FB Events not Automagically Importing from Open FB Groups with Public Events

[Jim Conzelman]

My facebook events are not automagically importing. My events are supposed to come primarily from groups that do have future events posted, such as:
faithrxdmcdonough
faithrxddenver (I manually imported this one)
faithrxdjax
Unfortunately your app is not recognizing these groups at all:
Facebook API Error: (#803) Some of the aliases you requested do not exist: faithrxdakron
Facebook API Error: (#803) Some of the aliases you requested do not exist: faithrxdbaltimore
Facebook API Error: (#803) Some of the aliases you requested do not exist: faithrxdcharlotte
Facebook API Error: (#803) Some of the aliases you requested do not exist: faithrxdcincinnati
Facebook API Error: (#803) Some of the aliases you requested do not exist: faithrxdcollegestation
Facebook API Error: (#803) Some of the aliases you requested do not exist: faithrxdcookeville
Facebook API Error: (#803) Some of the aliases you requested do not exist: faithrxddenver
Facebook API Error: (#803) Some of the aliases you requested do not exist: faithrxdmcdonough
Facebook API Error: (#803) Some of the aliases you requested do not exist: faithrxdorlando
Facebook API Error: (#803) Some of the aliases you requested do not exist: faithrxdstcloud
Facebook API Error: (#803) Some of the aliases you requested do not exist: faithrxdtamp
Facebook API Error: (#803) Some of the aliases you requested do not exist: faithrxdtempletx
Are there known plug-in conflicts? All groups are open and all events are public.

[Barry]

Interesting.

faithrxdmcdonough
faithrxddenver (I manually imported this one)
faithrxdjax

Certainly that last account name works for me – though right now it shows as not having any upcoming events – but the other two result in that same error.

I can’t seem to locate the actual pages for the two that fail and trying to manually craft it results in Facebook returning a page-not-found screen. Focusing on faithrxdmcdonough for the moment so I can get a better handle on this issue, can you share the actual Facebook URL for this page/group?

Thanks!

[Jim Conzelman]

Last one is a page by the same name we’re deleting, but keeping the group. Faithrxdjax Group does have events that aren’t importing. All group names have URL facebook.com/groups/[insert name here]

[Barry]

Admittedly I’m a little unsure as to why it’s cropping up with some groups and not others. What does seem to work, though, is using the numeric ID.

So, for example, if instead of entering faithrxdcollegestation in the list of Facebook IDs you wish to import from you use 687853131252834 this appears to work and there is no alias error. This tool can help you to obtain the numeric ID:

http://www.whatismyfacebookid.com/index.php

What I’ll certainly do is log an issue to investigate this, however to the best of my knowledge this is not a widespread problem and it certainly seems to work with most groups that have been assigned an alias – but perhaps the above will give you at least a temporary means of working around this.

[Jim Conzelman]

https://www.facebook.com/groups/faithrxdcincinnati/ is 456325814489632 and has an event posted for August 7th. However, “Import: Facebook” states:
“Events from Faith Rx’d Cincinnati:
Faith Rx’d Cincinnati does not have any Facebook events”
Do I need to copy site into a sandbox, scrap the theme & start shaving plugins, or does this indicate a problem with your plugin itself?

[Barry]

You’re right – I can replicate something similar with a test group: it’s looking like this may be a bug specifically in relation to groups that we’re going to have to investigate further.

I’ll get that logged and we’ll update you as things progress. Realistically, any fix is going to be at least 2 releases away at this point – simply because the very next release is already in code freeze – so on a practical level I wonder if it would be possible to switch to using pages? I realize that doesn’t offer the same experience for your users, but just wanted to explore the possibility.

[Jim Conzelman]

Not practical to switch to pages since we’re well established with groups & the way it allows us to have members join, then get email notification of events. What timeline does 2 releases generally mean for MT? Hoping you guys can crack the code on this quickly, thanks for your help zeroing in that it’s a problem with the plug-in. Suggest you update your marketing to clarify for everyone groups are not yet included in the auto-upload feature.

[Barry]

We generally aim for monthly releases (and we’re close to the end of the current cycle, hence the code freeze).

[Jim Conzelman]

Really hope MT is on the way toward a fix for FB group event importing to WP sites via your FB plug-in. Will be a game-changer for us. Thanks.

[Barry]

I can appreciate that – and we’re working as quickly as we can. I – or one of the team – will definitely do our best to re-open this thread and post an update at the appropriate time.

Thanks for your continued patience 🙂

[Leah]

Hi there,

I just wanted to pop in here and give you an update. While we weren’t able to get this feature into our upcoming 4.2 release, it is still on our list of ideas to implement in future releases.

We appreciate your patience, and we will be sure to update this thread when we have more news. Thank you for your continued support, and keep an eye out for version 4.2 coming in the next few weeks!

Best,
Leah
and The Events Calendar team

[Geoff]

Hello @faithrxd,

We recently released Event Aggregator, which is a new product set to take the place of Facebook Events and it includes the feature you requested to import events from open Facebook Groups.

I see that your Facebook Events license has since expired but please feel free to give Event Aggregator a try and we think you’ll see what an improvement it is, thanks to feedback like yours to make this happen.

Cheers,
Geoff

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