Facebook is sending out new “Developer Alert: App Review requirement for pages_show_list” emails.

Yes, SNAP does use pages_show_list permission to show the list of pages in the dropdown “Where to post” selection.

The good news is you don’t need to do anything.  Facebook says that if you already approved for manage_pages, you don’t need a separate approval for pages_show_list

manage_pages is a main permission required for SNAP, so if you are already using SNAP, you already approved for it.

Facebook is rolling out new (and removing old) design this month (Sept 2020). It looks like a lot of underlining changes are involved in this process. Sometimes those changes are breaking SNAP functionality. Basically every day something gets broken. We are fixing things and accommodating Facebook changes as fast as we can, so please bear with us. It looks like until Facebook finishes the transition to the new design troubles with autoposting there will continue.

So far sessions stopped working couple times, shared links got missing, images posted to the groups got removed, posting to personal profiles got broken, shared links previews got either completely or partially missing, etc..

We are working on all those issues non-stop, so please make sure you have the latest plugin and API installed. Sometimes we are making 2-3 API releases per day, so please update and check before opening a ticket, your issue might be solved already.

UPDATE (Sept 11, 2020): Most of the issues associated with New Facebook Design were resolved in the API version 4.5.1. Connection with session, postings to Profiles, Pages and Groups as well as “Comments import” should be working now.  Please go to the Help/Support page in the plugin and click “[Check for API Update]”.

LinkedIn just made some major changes to its native API.

1. Version 1 of LinkedIn API was depreciated
   
2. Ability to post to company pages was moved to Marketing API. Access to Marketing API requires additional review/approval from LinkedIn.
3. New app permission w_member_social replaced w_share.

What does it mean for you? What should you do?

1. First of all, update plugin. SNAP version 4.3.6 is fully compatible with all those changes. Earlier versions will give errors like “This resource is no longer available under v1 APIs”.
2. If you were using V1 API, plugin will automatically upgrade you to V2.
3. No matter what API version you were using, you need to re-authorize the plugin. Since posting permission name changed from w_share to w_member_social, you need a new authorization.

If you already approved for “Marketing API” click “Authorize Your Linked In Account (with Marketing API)” otherwise click “Authorize Your Linked In Account (without Marketing API)” and follow the authorization wizard.

4. If you need to autopost to company page, you need to go t your app on https://www.linkedin.com/developers/ and request an access to Marketing API in the “Products” section. Click “Add More Products” and check “Marketing Developer Platform” there,

You will receive an email with form that you will need to fill and then in several days you will receive an approval for it. After that you can come back to plugin and click “Authorize Your Linked In Account (with Marketing API)”.

Exactly 6 months ago (August 1, 2018) Facebook closed unrestricted access to its official API.

Several hours later they backed down and gave all API users 6 more months to obtain app approvals.

Six months passed and, as promised, today (February 1, 2019) they closed unrestricted access to its official API again. Looks like this time it will stay closed. From now on, only approved apps will be able to autopost.

If you try to post to Facebook with unapproved app you will get this error:

There are two options.

1. Get your app reviewed and approved for auto-posting.
2. Get NextScripts Premium API that is not using Facebook official API and does not require any reviews and approvals.

More info about what happened with Facebook.

As promised earlier, yesterday Facebook disabled all unapproved apps. We are guessing they received several billion complains right after that. That forced Facebook to back down a little bit.

Facebook just sent this to all app developers:

Today, August 1, is the deadline for apps to begin this app review and maintain access to the Pages API, Groups API and extended permissions for Facebook Login. We are enforcing this deadline by shutting off access to the APIs above for those apps that are inactive (have not made Graph API calls in the last 28 days as of July 31). This means, if you want to maintain your API access, please submit for app review through your app dashboard.

To avoid disruption, apps that are considered active (have called the Graph API in the last 28 days) will not be deactivated. Instead, we have decided to proactively enroll these active apps into the app review process in the coming weeks. Developers will be notified if the app review team needs additional information to complete the app review process. Any notifications will be sent within your app dashboard and via email, please check there for additional guidance on the actions you need to take.

All active, but still unapproved apps that were suspended yesterday were re-activated. SNAP works fine with such apps. 

API 4.3.9 adds NextScripts Premium API for Facebook.

You can download new API files from https://www.nextscripts.com/mypage

That was inevitable and it finally happened. Facebook officially closed unrestricted access to its API.

90-Day Breaking Changes

All Apps

• Public Mode — Apps in public mode no longer allow their admins, developers, or testers to access permissions or features that normally require app review. This affects all apps built after May 1st, 2018, immediately. Apps built before then will not be affected until August 1st, 2018.

This is exactly what SNAP was using for the last 6 years. App admins were able to post to their own profiles, pages and groups without any app review and approval from Facebook. Facebook just put an end to that. All apps created on or after May 1st 2018 require app review and approval to be able to post. All apps created before May 1st 2018 will stop working on August 1, 2018.

Now What? / What’s next?

Three things.
1. We already made our own alternative API library for Facebook that does not depend of its native API and its issues. It’s not free, but it’s very easy to setup and use and it works. SNAP Premium API for Facebook
2. SNAP was always based on the idea of making 100% white-labeled posts. We never wanted to act like a middleman between you and your accounts. You sites post directly to your accounts using your own apps. Now we will investigate the possibility of creating a service that will act as a middleman. We are not sure Facebook will agree to that, but we will try.
3. Facebook reviewed and approved apps should be working fine with existing plugin code. We will try to submit several apps to Facebook for review and we will see if Facebook approves them. If they do, we will create a guide and update our instructions.

How to check if my app was created before or after May 1st, 2018?

All API 3.0 Apps (created on or after May 1st, 2018) just show this error during the authorization:

and this error on attempts to post:

[Error] => (#200) Requires either publish_actions permission, or manage_pages and publish_pages as an admin with sufficient administrative permission

You can also open your App Setting -> Advanced page and look at the version. If it says 3.0, your app will not work without review and approval.

Since everyone is worried about GDPR Compliance this days….

SNAP WordPress Plugin is 100% GDPR compliant.

SNAP does not collect any visitor’s data.
SNAP does not collect any admin’s data automatically.
SNAP does not set any cookies.

SNAP does collect some admin’s or authorized user’s account data entered manually by admin or user.
Admins/Users can see all of their data on the “Accounts” page. Data is encrypted (where necessary) and stored in the WordPress Database.
Button that allow admin/user to download all his/her data is located in the “Accounts” page.
Button that allow admin/user to delete all his/her data is located in the “Help/Support” page.

it looks like another free native API is biting the dust.  Joining the trend from Xing, Scoop.it and Facebook image sharing website 500px is shutting down its API.

Letter from 500px

Shutting down API access

In January, we removed public access to our API. 500px has always fostered creativity with technology, but due to shifting business priorities, we’ve now decided to shut down the API completely. This decision is part of a larger strategic shift—focusing our energy on continuing to build the world’s best photography community at 500px.com, as well as strengthening our asset protection and improving our site’s performance.

As of June 15, we’ll be shutting down all access to the API, which means you will no longer be able to use it to pull images or data.

We will consider the possibility of creating our own API for 500px.

Original NextScripts Premium API for Facebook came out only with support for autoposting to Groups. Today we are releasing full featured API.

• Autoposting to profiles.
• Autoposting to pages (All types). If you are an admin of the page, posts will be made as “page name”.
• Autoposting to groups (All types).
• Comments import.

Available today as Beta to all active Premium API subscribers and prepaid users. Please update SNAP plugin to version 4.2.3, API to version 4.3.6 and SNAP Upgrade helper to version 1.5.5.

If you still don’t have NextScripts SNAP Premium API for WordPress you can get it here: SNAP Premium API