Question

i need to extend my facebook access token, I’m calling this:

https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token? 
client_id={MY PAGE ID}&
client_secret={THE SECRET KEY OF MY APP}&
grant_type=fb_exchange_token&
fb_exchange_token={AN ACCESS TOKEN FOR MY PAGE}

and I’m getting this error:

   "error": {
      "message": "Error validating application. Cannot get application info due to a system error.",
      "type": "OAuthException",
      "code": 101
   }

I’ve seen a lot of problem with that access_token, but none answer relative to pages, idk why facebook use api that why… but is the way…

Thank you,

Answer 1

To get a long-lived access token you need to follow those steps:

1. Create an Application
2. Create a Page (your account need to be “administrator” of the page)

3. Associate the application to the Page (the same way you do it when you want to add a Page Tab to a Page)

   http://facebook.com/add.php?api_key=*YOUR_APP_ID*&pages=1&page=*YOUR_PAGE_ID*
   

4. Get a short-lived access token with the permission “manage_pages” associated to your Application.

   https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/authorize?client_id=__APP_ID__&scope=manage_pages&redirect_uri=http://www.facebook.com/connect/login_success.html
   then
   https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token?client_id=__APP_ID__&redirect_uri=http://www.facebook.com/connect/login_success.html&client_secret=__APP_SECRET__&code=__CODE_FROM_PREVIOUS_REQUEST__
   

5. Using the Graph API Explorer with the request /me/accounts you can see the access tokens for each Pages that you are administrator. The problem is that those access token are short-lived.

6. Convert your short-lived access token to a long-lived (extending access token):

   https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token?client_id=_APP_ID_&client_secret=_APP_SECRET_&grant_type=fb_exchange_token&fb_exchange_token=_ACCESS_TOKEN_ON_STEP_4_
   

7. You can now test your new access token with the Access Token Debugger.