restFB post as page step by step working example

Question

I am at my wits end, I cannot seem to post a message as the page, I can post as the admin user to the facebook page but not to the page as the owner itself.

My code is as follows:

String MY_APP_ID = "xxxx";
String MY_APP_SECRET = "xxxx";

AccessToken accessToken = new DefaultFacebookClient().obtainAppAccessToken(MY_APP_ID, MY_APP_SECRET);
DefaultFacebookClient facebookClient = new DefaultFacebookClient(accessToken.getAccessToken());

FacebookType publishMessageResponse = facebookClient.publish("me/feed", FacebookType.class, Parameter.with("message", fbMessage));

fbMessageID = publishMessageResponse.getId();

I believe the code above obtains an App Access Token, but I am getting the following error:

OAuthException: An active access token must be used to query information about the current user.

I have the following permissions set:

publish_actions, manage_pages, publish_stream

If I modify the code as:

FacebookType publishMessageResponse = facebookClient.publish("MYAPPNAME/feed", FacebookType.class, Parameter.with("message", fbMessage));

I get the following error:

OAuthException: (#200) The user hasn't authorized the application to perform this action.

I've read so much on this but can't see the wood for the trees, can somebody explain where I am going wrong and how I can resolve this nightmare.

Any help would be much appreciated :-)

Answer 1

I managed to work it out. Below is a simple class I made to make posts in one of my Pages as the page itself!

Pre-code instructions: Get your Page AccessToken and PageID

1. Go to https://developers.facebook.com/tools/explorer
2. At the GET request form, down there, fill in me/accounts
3. You'll get a Javascript representation of your basic user data. Find the page you want.
4. Note the access_token and id fields, we're going to use them in the code below.

That's it. Now,

Onto the program code!

import com.restfb.DefaultFacebookClient;
import com.restfb.FacebookClient;
import com.restfb.Parameter;
import com.restfb.exception.FacebookException;
import com.restfb.types.FacebookType;
import com.restfb.types.Page;
import com.restfb.types.User;

/**
 *
 * @author dsfounis
 */
public class FacebookConnector {

    /* Variables */
    private final String pageAccessToken = "GET_THIS_FROM_THE_INSTRUCTIONS_ABOVE";
    private final String pageID = "THIS_TOO";
    private FacebookClient fbClient;
    private User myuser = null;    //Store references to your user and page
    private Page mypage = null;    //for later use. In this answer's context, these
                                   //references are useless.
    private int counter = 0;

    public FacebookConnector() {
        try {

            fbClient = new DefaultFacebookClient(pageAccessToken);
            myuser = fbClient.fetchObject("me", User.class);
            mypage = fbClient.fetchObject(pageID, Page.class);
            counter = 0;
        } catch (FacebookException ex) {     //So that you can see what went wrong
            ex.printStackTrace(System.err);  //in case you did anything incorrectly
        }
    }

    public void makeTestPost() {
        fbClient.publish(pageID + "/feed", FacebookType.class, Parameter.with("message", Integer.toString(counter) + ": Hello, facebook World!"));
        counter++;
    }

}

---

Result:

After calling makeTestPost() a few times:

---

Some notes:

I'm pretty sure the pageID could also take a String of your page name, which you can see at the link of your page, when visiting it. http://facebook.com/mypagename, so you could substitute the pageID number with "mypagename".

Another thing: The publish() method used above will fail if the previous post is the exact same as the one you're trying to post now, probably an anti-spam mesaure. This is why I implemented the counter, so I could test it properly. Apart from that restriction, the makeTestPost() passed the Monkey Test.

Finally, my practices may be unoptimal or simplistic, but like yourself I spent hours getting lost in incomplete documentation and information about RestFB.