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Corrupted cache issue with SNAP Pro.
What happened?
SNAP Pro is checking for API update every 6 hours. Today (May 22, 2019) around 6:30PM EST Google Cloud messed our update server for about 7 minutes. A bunch of “lucky” sites that were checking for update during those 7 minutes got their plugin cache corrupted.
The corrupted cache issue comes with “expecting end of file” or ” Your Site is Experiencing a Technical Issue” error message.
How to fix it?
Please go to your WordPress database and delete option with the name “__plugins_cache_242” from your wp_options table.
Something like
DELETE FROM wp_options WHERE option_name='__plugins_cache_242';
Just please replace wp_options with your actual WP Options table name.
*** You might need to re-enter your activation key after that.
PS: We are working on the solution that will prevent problems like this in a future.
UPDATE:
It looks like under WP multisite network environment WP is keeping cache in the wp_sitemeta table. So if you are running WP multisite your fix would be:
DELETE FROM wp_sitemeta WHERE meta_key='__plugins_cache_242';
Support for “Google My Business” is coming soon…
Support for “Google My Business” is coming this fall.
Google recently made some kind of blog-a-like functionality available for local business listings. As a local business owner you can add posts, events, offers as well as products to your business listing. Although you must have a confirmed “Google My Business” listing we got a lot of requests for this functionality to be added to SNAP.
Google has some kind of officiall native API for “Google My Business”. However it is limited in functionality and it is almost impossible to get an access to it.
We made our own API and we are currently testing it. Next release of SNAP will support an ability to make posts (with image and link). Posting of events, offers and products will follow later.
Facebook app review
We are getting a lot of questions about upcoming deadline for Facebook app review. People are asking what should we do. The honest answer would be: “No one has any idea”.
We submitted several apps for Facebook review using different ways of describing and explaining of what SNAP does. All our submissions are still pending.
The guide below is the simplest submission we made. You can use it as a reference for your own.
What permissions does SNAP need?
SNAP needs only manage_pages and publish_pages for posting to pages and publish_to_groups for groups.
How to prepare?
1. Create test user
Facebook: A member of our review team will test how your app uses manage_pages.
Create a new WordPress user with admin privileges. For example fbtempadmin.
2. Create a screencast.
Facebook: We need to see your app using manage_pages so we can see that it doesn’t violate our policies. Upload a video screencast walkthrough using any method, (even recording with your phone).
Please make a screencast of the process how newly post published blogpost automatically appear on Facebook page. You can use any software that can record your screen activity. We use TinyTake from Mango Apps. It’s free.
Here is an example of the screencast we made:
How to apply?
1. Please go to https://developers.facebook.com/apps and click on your app.
If you still didn’t do that please go to Settings->Basic and upload 1024×1024 “App Icon” and chose “Support my own business” in the “Business Use” section.
Click on “App Review” in the left menu. Click “Start a Submission” button.
2. Select manage_pages and publish_pages for posting to pages and publish_to_groups if you need groups.
3. Click “Add Details” for each item. Fill the form.
Step by Step Instructions:
Only I will use the app. No other people ever will see or use the app.
Please see the secreencast for the demo of this process…
1. Login to MyWebSiteURL.com WP Admin panel as an Admin. (Login URL: https://www.MyWebSiteURL.com/wp-admin Username: fbtempadmin Password: **************** )
2. Create new blog post.
3. Fill message format in the Autopost to Facebook section
4. Publish Blogpost.
5. Content from Facebook “Message format” field will appear on the “My Page Name” Facebook Page along with shared link to the newly created blogpost.That’s it. App won’t be used for any other purpose. I will be only user for this app. App will not read any data from Facebook. All content published through the app can be fully customized before publishing.
4. Upload screencast.
5. Repeat this for all other items.
6. Click “Submit for review”.
We will update this page once if we get any news regarding submission process. Once we get an approval, this page will be moved to tutorials.
What happened with Facebook
What happened with Facebook?
Facebook made changes to it’s API access policy on May 1st, 2018. As the result we introduced our own Premium API for Facebook. We feel that we need to explain how exactly those changes affected SNAP.
Since the beginning Facebook native API was unrestricted. Anyone with Facebook account can create/setup a Facebook API App and immediately start using it for interaction with Facebook content.
Recently Facebook got in trouble with data leak and privacy issues. All those leaks happened through the API, so Facebook decided to take out “unrestricted” and “immediately” from the API setup process. From now on they want you to explain why you need a Facebook API App and how exactly you are going to use it. If they accept your explanation, they will approve your app and then you will be able to autopost.
From the technical point of view nothing has changed for SNAP. Facebook native API is working exactly the same way as it used to. You are more then welcome to submit your Facebook API App for review and once approved, it will be working with SNAP and you will be able to autopsot to profiles, pages and/or groups. The only difference is that now you need to submit your app for review and wait several weeks before you can start autoposting.
Since many people don’t really want all that “explanation” and “waiting several weeks for approval” hassle we made an alternative API for Facebook. It’s not free, but you can start using it immediately and you don’t need to explain anything.
Instagram issues
Instagram made some very big changes to authentication process. About 70% of our users are affected by them.
Before the changes the process was quite simple:
Sometimes Instagram decided that login from SNAP is “unusual” and asked for confirmation. You just had to open Instagram on your phone and tap “This was me” button on “We have detected an unusual login attempt” screen.
The process become much more complicated now. Instagram is treating different accounts differently. Here is our analysis based on our user data:
- About 30% of accounts are not affected by the change at all. They work as they worked before.
- About 45% of accounts require to enter the code from email or SMS. SNAP supports this type of authentication starting from versions: SNAP Plugin 4.1.1 and SNAP API 4.0.37.
- About 15% of accounts require to enter the code from email or SMS and confirm the “unusual” location from the phone. SNAP supports this type of authentication starting from SNAP API 4.0.42.
You are in this category, if you saw this error:
{“message”: “login_required”, “logout_reason”: 3, “status”: “fail”}
Once you get API 4.0.42 update, SNAP will ask for code confirmation and then you will see the message:
You’ve got checkpoint! Please login to Instagram from your phone and confirm the login or action before trying to post again
Please open Instagram on your phone and confirm the the “unusual” location. SNAP will work fine after that.
- About 10% of accounts got demoted to the lowest trust status. You are here if you got an infinite loop of confirmations or empty errors. “Infinite loop” means that once you are successfully passed either code confirmation, you immediately asked to do that again. Please do not confuse “code infinite loop” that you might get with SNAP Plugin 4.1.1 and SNAP API 4.0.42 with “unusual” location infinite loop that almost everyone got before SNAP Plugin 4.1.1 and SNAP API 4.0.37.
There are two reasons for this: Your IP belongs to the hosting provider with the big number of abuse complains and/or your account got a lot of spam or abuse complains. About half of the accounts affected by “Infinite loop” or empty errors could be recovered using real mobile IPs. This means you MUST confirm your account location from the smartphone connected to the mobile network. Please disable WIFI and login to Instagram from LTE/4G/3G/EDGE network. Alternatively you can try to find “mobile” proxy.
Please see here for more detailed info about all recent Instagram problems: Instagram issues and how to fix them
[Update – February 6, 2018] Instagram made some additional changes to it’s infrastructure Feb 1-5. Those changes were causing some new errors and problems. Please see updated Instagram issues and how to fix them page for the fix instructions.
Are we done?
Instagram was acquired by Facebook 6 years ago. It looks like they finally started integrating Instagram in the Facebook infrastructure. It’s obviously a lot of work and a lot of changes, so new issues could appear or existing fixes could stop working. We will continue to watch the situation and release new updates once necessary.
If you have an issue that is not listed here or one of the fixes is not working, please check the Known Issues before opening a ticket.
Instagram “checkpoint_required” Issue (Fixed) and SNAP Plugin for WordPress Version 4.1.1
Sometimes Instagram decides that login from SNAP is “unusual” and asks for confirmation. Until yesterday, you just had to open Instagram on your phone and tap “This was me” button on “We have detected an unusual login attempt” screen. Yesterday this stopped working. Instagram is still asking you to confirm the login, but confirmation has no effect on the actual login anymore. You are still going to be told that “checkpoint_required” next time you try to use SNAP.
So we had to switch to a different way of Instagram account confirmation. Please update your plugin to the version 4.1.1. When you click “Send test post to Instagram” and Instagram decide that your login is “unusual”, you will be asked to enter the code. Please check your Instagram email or phone message for the code and enter it. SNAP will be working fine with Instagram after that.
How to Fix “checkpoint_required” issue:
1. Make sure you have SNAP Plugin at least version 4.1.1 and API at least version 4.0.37.
2. Go to Instagram account settings and click “Send Test Post” button.
3. Plugin will ask you for a code. “Do not close that window!”. Check your email or phone, get the code, enter it.
4. It will work fine after that.
Update: There are few more issues with Instagram. Please see the status here: Known Issues
== Changelog ==
= 4.1.1 [12/08/2017] =
* New – “SNAP Quick Post” custom post type is now available in reposter.
* Improvement – Better protection against duplicates.
* Improvement/Bug Fix – [Instagram] We have added a different way of dealing with “checkpoint_required” message.
* Bug Fix – [StumbleUpon] “Invalid Token” issue.
You can install it directly from your WP Admin panel or download it from WordPress.org
New Release: SNAP Plugin for WordPress Version 4.1
SNAP for WordPress Version 4.1 has been released. This version adds support for WPML and Polylang in filters and one new network – Messenger Line. It also eliminates the necessity to “Save” WordPress post after making changes to SNAP message format.
== Changelog ==
= 4.1.0 [12/05/2017] =
* New [Beta] – WPML and Polylang support in Filters.
* New Network – Messenger Line (line.me)
* New/Improvement – [Post Edit] – All changes are saved instantly. No more “Please save the post to apply changes”.
* New/Improvement – [Import/Export Accounts] – There are 4 options now – Export All, Export Selected, Import and replace, Import and Merge
* New – [Instagram] “Default Image” field in settings.
* Improvement – PHP 5.3 compatibility. (It still works better on PHP 5.6 and 7+)
* Bug Fix – [Facebook] & instead of & in the “Additional URL Parameters”
* Bug Fix – [Twitter] Option “Dash” has been removed from “Replace spaces in hashtags with …” because Twitter no longer supports dashes in hashtags.
* Several minor bug fixes.
You can install it directly from your WP Admin panel or download it from WordPress.org
New Release: SNAP for WordPress Version 4
SNAP for WordPress Version 4 has been released. This is the biggest SNAP update ever. Almost 100% of the code was re-written.
– New Autoposting Engine. Faster and 180% more efficient engine. It takes less memory and resources to preform autoposting jobs.
– Old Posts Auto-reposting. Automatically post your already existing posts to your social media accounts.
– Filters. Filters allow you to post only specified categories, tags, post types, etc… to each Social Network account.
– Query/Timeline. New dedicated page to see all future jobs – postings, re-postings, scheduled and queried posts.
– New mobile friendly Interface. New interface is easier to use and much more mobile friendly.
– WordPress Multisite Support. SNAP is now WordPress Multisite Network Compatible. Yes, even free and “Pro” versions will work on one site in the WordPress Multisite Environment
Please see here for more details about Version 4: Version 4 Features
You can install it directly from your WP Admin panel or download it from WordPress.org
SNAP WordPress Plugin Version 4 Beta 1
The final release date for the long awaited SNAP WordPress Plugin Version 4 is set for October 1, 2017. The first closed beta version is available today. The first public beta version will be available on August 31, 2017.
Here is the full release schedule:
Version 4 Release Roadmap/Schedule
[Closed Beta Testing]
August 10, 2017 – SNAP WordPress Plugin Version 4 Beta 1
August 17, 2017 – SNAP WordPress Plugin Version 4 Beta 2
August 24, 2017 – SNAP WordPress Plugin Version 4 Beta 3
[Public Beta Testing]
August 31, 2017 – SNAP WordPress Plugin Version 4 Beta 4
September 7, 2017 – SNAP WordPress Plugin Version 4 Beta 5
September 14, 2017 – SNAP WordPress Plugin Version 4 Beta 6 (Release Candidate 1)
September 21, 2017 – SNAP WordPress Plugin Version 4 Beta 7 (Release Candidate 2)
[Final Release]
October 1, 2017 – SNAP WordPress Plugin Version 4.0 (Final Release)
Facebook is dropping support for manual setting of shared/attached links info
Update – July 21, 2017
In order to comply with new Facebook API, ability to manually set “shared link info” has been removed from SNAP Version 3.8.6. Also SNAP implementation of OG tags has been improved a bit, but we are still recommending to use more powerful solutions.
Here is the Facebook announcement – API Change Log: Modifying Link Previews
Facebook API 2.9 update came with deprecation of support for manual setting info of shared/attached links – Facebook API 2.9 Changelog
This is exactly the part of the Facebook API SNAP was using to set shared/attached links info when “Plugin/API” or “Set your own” option is selected in the “What should fill attachment info” field.
Facebook API 2.9 made those fields 90 days deprecated. That means all apps stopped posting that info on July 18, 2017.
The only option left is “Facebook” that uses OG metatags. Please set your OG metatags correctly. There are dozens of plugins that can do that.
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