Facebook Graph API post with attachment not showing on News Feed

Question

I tried a number of methods of posting to Facebook using Graph API and I have a problem with creating a post with attachments not showing up in the News Feed.

If I post just a text message, it shows up in the News Feed. Anything that has an attachment goes only to the wall.

Does anyone have an idea on what is the cause of this and how to fix it?

Answer 1

I know this is an old post but I was having the same issue and I resolved it. Since there wasn't a valid answer to this post and it came up in many of my searches in Google I thought I would add the answer.

The main issue that is happening here is a permissions issue with the App and Access Token created in https://developers.facebook.com.

You can both GET and POST attachements on a wall but you have to give the Users Access Token the permission to access it in the first place. You can do it like this.

1. Go to your application on FB

2. Click on Graph API Explore

3. Click on Get User Access Token

4. Click on user_photos and user_videos There are many options here but to get the basic attachements which tend to be photos and video you can just select those two, but you can add as many as you want.

After clicking Get Access Token at the bottom to save it you have to login with your password then give your access toke permission for your account. Once you have done that you now how permission to access your feed attachements (photos and videos)

Here is what the Graph API output looks like showing the picture from the feed

Now keep this in mind this is a Short Lived Access Token which lasts about an hour and it will stop working. You have to convert this token to a permanent token and let me save you the time you will bang your head trying to figure that out because I wrote a php function that will generate your permanent token from your short lived token all in one shot for v2.9

Check out my post reply here facebook: permanent Page Access Token?

Answer 2

I think it's because you're adding attachement or a link to your feed.

As per http://developers.facebook.com/docs/fbjs/streamPublish/

they say :

Updating a User's Status

You can use this method to simply update a user's status. When you do so, the status message appears at the top of the user's profile and on the Friends > Status Updates page. The message also appears in the stream with your application icon.

To use this method to set a user's status do the following:

* Do not include an attachment or action link. If you do, the story will get published and will appear in the stream and on the user's Wall only. It won't appear at the top of the profile or in the Status Updates page.
* Make sure the message is no longer than 420 characters. Otherwise, an error gets returned.

Answer 3

I have no idea what was the cause of the issue, but I resolved it by creating a new Facebook App, with new ID. The same scripts that only posted to the wall started posting to the news feed on the new App ID.