Not Again! FaceBook Stopped Importing
This is an update to a previous post on the topic of FaceBook external Blog importing that keeps rearing its ugly head. Once again FaceBook has stopped importing my WordPress feeds on valid URLs that up until last week worked seamlessly. I don’t know about you but this is getting pretty old. As you know this is not the first time this has happened.
Trying the solution below that orginally worked, no longer does. When I try to import valid feed URLs I get:
“Import Failed. We couldn’t find a feed using the URL you provided.”
These are the very same and valid URLs that were working week before last — and just stopped.
When I had the WordPress Socialite plugin in place, I was getting duplicates to my wall — one from FaceBook, one from Socialite. And, according to the WordPress Plugin Repository, this plugin is “broken” and author of this plugin is MIA…
I’ve played and tested for the past week and cannot find a work around — other than manually adding new “notes.” Has anyone else run into this? Any solutions out there? Let me know!
At your service,
Judith
Previous post/solution 05/2010:
I’ve had this happen several times. My WordPress feed just stops importing into my FaceBook Business Page. Nothing changes on my side so it is always a mystery as to what causes this to happen.
I then proceed to search the wonderful FaceBook “Help” area to see if there are any known issues to only find others with the same problem — but little, if any, support or solutions. That’s not to say the answers are not there buried within all the user’s calls for help. Anyone who has tried to use the FaceBook help area can attest to how frustrating it can be to get the answers you seek.
The most recent occurrence of this anomaly was when FaceBook changed from users being a “Fan” to “Like”. Instead of being a fan of anything, you now can show you like something. Tons of users were all wondering why FaceBook when from “Become a Fan” to “Like” as well as why their feeds stopped importing.
Why did “Become a Fan” change to “Like”?
“To improve your experience and promote consistency across the site, we’ve changed the language for Pages from “Fan” to “Like.” We believe this change offers you a more light-weight and standard way to connect with people, things and topics in which you are interested.”
Ohhh-kaaay. That’s the type of clarity you will also find when you have a problem using FaceBook or the system hiccups and you navigate to the help area!
So, I started “playing”. What I found was that by canceling my import and reimporting my WordPress Blog feed, Bingo!, all my missing recent posts magically appeared and the issue seems to be resolved.
Here’s what you do…
- Login to FaceBook
- Go to your Business Page — Click on Ads and Pages in the left sidebar
- Click on View Page
- Click on the Notes Tab
- Click on Write a New Note
- Click on the mini Notes icon top right
- Click on edit note settings in the Notes Settings box
- Click on Stop Importing.
Now we’re going to re-add your feed…
- On the next screen type in your feed URL which for most WordPress Blogs/Sites is http://www.your-domain.com/feed/
- On the next screen click CONFIRM IMPORT.
And that should get your feed back up and running with your most recent posts.
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I did the same (Stop importing, then re-entering the feed):
but Facebook stopped importing again my blog posts!
Hey, Paulo:
I’ll keep digging and see what I can find out about this… Stay tuned! ;-)
Judith, I experienced this issue half a year ago, and did what you mentioned in your entries. I’m looking for an alternative though since this will make notes that I imported already appear twice
Same problem here. I will stay tuned to see if a solution appears. Thanks for the helpful blog.
Hey, Susan:
I’ve sent several mails to FB and am keeping an eye on any “solutions” in their unogranized “help” area. If I get any new info, I’ll post here for sure!
Hey, Soony:
That started happening with my feeds as well…. Sheesh what a pain! And I can see this is a problem that many are dealing with. I wonder why FB doesn’t have a more user-friendly help area or knowledge base? At least a “known issues” area that is front and center so folks know they know about some of these type of issues.
But hey, you get what you pay for, right? ;-) Stay tuned…
i dont find the 6 th point you mentioned here in facebook
Hello…
It’s there… it is the 5th icon to the right of the word *Edit* and looks like a mini note pad… HTH!
Here’s the latest… FB is now recognizing my feeds (instead of claiming no feed at that location), then when I click the CONFIRM button — error message:
Sorry, something went wrong.
We’re working on getting this fixed as soon as we can.
Having a hard time believing why importing RSS feeds is so darned difficult and inconsistent on FB…
For those of you who used to rely on the now non-functional Socialite WordPress plug-in, I’ve found a really good alternative called Twitterfeed. One plus, right off the bat, is that it isn’t a plug-in. This means no added code bloat and it’s usable by any type of blog, not just WordPress.
It works by registering with Twitterfeed, adding your RSS feed address, then choosing which accounts you would like to automatically update. Currently, Twitter, Statusnet, Ping.fm, Hellotxt and Facebook are offered.
Update frequency, content, sorting and prefixes and suffixes are configurable in the advanced settings and it even allows keyword filtering, so that only posts that contain the keywords you specify get posted.
I’m just now adopting the service so I can’t say that it’s the bees knees just yet, but my initial impression is very positive. Hope this helps someone suffering from Socialite withdrawals.
Hey, Ben:
Thanks for stopping by and the tip! Definitely going to check that option out…. Sounds almost too good to be true. ;-)
Great site you have there — just subbed!
Hi Judith,
Just thought I’d give you an update about how I’m getting on with Twitterfeed. It seems to be working fine after about a week of use. I’ve had the notorious “import failed” message in the Twitterfeed status area for Facebook a couple of times, but it just re-attempts to repost after a predetermined amount of time, which resolved the issue both times that I’ve experienced it.
That said, I’m also taking a look at a similar product called ‘Hootsuite.’ It supports updates to: Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Ping.fm, WordPress, MySpace and Foursquare. It also seems to have way more configurability than Twitterfeed. Can’t wait to try it out!
Take care!
Hey, Ben:
Thanks for your update… I’m not having much luck with TwitterFeed. Not posting to Twitter for Facebook.
Facebook was importing just fine then stopped. Still as of today, my valid/validated feeds cannot be imported:
“Import Failed
We couldn’t find a feed using the URL you provided.”
What!?1?
I did use HootSuite for awhile — that was some time ago and don’t remember why I didn’t stick with it.
I’ll post here if I find anything interesting on this front too!
Not sure if you’ll want to spend the time tinkering with Twitterfeed anymore considering your results, but when I got that error I went to the dashboard and did a manual update by clicking the “Check now” link. It took a couple of times, but eventually seemed to make things go through.
Sigh… Why can’t stuff just work, eh?
Hey, Ben…
Will give that a whirl — thanks! FB is simply not user-friendly and gets under my skin… But, hey, if everything just worked, what fun would that be! ;-)
So, Twitterfeed just released a notice concerning problems posting to Facebook pages:
http://blog.twitterfeed.com/post/1425649206/temporary-problem-posting-to-facebook-pages
I may not be experiencing the issue because I am posting directly to my Wall.
FYI
Hey, Ben…
I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy! I have e-mailed Faceybook more times than I can count about this since before the start of this post with only automated responses to show for it. Thanks for the update! ;-)
Just saw this on Twitterfeed’s blog concerning the Facebook page posting issue:
UPDATE: Facebook issues appear to be fixed, we’ve tested this locally and would like to encourage you to log in and test it yourself as well. More here: http://bugs.developers.facebook.net/show_bug.cgi?id=13185
UPDATE 2: If you’re still having trouble check out our GetSatisfaction forum for how to fix: http://bit.ly/dsOjci
Hey, Ben:
Saw that too and am still getting mixed results… Some feeds are posting, others are not. I am going to play around today and see what’s up with the feeds that are still not posting and let everyone know what I find out. What I do know is it shouldn’t be this difficult! :-(
I’ve also had problems with my feed randomly no longer importing to Facebook. It is certainly not a WordPress issue, either, as I had the same issue cropping up on my original blog system. I recently transferred to using WordPress and am still having the same issues you are – the feed disappears from the Edit Import page whenever I check and attempting to add it again gives me error.
It’s a nice idea for those who don’t use RSS but want to know when I make new posts, so I hope Facebook can clear up the issue.
Hey, Mark:
I am now using TwitterFeed and it seems they have worked diligently to resolve the FaceBook connectivity issues. Give it a try — so far, so good!
Thanks for stopping by!
On November 3rd the same thing happened to me — it stopped importing my blog. When I deleted and recreated the import link it tells me “We couldn’t find a feed using the URL you provided”. I’ve tried this from a couple of different browsers as well.
So yeah, it’s still broken.
Hey, Jeff:
Thanks for stopping by!
I feel your pain! I have one site that TwitterFeed imports to FaceBook just fine — this site — broken again. Every time I login to TwitterFeed the FB icon is deactivated. I’ve gone through all the troubleshooting tips/resources I can find to no avail. My feed is validated and is where I say it is.
I just wish FB was more user-friendly in this regard. Of course, I will post here if I find a solution…. Others are invited to do so as well!