"The event "xyz" was already imported from Facebook" for everything

[Nathan]

Hello~

Whenever I try to import a public event from Facebook, I get the following message:

The following errors have occurred:
The event “POWER UP! GAMING DAYS” was already imported from Facebook.
Please note that as a result, no events were successfully imported.

Nothing is imported to my site. Here is one of the event numbers I get this message with:

653144334789416

Any help is appreciated, thanks!

[Brook]

Howdy Nathan!

It’s great to meet you. I hope I can clear up what must be happening. I just tried importing that event. It imported successfully. I went to my events list, and spotted it when I did a search for “power”. I then tried to import it a second time, and I saw that same error.

I believe this event has already been successfully imported into your site. It could be imported as a Draft, or perhaps Pending Review, and so it is not visible in your normal list. But, it seems like this event or one almost identical to it already exists. Let’s double check if that is the case. If you go to WP Admin > Events, and view the list of your current events. First click the Clear button Under Filters & Columns. Next click on the All tab. Then finally do a search for “Power”. Is that event in the list? Here’s a screenshot with both of those buttons highlighted for easy reference.

If it’s not there, try searching for it in the Trash. If it is there, you could restore it.

Were you able to find it? Is it a duplicate event that already imported?

Cheers!

– Brook

 

 

[Nathan]

Thanks for the steps. I double checked, and the event was not imported. Just to be clear, this happens with every event, not just that one. I tried again with this event ID 365897346941677 which is definitely new and unique (I just heard about it today), and I get the same duplicate message. I have no drafts in the “Events” section, and it is not among the Published events or the 2 “Trash” items.

Thanks for checking up!

[Nathan]

Another detail that might help: I recently changed my wordpress site from one domain (www.thequestionblock.com) to another (www.videogamesnorthwest.com) though the website is the same.

I did go through and disconnected the old URL and verify my key on the new URL; in the settings page it says the key is valid, and I confirmed it on the “My Accounts” section of this site.

I don’t know if the two are connected, but I first noticed this problem around the same time that I switched URLs.

[Brook]

Pardon my belated response Nathan. I did not see your comment for some reason.

That does help clarify. I really appreciate it. Do you have access to your database SQL server, perhaps through PHP My Admin? If so can you go to your WP Database table, and run this command:

SELECT * FROM `wp_postmeta` WHERE `meta_value` LIKE '%653144334789416%' ORDER BY `post_id` DESC

Does that return any results?

Thanks!

– Brook

[Nathan]

No problem Brook, thanks for sticking with me 🙂

I had to modify the query a bit as my tables have a slightly different naming convention, but I got zero results:

MySQL returned an empty result set (i.e. zero rows). (Query took 0.0127 sec)SQL query:
SELECT *
FROM wp_ggsh_postmeta
WHERE meta_value LIKE ‘%653144334789416%’
ORDER BY post_id DESC
LIMIT 0 , 30

(I ran this through PHPMyAdmin)

[Nathan]

Expanding a bit, I downloaded a list of all _FacebookID meta_keys from my dB. You can see that none of them match:

1476682912587898
1505419729707826
1531847373759340
1537495006530146
1557770021144553
1569590949920981
1635546036674696
330830003786301
415443005284821
436553929828466
438952176261058
454287844690332
501464649991613
548266975310399
772600049453547
781079375273965
789804817755309
813660152035030
815291731843612
847096135332564

[Brook]

Thanks Nathan. That is super helpful, I am glad you included that extra query. This is incredibly strange, I have investigated far and wide and not seen anyone with a similar problem.

My remaining suspect is the API. When did you create your Facebook App API key? Was it within the last couple months? There has been some strange behavior of late with new API keys. Facebook recently updated their API, and all new keys are switched over to it. We actually just released a hotfix today, version 3.9.2, that fixed the currently know issues relating to that. Could you also try updating to v3.9.2 of the Facebook Importer and then try reimporting the event?

If that does not fix it, would you mind sharing your system information? This can be found in WP Admin > Events > Settings > Help, and scrolling down to the System info box. If you check the box “Private reply” in your response, then it will hide your reply and information from others.

Cheers!

– Brook

[Nathan]

This reply is private.

[Nathan]

Ok, I included the information in a private reply.

I did update the plugin, and tried again but got the same message. I also tried created an event on one of my own public Facebook pages that is set to auto-import. The Events calendar saw the newly created event, it appears in the “Events from Facebook organizations(s) or page(s) you’ve added:” and shows as “Previously Imported” but I again confirmed that the event was not imported.

The issue persists 🙁 I can also confirm that I did recently generate the Facebook API key (in January of this year). Hope this info helps, let me know if you need anything else!

[Brook]

Thanks for everything. I am investigating this now. I am going to try and create a new Facebook API key myself and try reimporting these events to see if I can replicate. I will let you know the result tomorrow.

Cheers!

– Brook

[Nathan]

Thanks Brook.

I am happy to give you admin rights on my website if you’d like to poke around there.

Just a couple of potentially helpful notes: first, I did transfer the key from one domain to another, but both domains pointed to the same locations (I just changed the primary domain in WordPress settings). I also migrated my content from another bistro this one. I installed this version of WordPress using the host’s control panel “instant install” type software. I think that’s everything that is out of the ordinary.

[Brook]

Howdy again Nathan,

I am not sure what happened to my response from the other day. I was checking back in to see if you had followed up, when I noticed the response I drafted never submitted. 🙁

I really appreciate the offer to login. Unfortunately due to legal reasons we can almost never do that.

I tested your API key on my website. I was able to import that event fine. Only a second import had the issue. I then did my best to replicate all of your sites settings, same thing. It worked great for me. It was only after I had already imported an event that it would give me the duplicate error message, and that message went away the instant I trashed an event.

This leaves us with only one remaining likely cause, a plugin conflict. It is very possible that a conflicting plugin, or perhaps even your theme, has something about it that does not mix well with certain imports. Particularly if that plugin has a Facebook API tie-in of its own. Would you mind doing a testing if there is a conflict? If you diligently follow the steps in that first subheading, disabling your other plugins and switching themes and such, then try importing event again, does it work?

Please let me know if you have any questions. Cheers!

– Brook

[Nathan]

Hi Brook~

I created a new API key just in case. I also went through and removed all my plugins and re-activated them. The culprit turned out to be “NS Featured Posts” (https://wordpress.org/plugins/ns-featured-posts/) which is seemingly unrelated to facebook in any way. it makes a checkbox in the ‘posts’ section for whether an article is featured; there’s no FB integration there at all.

I’ll notify the author of that plugin about the conflict, hopefully you or they can update to avoid the conflict, as both plugins are valuable to me.

Thanks for all your help!

[Brook]

I appreciate the update Nathan. I too have been looking into this a bit more. If I discover anything of interest I will share it on wp.org with the other author. Cheers!

– Brook

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