I have been trying to find a way to create a never expiring FaceBook Page Access Token. I have seen the option where you provide the AppID|AppSecret in place of the token however that requires you to submit the app for approval and facebook does not seem to understand concept of OTHER apps using the token. Regardless, see the answer below for how I found a way to do this.
After piecing together many different solutions - I did this and it seems to work. I assume you only want a token for a single page and that you already have your Facebook app page setup.
Get the ID of the page by navigating to it from a web browser, click on About link in the menu list down the left hand side of the page, then scroll to the bottom of the About information and you will see the Page ID display.
Navigate to Facebook Graph API Explorer
Remove everything after the API Version (in this case v3.2) on this line of the explorer
and replace it with 123456789?fields=access_token where 123456789 is your page ID.
Click the Submit button to the right hand side of the line you just entered the text into.
You will receive a token back in the response at the bottom of the screen that looks similar to this:
{
"access_token": "TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT",
"id": "1755746091324056"
}
where TTTTTTTT is your access token.
Copy the token only (no quotes) out of the response and past it in the Access Token field at the top of the Page replacing the Access Token that was previously there.
After pasting in the new access token click on the blue information icon to the left of the access token.
In the Access Token Information dialog, click on the 'Open in Access Token Tool' button at the bottom right of the dialog.
In the Access Token Debugger that will open up, click on the 'Extend Access Token' button at the bottom of the page. A new access token should be displayed and the text above it should say that it never expires.
I hope this helps.
PS - Here is what I see in Facebook's Access Token tool when I paste the token generated using this method into it. It says this token will never expire.
Related
so I am trying to request an authorization code from smartsheet using postman.
I created a new app on my smartsheet with the following url:
app url: https://localhost:3000/
redirect url: https://localhost:3000/callback
so I tried to use the
GET https://app.smartsheet.com/b/authorize
and input my client id, scope, repsonse_type, and state in postman
the result says there is an error and it did not direct me to a page where I am able to allow authorization.
I am expecting something similar to what the website says (http://smartsheet-platform.github.io/api-docs/#access-levels). I am not sure which part I did was wrong, I am wrong home for this volunteer work hence I do not have an appropriate url. I don't know if it's my urls that are causing the problem or there's something else.
thank you guys in advance
If you are building out the Smartsheet OAuth flow you will need to have a hosted environment where you can have requests sent and be able to open a page in a browser to authenticate to the Smartsheet account and select the Allow button to confirm the access token should be created and returned to your application.
For development purposes you can use a service like ngrok to create a publicly available URL for your localhost which will allow you to send and receive the necessary data from Smartsheet in your development environment.
Authorization tokens cannot be generated from the API - you must do them from the website. From the API documentation:
Click the "Account" button in the upper-right corner of the Smartsheet screen, and then click "Personal Settings".
Click the "API Access" tab.
Click the "Generate new access token" button to obtain an access token.
I am hitting a wall while developing seamless integration of a Facebook page with my bot.
Essentially I want to achieve same integration than Chatfuel or Manychat have, where being logged in with your Facebook account lets you to just choose what page you are connecting to them and you are good to go.
The problem I am facing is generating the proper token in order to bind the selected page to my app (bot). As per Facebook documentation:
When you create a subscribed_apps edge, the page-id you use in endpoint must match the page ID of the page access token used in the API call. The app that the access token is for is installed for the page.
Given the call has no other parameter than the access token, this access token has to be enough for Facebook to:
Authorize the action on the page.
Identify what app is being subscribed to the page.
This is confirmed while using the Facebook Graph API Explorer, where one selects the page and the app to bind and a proper access token is generated:
This token properly works using cURL in the terminal:
$ curl -X POST 'https://graph.facebook.com/v3.0/<MY_APP_ID_HERE>/subscribed_apps?access_token=<TOKEN_PASTED_FROM_GRAPH_API_EXPLORER>'
{"success":true}
With the Facebook Access token debugger (info icon on the left of the access token, then open in Access token tool), it is confirmed that the token knows about both the page and the app that have to be connected.
The question is, how are these page-app related token programmatically produced? I can't seem to find the proper API call in Facebook documentation and it is by all means possible, as Chatfuel and Manychat are doing this.
Thanks in advance for your support Lars Schwarz and community!
Adding some detail to Alex's answer, for it to be more complete.
When subscribing an app to a page, Facebook needs to:
Know what app you are talking about.
Know what page you are talking about.
Know that you have permissions on that page to subscribe an app.
How does Facebook know it all?
1 comes from the fact that Facebook login happens in the context of a page, actually, the Javascript code for Facebook contains your appId:
js.src = 'https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v3.0&appId=<YOUR_APP_ID_IS_HERE>&autoLogAppEvents=1';
2 Comes from the page_id in the URL used to subscribe apps to pages:
https://graph.facebook.com/v3.0/YOUR_APP_ID_HERE/subscribed_apps?access_token=YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN_HERE
3 Comes from the access token, obtained in the context of an APP through Facebook login, that is passed as parameter in the URL used to subscribe apps to pages:
https://graph.facebook.com/v3.0/YOUR_APP_ID_HERE/subscribed_apps?access_token=YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN_HERE
To do this, you need to put FB Login on your site/customer portal and request pages_messaging and manage_pages permissions. The person that logs in must be a Page Admin.
Once your app has been granted that permission for the page, you can generate a page access token as described here:
https://developers.facebook.com/docs/pages/access-tokens
As a proof of concept for a simple background application, I used the Graph API Explorer to create an access token for my app to post something to the wall of a page I maintain. It worked fine. Naturally, however, the token expires.
So now I'm trying to have the background application automatically request a new page access token each time it runs. And I'm having a lot of trouble finding a concrete definition of how to do that. There's no shortage of information regarding Facebook and Access Tokens, but nothing seems to demonstrate how to have a background application post to a page. (Not post to a user's wall, not display a login dialog to a user since it's a background application, etc.)
I can fetch an access token in code easily enough by reading the response from a web request to this URL:
https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token?grant_type=client_credentials&client_id={MY_APP_ID}&client_secret={MY_APP_SECRET}
Of course, that "access token" doesn't work when trying to post to the page's wall. It says that the user hasn't authorized the application to perform this action. The action I'm performing is pretty simple:
var client = new FacebookClient(GetFacebookAccessToken());
dynamic parameters = new ExpandoObject();
parameters.message = "this is a test";
dynamic result = client.Post("{MY_PAGE_ID}/feed", parameters);
I've read in some places that I'll need to make a second request, using the first access token, to get the page access token. But I can't seem to find examples of how to do that.
Can someone shed some light on this for me?
I have a Facebook page.
I have a Facebook app which serves no other purpose than to provide a means for a local background application to access said page.
I just need that application to be able to authenticate so it can post something to the page.
(And if there's a step I need to perform in the Facebook UI to permanently give the application permission to do this, I think I've performed that step but it would be good to double check somehow.)
Edit: It's been described to me that I need to obtain a long-lived user access token and, using that, obtain a page access token. The theory is that said page access token won't expire. However, what's not clear to me is how one accomplishes this.
I've read the page describing the deprecation of offline_access, as well as the page describing server-side access. However, I'm clearly misunderstanding something. In the former, it references the latter for obtaining the proper token. The latter, however, includes steps for presenting a login to the user, having them accept permissions, and using the response from that login.
Being a background process that runs unattended, presenting any sort of question to a user (which would be me) isn't really an option. I've also been told that I can't do a one-time request from my browser to get an access token because that is, by definition, client-side interaction and not part of the necessary server-side flow. (It seems odd to me that the service would care if a RESTful request comes from a web browser vs. from an application, but I'm not familiar enough with OAuth or the Facebook API to really make that call.)
So, if I can perform some manual steps to get a permanent access token for the app to post to the Facebook page, what are those steps? Conversely, if I can perform some automated steps in the application to acquire access each time it runs, what are those steps?
(Making a few more API calls from the application adds a second or two of running time to an otherwise once-a-day process, so it makes no difference to me which approach to take.)
At first I just went into the Facebook Application settings and re-enabled the deprecated "offline access" permission. Said application settings can be found at a URL like this:
https://developers.facebook.com/apps/{APPLICATION_ID}/advanced
However, since everything keeps referring to that setting as being "deprecated" then I didn't want to use that as a long-term solution. It may get removed entirely, it may be unsafe in certain circumstances, etc. Better to use recommended functionality.
So here's what I was able to piece together from a scavenger hunt through updated documentation, outdated documentation, a sea of outdated internet posts, and PHP code which mostly made assumptions about functionality that aren't true in all cases...
Visit the Graph API Explorer and select your Facebook Application from the drop-down menu. Click "Get Access Token" and select the permissions you want. (For mine I went to the "Extended Permissions" tab and selected "Managed Pages" and "Publish Stream.") You will be prompted (in my browser it was in a new tab) with a familiar screen where the Facebook Application is asking you, the user, to grant it the permissions you just selected. (You've seen this before if you've ever agreed to use a Facebook Application before.)
The value it produces in the Graph API Explorer (a long string of random-ish characters) is your "Short Lived User Access Token."
As described here in "Scenario 4: Client-side OAuth and Extending Access_Token Expiration Time through New Endpoint" access this URL in your web browser:
https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token?
client_id={APPLICATION_ID}
&client_secret={APPLICATION_SECRET}
&grant_type=fb_exchange_token
&fb_exchange_token={SHORT_LIVED_USER_ACCESS_TOKEN}
(You can obtain the {APPLICATION_SECRET} value on the basic settings page for your Facebook Application: https://developers.facebook.com/apps/{APPLICATION_ID}/summary)
This will return another Access Token as such:
access_token={LONG_LIVED_USER_ACCESS_TOKEN}&expires=5184000
This access_token value (another long string of random-ish characters) is your "Long Lived User Access Token." The expires value is in seconds, which translates into 60 days.
Now we hop over to the Page API reference and take a look at the section on Page Access Tokens. This, along with the basic structure of Graph API requests exemplified here (scroll down to the part where it shows a bulleted list of sample links which include access_token specifiers, which you'll need to specify here because you're requesting non-public information) leads you to request this in your browser:
https://graph.facebook.com/{FACEBOOK_USER_ID}/accounts?
access_token={LONG_LIVED_USER_ACCESS_TOKEN}
This will return a JavaScript object containing lots of useful information about the Facebook Pages and Facebook Applications your user account controls. In my case the Page and the Application had the same name, but it's easy to tell them apart from the category values or, if all else fails, the id values. Find the Page that the background application running on your machine will need to access and copy its access_token (the third and final long string of random-ish characters). The whole node looks something like this:
{
"name": "Some Facebook Application Name",
"access_token": "{LONG_LIVED_PAGE_ACCESS_TOKEN}",
"category": "Musician/band",
"id": "{APPLICATION_ID}",
"perms": [
"ADMINISTER",
"EDIT_PROFILE",
"CREATE_CONTENT",
"MODERATE_CONTENT",
"CREATE_ADS",
"BASIC_ADMIN"
]
}
This is your "Long Lived Page Access Token." This is the value you use to initialize the FacebookClient object in the code. Then, posting a simple status update is as easy as:
var client = new FacebookClient("{LONG_LIVED_PAGE_ACCESS_TOKEN}");
dynamic parameters = new ExpandoObject();
parameters.message = "This is a my status update.";
dynamic result = client.Post("{FACEBOOK_PAGE_ID}/feed", parameters);
Supposedly this "Long Lived Page Access Token" does not expire after 60 days like the "Long Lived User Access Token" does. I'll find out in 59 days, I guess.
NB: The curly braces in my examples are part of the placeholder for actual values. Do not use the curly braces in the actual requests. So something like this:
https://developers.facebook.com/apps/{APPLICATION_ID}/advanced
becomes something like this, for example:
https://developers.facebook.com/apps/123456/advanced
where 123456 is the actual Facebook Application ID.
Being a background process that runs unattended, presenting any sort of question to a user (which would be me) isn't really an option.
As I already said, you only have to do it once.
You get your non-expiring page access token, copy&paste that into your app – and from then on your app can do server-side whatever it wants to do happily everafter.
I've also been told that I can't do a one-time request from my browser to get an access token because that is, by definition, client-side interaction and not part of the necessary server-side flow.
The server-side auth flow for getting a user access token also needs to take part partly in the browser.
It does not matter, if you get a short-lived token via the client-side auth flow and extend it afterwards, or if you get a long-lived one using the server-side auth flow.
(It seems odd to me that the service would care if a RESTful request comes from a web browser vs. from an application […])
Facebook does not want users to give their login credentials to any third party. Therefor, the process of getting a user access token always has to take part in the browser, with the user login in to Facebook.
So, if I can perform some manual steps to get a permanent access token for the app to post to the Facebook page, what are those steps?
Get a long-lived user access token with manage_pages permission. (Or get a short-lived one, and extend it). And then, use that long-lived token to request a page access token for the target page, in the way that is described in the docs.
I'm tring to find the Facebook ID for my business page to use with Open Graph. I have claimed my url so I can't see the id
when I enter:
graph.facebook.com/StagecoachWineTours
I get the response:
false
Is there another way?
Your ID appears to be: 97122673369
I got it by visiting the following link:
http://developers.facebook.com/tools/explorer/?method=GET&path=StagecoachWineTours
If it is still showing up as 'false' when you reach it you'll need to click on Get Access Token. After that a dialog will appear, click on Get Access Token once more. Once you have done this click on submit.
The reason you could not retrieve your info appears to be because you need to provide an access token on your Graph API call to fetch it. Once you do that you'll be able to get all sorts of info!
I'm playing around with Facebook Connect, trying to use Facebook as the means or authentication on my site. Currently my workflow looks something like this:
Go to URL
Server checks cookies for AccessToken
If AccessToken exists, automatically fill in user's name/profile picture in comment box, and leave AccessToken in hidden input
send page down to client
on submit, verify access token (which was submitted with the rest of the form) is a valid access token for a real person. If so, add comment to Database
refresh page to display new data
if no access token, replace user's name/profile picture with <fb:login-button>, along with the required <script>s.
send page down to client
When user authorizes page/logs into facebook, refresh page
(go back to top, except this time the access token should exist)
So I have a few questions:
Is this secure? I was thinking of ways i would be able to do without the double authentication with Facebook (checking once on page-generation and checking again on comment-submission), and I could not figure any other way short of maintaining my own session-state with each client. Is that worth doing?
Does the access token expire when i log out of Facebook? I'm thinking it should, but it seems I can continue to use the same access token to grab data (i.e. name, url, etc.) after I manually go to Facebook and log myself out. Is it because I'm only asking for public information, and only more intrusive permissions expire on logout?
Given that each person who wants to do something has to provide a unique token from Facebook, this should have the side effect of blocking CSRF, since every action can be traced to a valid Facebook account. Is that right?
Why don't you just use the Facebook Javascript SDK to detect if they're currently logged into Facebook? This will also make the access token available in Javascript so you can make client-side calls to the API.
You can access the same access token server side via the session cookie set by Facebook also.
I can't answer all of your questions but I can tell you that having the access token in a hidden field on your page is risky from a policy perspective, especially if your page can be read by any third-party code such as Google Analytics or AdSense. Facebook will nail you for this as it is leaking user identifying data to third parties. The Facebook userid is in the access token in plain text. Facebook has automated processes that scan for this stuff and will auto-ban your app if it is leaking userids to third parties.