Facebook Graph API returns statuses for only some friends

1
votes

I'm using the Facebook Graph API Explorer to retrieve statuses from friends. Querying [username]/statuses returns statuses for myself, and certain friends, but not others. So, for some users, I get...

{ "data": [ { "id": "10152965008840076", ... } ] }

But others return only...

{ "data": [] }

...Even though, on their profile pages in Facebook, I can see their statuses.

Thinking this might be a permissions problem, I enabled the following permissions, to no avail:

  • friends_actions.news
  • friends_activities
  • friends_status
  • read_friendlists
  • read_insights
  • read_mailbox
  • read_requests
  • read_stream
  • user_activities
  • user_status

Why do some users return statuses, but not others?

1
facebook

1 Answers

4
votes

To get statuses, one should only need read_stream permission as described at https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/api/user/ and https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/fql/status

Reading a user's status messages requires the read_stream permission.

Without the id of the user's friend it's not possible to know the exact reason of the cause. Possible things to look at what would be

  • The friend has the platform disabled in their settings (https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=applications&section=opt_out&view)
  • The friend has no status objects but post objects instead so the data will appear in [username]/posts with read_stream permission
  • Permissions were never actually set in your app, this happens when developers assume "Configuring Permissions" in app settings is where to set permissions. An easy way to debunk this would be a call to /me/permissions

If all of the above were checked then send a detailed bug report to developers.facebook.com/bugs