin cache and force the plugin to check the Facebook API again by going to Easy Social Feed -> Facebook -> Clear Cache -> click on the trash icon.

To fix this issue, first ensure you have the latest version of the plugin. If not, update the plugin to the latest version. Then, update your Page Source in the Settings tab for the specific feed.

This error message means that your web server’s IP address has been blacklisted by Facebook, most likely because someone else using the same IP address has violated the Facebook Terms of Service. If you’re on a budget web hosting plan then you most likely share your web server with hundreds, if not thousands, of other websites. As you all share the same IP address then if one of those website’s has the IP address blacklisted/blocked by Facebook then all of the websites on the server are also blocked. The only way around this is to contact your web hosting company and ask them to either change your IP address or move you to a different web server.

The Access Token you are using has expired.  To fix this issue, first ensure you have the latest version of the plugin. If not, update the plugin to the latest version. Then, update your Page Source in the Settings tab for the specific feed.

If you are using a token from your own Facebook app, then make sure you extended the token by following the directions in steps 13 and 23 of the Page Access Token directions. It’s important to copy the token.

The Facebook API doesn’t like it when too much data is requested in one go. If you have the number of posts or post limit setting set too high then it may be causing a Facebook API error and returning no posts. If the number of posts or your post limit is 100 (maximum) or more, try reducing it to see whether posts then appear. The setting is located under Easy Social Feed -> Facebook -> Use (Display) -> Number of posts to display

Due to server configuration or security settings, it’s possible that the request method that the plugin uses to retrieve your posts is failing either permanently or sporadically. If this is the case then usually the plugin will fall back to using an alternative method, but on some rare occasions, this isn’t the case. Ensure your host is not blocking access to api.facebook.com or graph.facebook.com.

Facebook deprecated version 2.0 of their API, which affected certain parts of the plugin. To fix this, simply update the plugin to version. You can also update the plugin manually by following these directions:

Manually update via the WordPress Add Plugins page 

With the WordPress 5.5 update, it is now possible to upload plugin files on the plugins page without first uninstalling the plugin.

1. Download the latest version of the plugin from your Account
2. Upload it via your WordPress Plugins page by clicking on ‘Add New’ > ‘Upload Plugin’
3. Click Install
4. Click Replace current with uploaded

Replace the files via FTP

If you have FTP access to your website then you can update the plugin by simply replacing the old plugin files with the new files.

1. Download the latest version of the plugin from your Account and unzip the file
2. Log into your site via FTP and locate the plugin files. These are usually in wp-content/plugins/easy-facebook-likebox-premium
3. Replace the files

The Access Token you are using doesn’t have permission to access this data. This may be because you’re using an incorrect Page ID. Please follow these directions on how to obtain your Facebook Page ID.

Follow the directions carefully to ensure that you’re using the correct Facebook ID. If unsure, try removing your current page source and redo the connection process.

Finding your Facebook Page ID

If you have a Facebook page with a URL like this: https://www.facebook.com/easysocialfeed/ then the Page ID is just easysocialfeed.

If your page URL is structured like this: https://www.facebook.com/easysocialfeed-1234567890 then the ID is 1234567890.

If your page URL is structured like this: https://www.facebook.com/pages/easysocialfeed/123654123654123 then the Page ID is actually the number at the end so in this case 123654123654123.

Groups

You can find the ID of your Facebook Group from the URL, like so: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1234567890

Testing your ID

You can double-check your Facebook Page ID by just putting it after facebook.com/ and seeing whether it takes you to your Facebook page or group. If it takes you to your Facebook page or group then the ID is correct.

Once you have your ID you can copy and paste it into our Pro version demo to try it out.

Due to some sudden Facebook changes “App” Access Tokens from new Facebook apps are temporarily unable to access the Facebook API.  To fix this issue, simply update the plugin to the latest version and click the blue Facebook button labeled “Connect a Facebook Account” on the plugin’s Settings page. This will then provide you with your own Access Token.

You’re unable to use this Access Token in the plugin. To fix this issue, first, update the plugin and then either set up a new feed

Facebook may have made a platform change that caused an issue with our plugin connecting to their API. To fix this issue, first, update the plugin. This will then provide you with your own Access Token.

This error means that there’s an issue with the Facebook account you’re using to try to log in via our plugin. This typically happens due to Facebook flagging your account for suspicious behaving or violations of their terms. This error isn’t related in any way to our products, but is an issue with your Facebook account itself and so needs to be resolved with Facebook before you can use your account to log in via our plugin. Often, this issue occurs when your Facebook user account has failed a security checkpoint and you will need to log in at https://www.facebook.com or https://m.facebook.com to correct the issue.

Some common reasons which might trigger this issue:

1) Your username does not appear to be your real name. See this link for more information.
2) Suspicious account activity or your account was hacked
3) You violated Facebook’s platform policies
4) Running inappropriate/flagged images or videos on a page
5) Running inappropriate/copyrighted content in ads

There are other reasons your Facebook account might have this issue, but these are the most common ones.

Some suggested steps to help resolve this:

1) Delete the browser history and cookies for your browser.
2) Log in to https://www.facebook.com or https://m.facebook.com from that browser (if the issue is related to pages or ads, you may need to log into the Business Manager instead).
3) This should load a new page with a security checkpoint that lists the actions you need to take to address the root cause that blocked the account in the first place (verifying your ID, removing inappropriate content, etc..).
4) If the checkpoint does not appear, or renders it as blank (a common problem reported), see this guide on the Facebook forums for a possible workaround.
5) Once you have completed the necessary steps given by the checkpoint (or followed any steps provided by Facebook support) then your account will then be unblocked and you should be able to use your account as normal to authorize our plugin.

If the above steps don’t work, then you would need to contact Facebook support as we are unable to assist with issues with Facebook accounts themselves.

This error occurs when the Access Token you’re using is making too many requests to Facebook in a short period of time. If you are using the same Access Token (which is the case if you connect everything to your personal Facebook account) to display a lot of different Facebook feeds – either on your own website or across multiple sites – then you may exceed the API request limit that Facebook has set for your Access Token. This is usually simple to fix by just changing the caching settings in the plugin under Easy Social Feed -> Facebook -> Clear Cache and delete all cache. For example, if you have the Caching setting set to be a short period of time (less than 15 minutes) then the plugin will be making more requests per hour than if it is set to be 1 hour, especially if you’re using this same setting for multiple feeds.

How many requests can I make with the same token?
This varies based on the Facebook page that the Access Token is from. Facebook grants an API request limit to an Access Token based on how many engaged users the Facebook page that the Access Token is from has. An “engaged user” is any user who has clicked on your Facebook Page or its content within a 24 hour period. For every engaged user your Access Token is granted a request limit of 4,800 per rolling 24 hour period. For more information on Facebook API Request Rate Limits please see here.

How can I resolve this error?
The best thing to do initially is to drastically increase the plugin caching time so that it makes requests to Facebook less often. You can do this by increasing the time in the Caching setting to be 1 hour or greater. Once the Access Token is working successfully again (usually within a few hours) then you can set this to be lower, but there are a few factors to consider:

1) How active your Facebook page is. If it isn’t very active then it’s likely you haven’t had many engaged users in the past 24 hours and so your Rate Limit will be low. In order to increase your API Rate Limit, if only temporarily, you could post on your Facebook to encourage engagement from your users in the form of clicks, likes, shares, or comments.

2) How many feeds are using this Access Token. If you have 5 feeds using it then it will make a lot fewer requests than 20 feeds.

If you are trying to display a feed from a Facebook group then ensure that you select the correct feed source, Group when creating your feed. If you want to change the source for a specific feed do this under Easy Social Feed -> Facebook -> Use (Display) -> Feed type and ensure you have the correct Group source.

The Facebook API does not provide any information for Buy & Sell post types, and as such, it will cause an API Error 100 – Unsupported Get request error.