Error validating access token: Session has expired at unix time

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Implication of Facebook offline_access deprecation

I am posting this problem here because I couldn't find an answer anywhere for my specific case.

I have created a server-side PHP app that posts/showcases automatically on our FB fan page every week a link to one of our products, randomly.

This script has worked great until 10 days ago, now we get the following error when we call the script manually:

Fatal error: Uncaught OAuthException: Error validating access token: Session has expired at unix time 1355862507. The current unix time is 1356217401. thrown in /home/webadmin/virtualsheetmusic.com/html/facebook/API/base_facebook.php on line 1249

Now, I have figured out that the problem is in the passed access_token, but I can't find out how to generate a new one in the format I am using with this application.

Here is the token format we have been using so far:

$fanpagetoken = '<REMOVED ACCESS TOKEN FROM TEXT>';

And here is the PHP code we are using for posting on our wall:

    #Define vars...
$day = strtotime($today);
$day = date("l, F j, Y", $day);

$deadline = strtotime("+1 week");
$deadline = date("l, F j, Y", $deadline);

// Create our Application instance (replace this with your appId and secret).


$facebook = new Facebook(array(
  'appId'  => $appid,
  'secret' => $secret,
));



$attachment = array(
                    'access_token' => $fanpagetoken,

                    'message' => "Sheet Music Showcase for ".$day.":",
                    'name' => $headline,
                    'caption' => "Showcase Expiration: $deadline",
                    'link' => 'http://www.ourwebsite.com/s/'.$createsession,
                    'description' => 'View the complete high quality PDF sheet music file, listen to related audio files and more!',
                    'picture' => 'http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/images/icons/new_downloadsHome/'.$mainid.'.gif',
                    'actions' => array(array('name' => 'Learn more...', 
                                      'link' => 'http://www.virtualsheetmusic.com/s/'.$createsession))
                    );


$result = $facebook->api('/oursitefanpage/feed/',
                            'post',
                            $attachment);

How to generate a new token in that format?

Any help is very welcome!

Thank you in advance for any thoughts

Best, Fab.

Solution

You can have a never expiring token for your fan page. Follow the simple steps:

1. Get the admin's(i.e. yours) extended token (2 months validity). Go though the link to get the extended token. Works with perfection:

   How to extend access token validity since offline_access deprecation

2. Using this token, Get the list of pages/apps-

   $facebook->api("/USER_ID/accounts"); 
   

3. Get the never expiring access token for any page-

   $facebook->api("/PAGE_ID?fields=access_token");
   

(You can use Facebook's Debug Tool to check the validity of the token.)

Comments

[Fabrizio Ferrari]

Thank you for your answer, but looks like I am having problems right at your suggested first step.

[Fabrizio Ferrari]

I have tried to call the extended access token with: $facebook = new Facebook(array( 'appId' => $appid, 'secret' => $secret, )); $exttk = $facebook->getExtendedAccessToken(); After adding the function to the Facebook class, but I don't get back anything inside the $exttk variable... any ideas? Thanks!

[Sahil Mittal]

There must be some error in your code. Btw, you can check directly by running this in your browser: graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token? grant_type=fb_exchange_token& client_id=APP_ID& client_secret=APP_SECRET& fb_exchange_token=SHORT_LIVED_ACCESS_TOKEN

[Sahil Mittal]

exchange APP_ID, APP_SECRET and SHORT_LIVED_ACCESS_TOKEN carefully!