How to Setup Your Facebook Connect Application
Been getting a lot more of these sorts of problems cropping up in my email recently, so I figured I’d repost this in the hope that people will read it. The original post is now on the wrong site, so maybe here it’ll get more views.
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The majority of the email I get from users of the Simple Facebook Connect plugin is questions regarding how to setup their Facebook Application. It’s really not that hard to do, but the plethora of options can seem somewhat intimidating. So here’s the basics of what you need to do.
After creating your application, you’ll need to visit the Apps section in the Facebook Developer Home area. Here you’ll find your application, and the all critical “Edit Settings” link.
Firstly, never give out your Application Secret. If you give this out by accident, then use the Reset Secret Key link to get a new one.
Anyway, from here, you want to go into the settings. The settings area is divided into six main sections, but most of the settings are irrelevant. See, you’re building a “Connect” application, not a “Canvas” one. So most of these are meaningless for you. The following ones are what you actually care about:
Obviously, you want the name of your Application to make sense. I suggest using the same name as your website. You can even use your domain name here if you like. Just be aware that this name is what the Fans of your site will see in their Applications area.
The Basic Information section is important as well, fill it in as you see fit. I also recommend uploading good icons and/or logos for your site. Gives it that finished look.
Contact Information is obviously important as well, but don’t worry about all those extra URLs. They really apply more to Canvas apps. Of course, if you want to make special pages on your site for them and provide the URLs here, feel free.
The Authentication Settings page is surprisingly important. Those top two boxes need to be unchecked for a Facebook Connect application. Why? Because when they are unchecked, your Application becomes an “External Website” as far as Facebook is concerned. If you have either them checked, then your app’s Canvas section becomes active and you might have users trying to add it to their profiles and such, resulting in broken pages and a general bad user experience.
The Connect Settings page is probably the most important one. These settings must be filled in and they must be absolutely accurate. Specifically, the URLs must be the URLs that are actually used by your site. Capitalization matters. The leading “www” or lack of one matters. Whatever the URL your site is in the browser is what you MUST put into these fields. Anything less and your site will not work.
The Advanced Settings screen contains these three fields which you need to set in the same way I did. The email domain no longer exists, however. They removed that in favor of a different approach, so you can ignore that field.
Finally, after you have saved those settings, take the time to go back to the main application screen and click the “Edit Application Profile” link. You’ll be taken here, where you can set up the “look” of your application page on Facebook. This includes what tabs are visible, the stuff in the Info section, etc. You can add extra Applications tabs to this page and generally customize all sorts of stuff. None of that affects your site, but it does affect how the App Page looks in Facebook. The more polished it is, the more likely people will “Fan” your Application. And Fans get updates from when you publish posts to the Wall. Great way to drive traffic to your content.
Hope this helps! Mainly, I hope this reduces the number of questions I get about this process. Enjoy SFC!
[...] Otto on WordPress Blog: How to Set Up Your Facebook Connection Application (Excellent!) [...]
I tried this, but when I write the adress of my page it sais that it’s not valid. What should I do?
Facebook’s ability to create applications is broken right now. They are all screwed up, basically. I tried to create a new app for a site yesterday and couldn’t do it at all.
Wait until they fix it. Sorry.
Thanks for telling, so I won’t try for nothing.
How long does it ussually take that they fix it?
And thanks for these instrucitons, they are really good.
Hi Otto,
is that the cause for the SFC to nok work properly?
No matter which button i hit, it’s always publishing on my personal profile, never on the fan page as it used to and was supposed to.
Thanks for the great plug in by the way!
Presumably, they’re working on it: http://bugs.developers.facebook.com/show_bug.cgi?id=8573
I verified that I have all these settings properly on my blog, but when I try signing in with my Facebook credentials (which gives me the same result here on your blog), and then try to post the comment I get the JS alert box telling me “Please enter your name”. I don’t know what I may have messed up here since obviously this DOES work. Any idea what setting(s) I should look at?
There is no “Please enter your name” alert box on this site. There’s no javascript to do anything of the sort, in fact.
If you have some javascript on your theme checking for a name entry, then you need to remove it. The SFC comments plugin works on the back end. Basically, it fills in the blank name behind the scenes, using FB data. So if your theme is trying to force the user to enter a name, then that needs to be disabled.
When tryng to share a post on my facebook account I am getting the “Share this story?” pop-up box but it is greyed out with the following message “Sorry, your request cannot be processed”. The webpage is http://www.eastkeilorfc.com. Can you provide any assistance.
ia there any response to this?? shit getting the same shit happening to me
It’s happening to everybody. Share is broken. Has been for a while. Nothing I can do about it.
“I tried this, but when I write the adress of my page it sais that it’s not valid. What should I do?”
I had this problem, make sure you have an / at the end of the URL or it’ll say invalid..
I have done this and it works. Theproblem is when someone clicks the share button on the post when the “cannot process this request” error occurs.
Hi Otto,
great tool, thanks for that!
Another question i have is, if there is a possibilty to “target=”_blank”" the published posts. I’ve had some people complaining about when they clicked the post they would leave fb.
Regards
Sebastian
No, that’s not possible. Facebook creates that link, not you or this plugin.
hiiii, ive been trying to get a picture in my info box under my profile pic or somewhere on my profile. but im not too sure how to do it ]= im very frustrated , it’s like 3.43 am right now and i still cnt get this done. i made an application but it dosnet seem to be working :S i was wondering if you could help me with this ]=
Hello Otto,
It looks like as a nice idea for plugin. I have one problem, and I am in interesting where is it. When I put Api key. Aplication secret and aplication ID, on right side I get
Facebook Platform Status
RSS Error: WP HTTP Error: Couldn’t resolve host ‘www.facebook.com’
is it problem with FB or with my WP?
thanks
That error basically means that your webserver doesn’t have DNS resolution and so it can’t talk directly to other servers on the net. Usually this is caused by an overzealous security configuration, or by the server being firewalled. You’ll have to ask your hosting service about it.
I have this Error on my Editor Site:
If you can see this, then there is some form of problem showing you the Facebook publishing buttons. This may be caused by a plugin conflict or some form of bad javascript on this page. Try reloading or disabling other plugins to find the source of the problem.
What can this be???
80% of the time, this is due to an incomplete configuration of the FB Application.
The other 20% of the time, it’s another plugin interfering in some way.
I had the same error message. Once went through the steps in this tutorial to properly set up my Facebook Connect application, the problem was resolved.
Hi! Been trying to change my setup to see if that’s what causing problems when installing the plugin. But…I get this message, what is it I’m doing wrong?
“Validation failed.
URL för bokmärke must be relative to your Canvas Page URL.”
That’s basically telling you that your settings are wrong. For example, if you’re setting this up for a Connect application, then you shouldn’t have a “Canvas Page URL” at all.
You can’t just put in settings randomly. Each of them means something.
I know, but leaving the “Canvas Page URL” blank gives the same result.
Sorry, my mistake. Seems they changed some things around since I wrote this originally.
Leave the Bookmark URL field blank. The bookmark will then default to your Connect URL.
Thank you so much..works like a charm
Hey Otto, great plugin. This is probably a dumbass question, but where do I find the User profile number for the SFC Status widget?
Not a dumb question, because FB makes it annoyingly difficult to find your user ID number.
Easiest way I’ve found: Go to your profile. Hover over your picture or click it to get the change picture URL. In the URL, there’s a parameter called “ID”. That’s your user ID number.
Hi Otto, is Lorenzo
As everybody: great plugin!
Unfortunately I have a problem with the FB connect button in the comments area: it seems to work fine (I can log in with my FB user and then write a comment) but after the click on the button, there are no changes: I cannot see the FB profile information (photo and connected message) instead of FB button and input fields!
Please, can you help me?
Thankyou
Lore
P.S. I posted the same question on WordPress Forum as Lorenzoghi.
P.P.S. Please excuse me for my terrible english!
Without seeing the page with the problem, I can’t really tell you what the issue is.
Sure, you are right!
Here the example url: http://wip.verticalmedia.it/toscanafc/index.php/2009/11/29/pranzo-a-borgo-a-buggiano/
I don’t see the Facebook login button on that page at all.
Lore says:
July 18, 2010 at 11:16 am
Now is right. You can see the problem
Any idea of my problem?
The comments_form action is probably missing from your theme.
In your theme’s comments.php file, after the textarea for the comments form, add this line:
Great! It works now.
Thankyou Otto for your quick help!
Now is right. You can see the problem
I am trying to use the publish feature, it says there is a problem with the settings. I uninstall and reinstall and the old settings remain. How do I start over so that no settings remain, ie; api keys and extended permission settings.
It’s probably not talking about the settings in the plugin, but the settings in your FB Application. Try following the guide on this page to setup the application completely.
I got it, thanks i blew away and re-created my app and followed the directions. Viola.
I’m new and didn’t realise the application itself was the actual wall on FB. So I inadvertently entered the wrong API Key, App Secret & App ID for the Find Us On Facebook widget. I’ve tried various uninstalls, delete & reload, clear cache: but the plug-in does not give me the page where I can re-enter the correct FB Application ID. I have created the FB App okay with the above instructions. Is there a way I can restart widget again so no settings remain, to re-enter the correct FB details? Many thanks in advance.
Just go to the SFC settings screen (there’s only the one) and put in the new information, replacing the old information. Then hit Save.
That’s all there is to it.
Many, many thanks. It’s so simple when you know how. (I said I was new :0 ) Cheers and thanks again. Best wishes.
I’m running into a strange thing – see http://www.romililly.com/wp-romililly/vivamus-sed-mi-non/
The “Connect with Facebook” is text only and not clickable. Is this a failing on my applications settings?
Thanks in advance!
Your theme lacks the wp_footer() call in the footer.php file.
Wow – talk about a noob mistake. Thanks for pointing that out, and thanks for building such a badass plugin!
I wish I found your instructions when I started to learn facebook!
You answered a SFC question today for me, I was hoping to ask you a FB question. I know it is not your responsibility, but I would appreciate it. I have spent hours on the facebook site, the closest I can come to a place to ask for help is on the developer forum. This one even came close to an answer. http://forum.developers.facebook.com/viewtopic.php?id=61706 But the warning when obtaining a user id indicates not to ask questions like this there.
None of the help pages on facebook I went through address this.
I am new to facebook and set up a page, for our news site, SFC is allowing all this to happen. When reaching the over 25 like limit, I saw the offer to request a user name. I requested “LondonderryNews” was told it could not be changed, paused, made sure it was right and selected it.
The problem is it went to my personal account and not the page.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Londonderry-News/116519185061796?v=wall
Is the Page I wanted it to be associated with.
My personal page (Steve Young) is now http://www.facebook.com/LondonderryNews
I can open the page http://www.facebook.com/username/ when logged on, and set my page name. I can not select “LondonderryNews” because it is taken, because I assigned it to my personal account.
Do you know how I could fix this?
I see I can ask for a new name (ONCE) for my personal account (I do not need one for that) if I do would it free up “LondonderryNews” for my page?
Or did I keep myself from using that in any other way forever?
Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer to your question. I’ve never assigned the wrong name like that.
You’ll have to ask Facebook support, see if they can help out.
Good luck.
I can tell you that I will NEVER assign the wrong name again!
Although I have not been working with facebook very long, I have a feeling that “Facebook support” is a lot like “military intelligence” I have yet to find my way out of the Help maze.
I think I will have a beer I hope you can join me!
I’m with you there. Getting support out of FB is worse than pulling teeth.
Hi Otto,
I have followed all the instructions carefully, but when somebody clicks “connect with facebook” on my site, they get this error: “ERROR: Facebook user not recognized.”
Any idea what is causing this?
Many thanks
That error message is pretty straightforward, I think. The user is trying to login to the site with Facebook, but the site has no idea who they are because they have not hooked their WP account to their FB account yet. Or, to put it in simpler terms, the Facebook “user” was not “recognized”.
Log in normally, then go to Users->My Profile and connect your two accounts.
Ok, that has worked for my account, thank you!
So if any new users visit my website and click “connect with facebook”, will they get the same error? I was hoping that the connect with facebook feature would eliminate the need for people to register with wordpress. Do they need to register first, then connect their accounts as I have just done?
thanks again for your swift response!
Did you consider activating the SFC-Register plugin?
It’s always something so simple! I thought I had activated all of the SFC plugins, but had infact overlooked the register one! So sorry for wasting your time ;@)
Now I can make full use of this wonderful plugin!
Thank you for being so patient.
A beer is on it’s way real soon ;@)
I’m trying to get jomsocial to work on this site using single sign-on via a facebook connect plugin. I’m creating my app via Facebook for the API Key/Secret and can’t get past
Validation failed.
URL must point to a directory (i.e., end with a ‘/’ or a dynamic page (i.e., have a ‘?’ somewhere).
Did you try putting a slash on the end of your URL?
My URL is “http://ottopress.com/”. Note the ending / there? That’s not optional.
Thanks Otto so far it works!
You ROCK!!!
[...] than re-invent the wheel, I’m going to refer you to Otto’s page that explains some of the steps you’ll need to take to get it configured properly. There have [...]
Hey Otto,
First of all, thanks for the great plugin! I got it to publish to Facebook without any problems, but I tried to get the Like/Recommend features to work but no luck. The button appears as expected, but when you click on it the button changes color and a 1 appears next to it. Nothing else happens and if you refresh the page it goes back to default. I had some friends test it and it ended with the same result. I tried the login/register and other connect related plugins and none of those seem to be working either.
I have disabled them all for the night (so none of my readers get confused by them) and will look into it again tomorrow. I doubt this is enough information to give you a clear idea of what is wrong, but if you have any ideas/tips, I would really appreciate it.
I am very happy the publish feature works though.
Hi Otto… thanks for posting these tips. Everything works fine for me, until I “submit” and I get the following error: “You need to have at least 5 total users or 10 monthly active users before you can submit your application.”
I know this sounds dumb, but I’m not quite clear on what this means, and how to correct it. Any insight you can you provide is appreciated.
Thanks
How is it possible to get this to work with a FB group?
Thanks for the help, although I’m still having troubles. Can you please tell me what this means?
API Error Code: 100
API Error Description: Invalid parameter
Error Message: next is not owned by the application.
Thanks,
Nick
That means your FB App has some setting set wrong. Go edit it and check the Site URL’s and such.
People seem to like commenting on my posts that are linked to facebook on facebook rather than on my site, francescadecaire.com. Do you have a plugin that will transfer these comments to my website?
thank you for your time,
francesca
Not yet, and that is my most requested feature.
I’m currently about 30% through with a complete rewrite of the plugin to use the new FB APIs, I’ll make sure that will get in there.
It will take about a month though. Sorry.
When I try to post comments using SFC and facebook on my blog, I get an error from wordpress:
“Error: please fill the required fields (name, email).”
Any workaround for that?