Facebook access_token invalid?

Question

I'm attempting to use the new Graph API Facebook recently released, but I can't seem to get it to work correctly.

I've gone through the steps, and after the /authorize call, I receive an access_token:

access_token=109002049121898|nhKwSTJVPbUZ5JYyIH3opCBQMf8.

When I attempt to use that token I get:

{ "error": { "type": "QueryParseException", "message": "An active access token must be used to query information about the current user." } }

I'm stumped as too why...

-AC

Answer 1

Just to clarify -- after you call

https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/authorize?

you should receive a CODE which, in conjunction with your CLIENT_ID and CLIENT_SECRET (assuming you have registered your application) can be exchanged for an access_token at

https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token?

If this is indeed how you came by your ACCESS_TOKEN, you should then be able to request

https://graph.facebook.com/me/

Answer 2

same thing here. I followed Ben Biddington's blog to get the access token. Same error when trying to use it. Facebook's OAuth implementation doesn't follow the spec completely, i am fine with it as long as the doc is clear, which obviously is not the case here. Aslo, it would be nice if the userid and username are returned with the access token.

Answer 3

I've been having the exact same problem. A couple of things I've done to resolve it:

1. Try it all out in the browser first to make sure the urls are correct at each stage
2. Ensure the redirect url is identical, not just equivalent. Parameters in the same order, encoding the same
3. Don't use the type=client_cred, or anything else for that matter
4. Encode any ampersands in the redirect_url (but not the rest of the url) e.g. http://example.com/fb?foo=234%26bar=567. This one caused me the most issues. When the callback page was run, only the url before the first ampersand was included, as the ampersand was assumed to be part of the url for graph.facebook.com, not part of the redirect_url. I was then getting the values from the querystring to put in the redirect_url for the second call, but they weren't there. Once I encoded the ampersands they appeared correctly.
5. Don't have any empty values in you encoded querystring parameters (e.g. ?foo=%26bar=123)

Answer 4

I want to point out what has sort of been said on Ben Biddington's blog, and what I noticed from looking at the "malformed" access_token in the initial question. Others have said similar things in this thread, but I want to be explicit.

The token is not actually malformed, but rather a token that allows you to do actions on behalf of the APP, not the user. This is the token you'd use if you wanted to get all of the users of the app, or view insights for your app, etc, with the requests typically coming from your server, not the client. This type of token is gained by using the type=client_cred parameter. If you want to do things on behalf of the user, do not specify type=client_cred, and make sure you specify the following parameters in your call to http://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token:

'client_id' => APP_ID
'redirect_uri' => REDIRECT_URI
'client_secret' => APP_SECRET
'code' => $_GET['code']

I've written this as key-value pairs of a PHP array, but I think you get the point. The code GET value is gained after making the initial call to http://graph.facebook.com/oauth/authorize with the following parameters:

'client_id' => APP_ID
'redirect_uri' => "http://your.connect.url/some/endpoint"

I hope this helps! What the Facebook docs say, but don't say well, is that getting an access_token is a two-request process.

Answer 5

Adding type parameter returns the auth_token for the application level, so it is better to OMIT it. What worked for me, after countless attempts and combinations, is using the same redirect_url parameter in the call to /oath/access_token as was used in the call to /oath/authorize.
So the full sequence to authorize your app on some one's behalf is:

1. call or redirect to: "https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/authorize?client_id=" + my_clientId + "&scope=publish_stream,offline_access,manage_pages" + "&redirect_uri=" + "http://my_redirect_url?blah"
2. in the page located at the return_url above, issue a request or what ever else to this url:
   "https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token?client_id=" + client_id + "&client_secret=" + secret + "&code=" + Request.QueryString["code"] + "&redirect_uri=" + "http://my_redirect_url?blah"

Answer 6

I had the same issue in IE8 only. The solution for me was sending the access_token in the API request. Something like this:

FB.api('/me/friends?access_token=<YOUR TOKEN>

I obtained my token thru php like this:

// Create our Application instance.
$facebook = new Facebook(array(
    'appId'  => '<API_ID>',
    'secret' => '<SECRET>',
    'cookie' => false,
));

$session = $facebook->getSession();
$token = $session['access_token'];

Hope that helps!

-- Alberto Miranda