https://graph.facebook.com/me/albums sometimes returns nothing

Question

I've been experimenting with the Facebook API using the Javascript SDK. Whenever I'm logged into Facebook I can pretty reliably call:

function init() {
    // Called after loading the Facebook SDK
    FB.api("/me", function(response) {
        console.log(response.first_name); // "John" (always works)
    });
}

But I also want to get a users photo albums (when they click a link) and for some reason this call only works intermittently:

$(document).ready(function) {

    $("#get-albums-link").click(function() {
        var accessToken = "456"; // Just an example
        FB.api("/me/albums?access_token=" + accessToken, function(response) {
            console.log(response); // An empty object about 40% of the time
        });
    });

});

When this happens I can open up a new tab and verify that even direct queries return this same empty result (note that although this could be an authorizations issue, there is no obvious indication that it is; it is simply an empty JSON object):

<!-- An HTTPS GET at https://graph.facebook.com/me/albums?access_token=456 -->
{
   "data": [

   ]
}

Answer 1

As Felipe pointed out above, the access token can be the issue, as not having permissions set will return {"data":[]}. Try it yourself: https://developers.facebook.com/tools/explorer/?method=GET&path=me%2Falbums

Also, even if it is a valid auth_token, the SDK doesn't require one, so don't use it. You might end up with something like graph.facebook.com/me/albums?access_token=123423&access_token=981234 (second access token added by SDK). I, personally, don't know how the FB.api function is built, but just follow the docs: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/javascript/FB.api/

Let me know if you still have issues.