Get user friends list using PHP and facebook API

Question

So I'm using CodeIgniter framework and trying to get user friends. I have no problems with authentification, but when I try to get user friends using GET method from https://graph.facebook.com/me/friends?fields=gender,id,name&access_token= it returns me empty array. This is the front end code

<script>
$(function () {
    FB.init({
        appId: ****, // App ID
        channelUrl: '', // Channel File
        status: true, // check login status
        cookie: true, // enable cookies to allow the server to access the session
        xfbml: true  // parse XFBML
    });
});

jQuery('*[data-action="doFbLogin"]').on('click', function () {
    FB.login(function (response) {
        if (response.authResponse) {

            FB.api('/me/friends', function(response) {

                // loading message
                var intervalLoading = 0;
                setInterval(function() {
                    intervalLoading = ++intervalLoading % 4;
                    jQuery('*[data-message="fb_loading"]').html("Connecting, please wait" + Array(intervalLoading + 1).join("."));
                }, 400);

                // request
                jQuery.post('http://www.****.***/ajax/fb_connect', {
                        "user_id": response.id,
                        "full_name": response.name,
                        "first_name": response.first_name,
                        "last_name": response.last_name,
                        "email": response.email,
                        "gender": response.gender,
                        "token": response.token,
                        "friends": response.friends,
                        "current_url": 'http://*****',
                        "ref_url": 'http://*****'
                    },
                    function (data) {
                        data = JSON.parse(data);
                        if (data == true) {
                            jQuery('*[data-message="fb_loading"]').removeAttr('data-message').html('Connected!');
                            location.reload();
                        } else {
                            jQuery('*[data-message="fb_loading"]').removeAttr('data-message').html('Connection failed!');
                            setTimeout(function(){
                                location.reload();
                            }, 2000);
                        }
                    }
                );
            });
        } else {
            console.log('something went wrong');
        }
    }, {scope: 'email'});
});

and this is my backend - connection:

$data = array(
        'fb-config' => array(
            'appId'  => FACEBOOK_API_ID,
            'secret' => FACEBOOK_SECRET
        )
    );

    $this->load->library('facebook', $data['fb-config']);
    $data['userData'] = $this->facebook->getUser();

    if ( $data['userData'] ) {
        try {
            $data['user_profile'] = $this->facebook->api('/me');
        } catch (FacebookApiException $e) {
            $data['user_profile'] = null; // return false, execution terminated.
            $this->facebook->destroySession();
        }
    }

$this->session->set_userdata(array('user_fb_token' => $this->facebook->getAccessToken()));
            print_r($this->users_model->getUserFacebookFriends());
            exit;

and method to get friends:

public function getUserFacebookFriends()
{
    // get facebook friends (crawl)
    $graph_link = 'https://graph.facebook.com/me/friends?fields=gender,id,name&access_token=';
    $user_friends = file_get_contents($graph_link . $this->session->userdata('user_fb_token'));

    $friendsArray = json_decode($user_friends, true);

    if ( is_array($friendsArray) ) {
        $data = array('friendsArray' => $friendsArray['data']);
    } else {
        $data = array('friendsArray' => FALSE);
    }

    return $data;
}

so I have no idea why this is not working, any suggestions?

Answer 1

I had the same issue. You can use FQL to get a list of friends. BUT FQL is deprecated and I think will be disabled in 2-3 months. With v2.0+, after privacy politics change, you can get only list of friends which already installed your app (they gave permissions to your app). In general, before v2.0 according to privacy, user was responsible for own account and friends accounts. After v2.0, user responsible only for own profile.

With v2.0 you can collect only list of friends to recommend them your app, so you have to change the way of promotion your app to collect friends profiles.

FQL documentation

The request looks like:

GET /fql?q=SELECT+uid2+FROM+friend+WHERE+uid1=me()&access_token=...

query can be modified of course, like this (you can add/remove fields and even add subquery):

SELECT+uid,+name,+first_name,+last_name,+pic_big,+birthday_date,+sex,+locale+FROM+user+WHERE+uid+IN+(SELECT+uid2+FROM+friend+WHERE+uid1=me())

BUT your account/application must be registered in 2014 year (I hope I'm correct, but you can check in documentation)

Answer 2

The result is correct. Since v2.0, you can only get friends who authorized your App too: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/apps/changelog

This is most likely the question that gets asked the most on stackoverflow, please use the search options (google, stackoverflow) before asking. A very detailed answer is in this thread, for example: Facebook Graph Api v2.0+ - /me/friends returns empty, or only friends who also use my app