Automatic import Facebook events to events

[David M.]

Hi there,

I have another question concerning import. So i’ve setup an automatic import, which imports all facebook events.
Afterwards i still need a manual action to import these FB events as “real” displayed events.

Is there a possibility to automate this proces?

Steps:
1. settings – setup a few FB pages (one time action)
2. setup cron job, which imports fb events (one time action)
3. Go to events > import:facebook (manual action)
4. I have to select the events i want to import + click import button (manual action)
5. FB Events are being added to the events pages.

To make a long story short, i would love to automate steps 3->5 and avoid all manual action. Is this possible?
So the cronjob should handle everything and just import all events from FB -> pages, without any manual action.

Best regards,
David

[Brian]

Hi,

Sorry for the issues you are having. I can help troubleshoot them with you.

So Steps 3 to 5 should already be Automatic.

How many different Pages are you importing from? (can you provide the ids in a private reply?)

Do you have the WordPress Cron Disabled?

What is the setting for the Frequency for importing events?

Let me know about those 3 and we can go from there.

Thanks

[David M.]

This reply is private.

[Brian]

Ok I think the issue is your server is timing out and not getting to all the Events.

Can you increase your max_execution_time and default_socket_timeout settings for php?

As well as can you check with your host to see if you run a true cron task instead of a simulated cron task, which can timeout.

We are also working on making the process more efficient in the next release, but it still a resource intensive process when checking and importing so many events so there will be a limit on what the plugin can import.

Let me know about the php settings and see if that helps.

Thanks

[David M.]

Hello,

I’ve updated default_socket_timeout = 600 and max exxecution to 3000 (was 300).
Concerning cronjob, which process do i have to trigger?

Best,
David

[David M.]

Hi, found it already

/wp-cron.php?doing_wp_cron

I hope this will resolve my issue, i’ll get back on that.

Best,
D

[Brian]

Ok let us know.

Thanks

[David M.]

Hi Brian,

Well, i’ve setup a real cronjob and events are being saved, so far for the good news :-).

The “bad” news is that only 2 events are being saved every hour, any idea why this is happening?

There are a lot more events in the “waiting line”.

Thx,
D

[Brian]

That is strange. It is such a low number to import and then stop.

It still could be the amount of events from all those pages is causing the issue.

I tried to load all the Page IDs and it would not even load the import page for me until I removed half of them.

So as a test if you remove half of the Page IDs does it improve the import?

[David M.]

I would like to add even more pages, so i need to get this optimized.

Can you please tell me how the import works?
If i would remove all previously imported events and not display these anymore, would that help?

When i visualise the page, i does take time, but majority for events previously imported, which is kind of unnecessary.

Thx again for your help.

[Brian]

The script loads all the Facebook Page’s and then has to check each event with Facebook and then in your site to see if it has been imported or not to prevent duplicates.

So it is necessary to have all the events there and to check or it would just reimport them every time, creating another issue. We have tried to improve that check in the next release to make it more efficient, but that release is not ready yet and I do not have a timeline for its release.

The import function is all run through this file:

the-events-calendar-facebook-importer\the-events-calendar-facebook-importer.php

[David M.]

So if i would call this url via cron, the import should also work?

the-events-calendar-facebook-importer\the-events-calendar-facebook-importer.php

[Brian]

It would not work if you ran that file with a cron.

The function is registered with the WordPress cron, if you would like to run it more you could customize the frequency and then trigger the WordPress cron.

[Brian]

I am going to close this topic as we typically close threads if there is no activity after two weeks. Feel free to create a new thread and reference this one to save you time.

Thanks

[Author]

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