Manual import works, scheduled import does not

[naton]

Hi. I constantly get “[groupname] does not have any Facebook events” on the Import page, even though that’s not true. Manually adding the event ID’s works all the time. Where should I start debugging? (Disabling other plugins and themes didn’t do the trick.)

Screenshot here: http://cl.ly/image/3N1x0N293o3R

cheers,

/Anton

[Julie Kuehl]

Hey naton,

That’s frustrating. Let’s see if we can track it down. I’m going to ask you to verify a few things first.

1) Your screenshot shows other plugins enabled. You did disable them and revert to the Twenty Eleven theme, right?

2) Can you also check your Facebook App ID and Facebook App Secret to verify they’re OK? I know you said you could import manually, but let’s just double check.

3) Can you provide me with a link to the Facebook events page you are trying to import so I can test it out here?

That should help us get started in troubleshooting what’s going on.

— Julie

[naton]

1) The screenshot was taken when I first tweeted about this issue a week ago. As I run BuddyPress I only have other BP-related themes installed (although BP does work with all themes now) so no, that particular theme I have not tested with.
2) How do I check that they are “OK”? Wouldn’t I see other error codes than “group does not have any Facebook events” if the errors were related to something as fundamental as the App ID/Secret..?
3) I seem to be out of group events at the moment so I created one myself: https://www.facebook.com/events/503973306366220/ (privacy setting set to group, OK?)

[Julie Kuehl]

OK naton, bear with me. When I entered that Facebook event ID I was able to import it with no problem. So when you try to import it you get the “group does not have any Facebook events” message? And just to be clear, here http://d.pr/i/lI4Q is a screenshot of where I entered the event ID.

Is this what’s giving you trouble?

— Julie

[Julie Kuehl]

Naton,

I re-read the topic again and I may have misunderstood. So I tried importing from the Facebook ID associated with the group for the event that you provided (http://d.pr/i/Xe8H) and did get the “group does not have any Facebook events” error message. However, at this point, the group really didn’t have any Facebook events that hadn’t already been imported, so it was an accurate error.

Can you add a couple more events possibly so I can try again?

— Julie

[naton]

Just thinking out loud here: If I set privacy to the group, the event stays within the group but is not accessible from the script (as it seems at least). If I set privacy to Public, the event is no longer visible in the Events section of the FB group, correct? At least this is my experience from adding a group event – setting it to Public moves it out of the group. Correct me if I’m doing it wrong.

[Julie Kuehl]

Naton,

I’m not sure I’ve tested every version of Facebook event possible, but take a look at this page https://www.facebook.com/help/216355421820757/. I believe that the event is still part of the group, but is now also visible to people not in the group. If the group was set to private, that would produce the error. But you’re saying that’s not the case? And it doesn’t help with importing them to the calendar?

— Julie

[naton]

Hi, sorry for late reply. I think there are two new group events available now, one today and another soonish (https://www.facebook.com/groups/102279174813/events/). None of these gets imported every 2 hours or automatically via the Import page.

[Julie Kuehl]

Hi naton,

I think the issue is that you are trying to import from a Facebook Group. The API only allows us to import from Pages / Organizations. As you have found out, you can import the events manually but not automatically. It’s a limitation placed on us by Facebook and not something we have control over.

Can you try one thing? Could you set up a Group Address so the URL would have a name instead of a number? It seems I was having luck with that on a few.

I realize it’s not a perfect answer, but does it work for you?

— Julie

[naton]

Huh? That was not my impression when I bought this. Is this really true? From the FB API page:
“Applications can get events for a group by issuing a GET request to /GROUP_ID/events with a user access_token.”
Doesn’t the plugin have all that data at hand?

[Julie Kuehl]

Hey naton,

Sorry for the misunderstanding. We didn’t mean to mislead you in any way. Can you point to any place that made mention of the plugin working with Groups so we can get that fixed?

It is a feature that has been requested before, and if you’d like to add your vote to our Feature Idea site it would be appreciated (https://tribe.uservoice.com/forums/195723-feature-ideas/suggestions/3811901-add-personal-user-id-groups-to-fetch-public-events). That gets it on the radar for development. It may have been something that Facebook changed in the API that we are not currently taking advantage of.

— Julie

[naton]

I must have misread then. Since the API covers it, from what I can see, I just assumed. Will post in the request thread then. Thanks.

[naton]

Actually, I think I fixed the group bug/restriction myself 🙂

Take a look at line the build_url_with_access_token() function and replace “access_token” with “oauth_token”, and $this->get_access_token() with any valid oath token. Then I suddenly got this screenshot: http://cl.ly/image/34362Q3f0y30

[Leah]

Hey Naton,

That’s great news! I’m so glad you got this working. And thanks for letting us know!

I’m going to close up this thread shortly, but if you need any more help feel free to open another one.

Best,
Leah

[Support Droid]

This topic has not been active for quite some time and will now be closed.

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