Topic: Facebook Events not importing into The Events Calendar

Angela · June 7, 2012

I am using The Events Calendar v. 2.0.7 and just purchased/installed the Facebook Events add-on. My calendar at http://viningsfbc.org/events/ does not seem to be importing my Facebook events listed at http://www.facebook.com/ViningsFirstBaptistChurch/events. In WordPress, for the Events Calendar Settings Facebook tab, I left the Facebook App ID and Secret blank (as it is optional), entered the user ID for my Facebook page: ViningsFirstBaptistChurch, chose Published events, Auto Import, Hourly. Nothing imports. I even tried manually importing an event: Import FB Events >> 465677146792304 for the event at http://www.facebook.com/events/465677146792304/. For the attempted manual import I receive the error: Either the event with ID 465677146792304 does not exist, is marked as private on Facebook or we couldn’t reach the Facebook API. It’s a public event, so I don’t know where to go from here. I have disabled all plugins such that I am only running The Events Calendar & The Events Calendar: Facebook Events. I am using WordPress v. 3.3.2 with the theme Modernize 2.04 by Goodlayers, and I hesitate to revert to the 2011 theme. Please advise.

Rob La Gatta · June 11, 2012

Hey there Angela. Thanks for reaching out on this, and my apologies for taking a few days to get you a response here. I also apologize for the inconvenience you’ve faced so far.

Oddly, I was just able to import the three events on Vinnings’ Facebook page to my site without issue: http://d.pr/i/SbAB. I was running The Events Calendar 2.0.7 and the 1.0 version of the FB plugin.

Have you tried this since that initial run, to see if the problem persists with those same 3 events I’ve linked to in my screenshot above? It’s possible there was a momentary hiccup with the Facebook API at the time you tested that could account for this.

Angela · June 14, 2012

Rob, thanks for responding. I’ve been away for a short while, so I’m sorry I didn’t respond sooner. The Facebook Events plugin is still not working for me. Is there a preferred setup of The Events Calendar that could possibly cause the conflict? I’m at my wits end with trying to figure the problem out … with all other plugins disabled, the only thing I can figure is there’s a conflict with my theme. No events import and I continue to get the error about not being able to reach the Facebook API or events are private/nonexistent when I attempt a manual import. Thanks!

Angela · June 14, 2012

I have been debugging the facebook events plugin and come up with the following.

In the-events-calendar-facebook-importer.php:

a sample url (walmart) returned:
https://graph.facebook.com/430181213672761?access_token

in function json_retrieve:
wp_remote_get($url) returns:
WP_Error Object ( [errors] => Array ( [http_request_failed] =>
Array ( [0] => error setting certificate verify locations: CAfile: /usr/share/ssl/certs/ca-bundle.crt CApath: none ) ) [error_data] => Array ( ) )

The original error was in create_local_event():
$facebook_event_id was set, but after a call to get_facebook_object() $facebook_event was not set; isset returned false, causing the displayed error, “Either the event with ID 430181213672761 does not exist, is marked as private on Facebook or we couldn’t reach the Facebook API”

So it looks like there might be some issue with saving the certificate during the wp_remote_get call to fetch the URL. Do you have any idea what could cause this?

Rob La Gatta · June 21, 2012

Thanks for the follow-up here, Angela, and my apologies that it took me a few days to get you a response. This does look to be a legitimate issue and I’ve asked our dev Paul – who runs maintenance for this plugin – to take a look directly. If we can identify an issue we’ll make sure to get a patch deployed for the first monthly maintenance release (which should be out in just a couple weeks).

Thanks for your patience so far and stay tuned for any bits of wisdom Paul may have to share on this.

Paul · June 29, 2012

Hi, Angela;

It does indeed look like something is going wrong with the certificate. Could you try replacing the line that reads `wp_remote_get($url)` with `wp_remote_get($url, array( ‘sslverify’ => false )` and see if that solves your problem? Let us know, and we’ll know better how to proceed from there. Thanks!

Angela · June 29, 2012

I implemented the change, but it didn’t help. I received a new error concerning ‘sslverify’. I’m just not a php person … Do I need to do something else with ‘sslverify’? Here’s the error message that shows on the “Import FB Events Tab” under “Events from Facebook organizations(s) or page(s) you’ve added”: Notice: Use of undefined constant ‘sslverify’ – assumed ‘‘sslverify’’ in /home2/viningsf/public_html/wp-content/plugins/the-events-calendar-facebook-importer/the-events-calendar-facebook-importer.php on line 208. Thanks!!

David · July 7, 2012

I’m having the same issue. One thing I noticed is that under the Import FB Events page, there is no FB page listed even though I’ve added both the ID and the Username (https://www.facebook.com/RiversideCigars).

I created a test installation on my own site and everything works as expected. I can even import Angela’s events.

Just installed on both sites this morning so maybe the problem will correct itself in a few hours.

Rob La Gatta · July 9, 2012

Angela: my apologies for taking until now to get you a response here. I assume you’re still having an issue (let me know if not). This does seem like something that Paul will need to chime in on and I’ve asked him to take another look accordingly.

David: I’m wondering if your issue may be related to something else…when I go to your Facebook page as a logged out user (https://www.facebook.com/RiversideCigars) it redirects me to the Facebook home page. But if I go to any other public Facebook page – take https://www.facebook.com/OffTheGridSF, for example – it brings me to a landing page. Are you sure that Facebook page is entirely public? Let me know and I’ll try to troubleshoot from there. Thanks!

Angela · July 9, 2012

Rob/Paul,
Yes, I’m still having issues. Facebook events just don’t import into the calendar, and when I implemented Paul’s code changes for sslverify, I received the new error regarding an undefined constant. I am soooo looking forward to getting this working, but I just don’t know enough about php to troubleshoot on my own. Thankfully, I don’t have a lot of events to update, but it sure will be nice to only enter them in Facebook and not have to manually update the Events Calendar, as well Thanks for looking into the problem!

David · July 9, 2012

I see now what the problem is, Rob. Riverside Cigars is restricted to 18 and over because it’s tobacco. As a test I changed my FB page from 13 and older to 18 and older and could not see my page listed under Import FB Events. I can reproduce this each time I change the age restrictions on the page.

Thanks for pointing out the lack of access unless signed in. I had checked all the settings, but it never crossed my mind that age restriction would have anything to do with it.

Any chance there’s a workaround for this?

Thanks

alex · July 17, 2012

Hello,
I have the same problem.
http://www.ishevents.org/calendar is linked to the purchased add on for sync facebook events, I have the Facebook App ID set up and entered both the Facebook ID and username for my page https://www.facebook.com/ISHvents.
It’s just not showing on my page.

Rob La Gatta · July 24, 2012

Hi all. Thanks for the follow-ups. On these points:

Angela: I apologize we couldn’t do more here…we’re pretty much out of ideas on our end, but if this changes at all or if you notice any other patterns with this please let us know. We’ll keep releasing these monthly maintenance builds in the interim and hopefully it’ll be ironed out by one of those…

David: the age restriction factor is a solid observation on your end, and my guess is any workaround we tried to implement would be restricted by Facebook’s API. That being said let me get our devs to take a look for a future maintenance release…if we can see a doable workaround, we’ll definitely implement it (but no guarantees).

Alex: I can take a look at the issue for you, definitely. But I’m not quite understanding what the problem is on your site. Can you confirm whether it’s the same problem as Angela, or is it David’s? Let me know and we’ll do what we can to assist. Thanks for your patience so far.

Rob La Gatta · August 6, 2012

David’s diagnosis nailed it, FYI – after having our dev take another look here he confirmed as much. The workaround would be to create your own Facebook App that has its own API codes…

pb · August 24, 2012

I am having the same issue. I created my own FB app but still no luck. any ideas?

Joyce Grace · August 25, 2012

Hello pb, I am making sure Rob will get back to you asap.

In the mean time can you please confirm you’ve done all of the following for him:

1. Are you running the latest version of WordPress?
2. Are you running the latest versions of our plugins (2.0.8)?
3. Have you tried deactivating all other plugins to rule out a conflict?
4. Have you tried reverting to the Twenty Eleven theme to see if it’s something with your theme?
5. Try setting your permalinks to ‘postname’ in Settings > Permalinks?
6. Try refreshing your permalinks by visiting Settings > Permalinks (it does it automatically)?
7. Try increasing the PHP memory for your website: http://www.dailyblogging.org/wordpress/increase-wordpress-memory-limit/?

And just to be sure, you tried to turn off the age restriction on Facebook?

pb · August 25, 2012

Joyce thanks for the reply.
To answer your questions.
1. yes
2. yes Version 2.0.8
3. yes
4. yes
5. yes
6. just did
7. just did – still no luck
no age restriction.
thanks for your help.

Rob La Gatta · August 27, 2012

Hi there pb. I can definitely take a look at this issue for you, though if it’s not one of the situations described above it’ll require some investigation to get to the bottom of it. Investigating this is going to require that I take a look at the backend of the site in question, though. Mind sending an email to pro /a tri.be with a set of admin credentials / a link to this thread / the Facebook API credentials? We won’t change anything on your site beyond attempting to import an event. Mostly this is to see your configuration and try to recreate locally.

Thanks!

pb · August 28, 2012

thank you Rob. I have sent the email with all the info.

Rob La Gatta · August 29, 2012

Thanks PB! Just wanted to give you a heads up that I’ve received your email and will be digging into it / responding today. Joyce, who you began this exchange with above, is unfortunately no longer with us. But I’ll be happy to help get this resolved for you and will be in touch this afternoon once I’ve had time to try and figure this out. Thanks for your patience so far.

Rob La Gatta · August 29, 2012

Hi again Paula. I did some digging into this today and can confirm that something is definitely at play on your site. I see you noted above that you’ve taken the deactivation route for plugins and themes…can you confirm that in doing so you also deactivated your other Facebook-related plugin on there (Facebook Page Photo Gallery)? It does seem likely that a conflict is what’s at play here but if you can confirm on that and it’s still a problem, I will get the lead dev for this plugin to take a look and respond directly.

If you’d also be so kind as to send over a specific event URL to the email you’d exchanged with previously, we’ll try the individual event import route on our end too. Thanks for your patience so far.

pb · September 10, 2012

Hi Rob
that is correct. I disabled all plugins and changed the theme to the default WP theme. Also I tried importing a single event and no luck but here is an event id 187281211405937. thanks for your help.

Rob La Gatta · September 12, 2012

Thanks Paula. Just a heads up that I am seeing this same issue and am looking into it further with the devs; I’m out much of this morning but will be back in touch this afternoon with a suggestion.

Can you confirm, in the interim, that updating to the 1.0.2 build didn’t have any impact? We improved the code quite a bit there so it’s possible this issue was fixed for you with that.

pb · September 12, 2012

Hi Rob
just updated both plugins and still no luck. when I try to upload a single event I get the following error:
“Either the event with ID 114271878723170 does not exist, is marked as private on Facebook or we couldn’t reach the Facebook API”
the event is public. I tried putting in my own App ID and using the default. thanks for your help.

Rob La Gatta · September 12, 2012

Thanks Paula. I’ve recreated your settings pretty much exactly, and weirdly everything related to this account is working fine: both events import without issue (without using the App ID; just plugging in the username on Settings), and I see all the available events to import on the IMPORT FB EVENTS screen.

I’ve asked our dev Paul to take a look, as I’m out of ideas here, and he’ll be replying directly shortly. Please leave the backend credentials you previously provided active while he takes a look (we won’t change anything without asking you first).

If you can, I’d say go ahead and update WordPress + your theme, since I see updates are available for both, and it’d be good to get those current in the off-chance they have bearing here. Thanks again for your continued patience on this. Please let me know what else I can do in the interim.

Rob La Gatta · September 13, 2012

Hi again Paula. After some troubleshooting this morning with our dev – in which he too was able to import your events without issue – we’re of the belief that this is being caused by a server configuration issue. Possibly that the site is blocking remote HTTP requests or something similar. Who is your web host? Do you have a contact there who you can check with to confirm if remote HTTP requests are being processed or blocked?

Rob La Gatta · September 20, 2012

Hey there Paula. Just wanted to follow-up on this one again, as I haven’t heard from you since my post last week. Any thoughts or additional questions arise as a result of that? Let me know if so, and we’ll do what we can to get you what you need.

pb · September 22, 2012

hi Rob my apologies for taking so long to reply. I was in contact with the host and they say they are not blocking HTTP request and are not seeing any errors. his question to me was –Can logging be increased for the plugin in question (debug) ?
I have updated wordpress and the plugins – not sure what to do next??

Rob La Gatta · September 27, 2012

Hey there PB. Thanks for the follow-up; glad to know the host has confirmed that they’re all set here. Did updating to the latest builds – 2.0.9 for The Events Calendar/PRO, and 1.0.2 for Facebook – rectify this at all? Is the behavior still the same even with the new code?

Rob La Gatta · October 8, 2012

Just following up again, PB. Let me know if you need anything else from us on this – if the issue does still persist and we aren’t able to make much progress, please let me know so we can see about getting a refund processed for you. Thanks for your patience so far.

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