Upload images to a specific Facebook Album

Question

I can create an album using facebook graph api by posting data to

http://graph.facebook.com/ALBUM_ID/albums

it returns an id, which is not the album id.

I confirmed it in two ways

1. by going to that album, aid is different than what id i received
2. and by posting http://graph.facebook.com/{ALBUM_ID_I_RECIEVED}/photos, but the photo is never published to newly created album instead it is published to a default application album.

I need to know the real album id so that i can upload images to newly created album.

Answer 1

The new php-sdk is working just fine, I've just tested it and here are my comments:

1.Make sure you have the right extended permission which is publish_stream for both Album creation and Photo upload.

2.After creating the Album using the below code, you'll receive the Album ID:

$post_data = array(
    'name'=>"My Test Album",
    'description'=>"My Test Album Desc"
    );
$data['album'] = $this->facebook->api("/me/albums", 'post', $post_data);  

P.S: I confirm this ID is NOT the ID you see when browsing Facebook

3.Now we need to upload the image with the Album "reference" ID you got:

$file = FCPATH . "assets/img/small1.jpg";
$post_data = array(
    "message" => "My photo caption",
    "source" => '@' . realpath($file)
);
$album_id = "473425002142";
$data['photo'] = $this->facebook->api("/$album_id/photos", 'post', $post_data);  

P.S: the Constant FCPATH is a Codeigniter constant, you can you $_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'] or whatever method you are comfortable with.

And the result:

Answer 2

I have actually faced the exact same problem, but with Events. What happens is Facebook does not return the actual event ID (in your case, the Album ID), but instead there's a small offset (with a maximum of 10). So, here's the workflow you need to follow (in order to make it work!):

1. Publish the album. Save the returned (fake) album id, fb_aid in your database.
2. Query for all published albums of the current FB-logged-in user.
3. Loop through the list of returned albums.
4. Identify the actual album id as follows by testing if the offset is < 10.
5. Save actual album id in the database.

---

$fbAlbums = $this->facebook->api(array('method' => 'photos.getalbums'));
$myAlbums = $this->Album->find('all');
for ($i = 0; $i < count($fbAlbums); ++$i) {    
    foreach ($myAlbums as $myAlbum) {
        $aidOffset = abs($fbAlbums[$i]['aid'] - $myAlbum['Album']['fb_aid']);
        if ($aidOffset != 0     // Prevents fixing an already fixed album id
            && $aidOffset < 10  // Checks if this is a FB ID Screw up
           ) {
            $myAlbum['Album']['fb_aid'] = $fbAlbums[$i]['aid'];
            $this->Album->save($myAlbum);
            break; // Little optimization
        }
    }
 }

Now your database has updated album IDs. Hurray! Developer: 1. Facebook API: 0.

I know it's not pretty. I know there are so many potential problems with it. But it gets the job done until Facebook cares enough to fix its API.