Share On

Can no longer post to Facebook Groups - Share On

Can no longer post to Facebook Groups

by shortmort37 » Mon Mar 11, 2024 7:41 pm

I had been using Share On, combined with SEO Metadata, with great success. It allowed me to initiate a post from my Forum to several Facebook Groups of which I am a member, and add commentary. Of course, it permitted me to share with individuals via Messenger as well, or post to my feed.

Quite recently (3/6/24, to be exact), I went to submit a post to a Facebook Group and found that the option was no longer there. Here's what I see now:
SO1.jpg
If I click the "Public" dropdown, I see this:
SO2.jpg
I'm guessing that something changed on the Facebook side of things, but I don't know what - and if it pertains to just my Facebook account, or if it's global. I can copy the link to my Forum post and paste it directly into a post into any of my Facebook Groups, and the FB post reflects the metadata associated with the Forum post - but I can no longer initiate the post to a Group using Share On.

I'm at a loss as to how to diagnose, although I have been poking around for several days now. Any ideas as to why this Facebook option is no longer presented?

Dan
User avatar
shortmort37
Registered User
Posts: 674
Joined: Sat Aug 26, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Upper Darby, PA, USA
Name: Dan Morton

Re: Can no longer post to Facebook Groups

by shortmort37 » Mon Mar 11, 2024 10:03 pm

Hmmm... It seems it might be a global problem: https://developers.facebook.com/communi ... 734639128/

Here's the snippet from the extension that pertains:

Code: Select all

'U_FACEBOOK'	=> 'https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=' . urlencode($topic_title) . '&u=' . urlencode($share_url)
There's nothing about the Facebook API for sharer.php that requests the feature be enabled to select a Group in which to post; so Facebook must have changed something. Has anyone else experienced this change in behavior, using the Share On extension?

Dan
User avatar
shortmort37
Registered User
Posts: 674
Joined: Sat Aug 26, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Upper Darby, PA, USA
Name: Dan Morton

Re: Can no longer post to Facebook Groups

by shortmort37 » Tue Mar 12, 2024 9:25 pm

shortmort37 wrote:Has anyone else experienced this change in behavior, using the Share On extension?
*BUMP*.
User avatar
shortmort37
Registered User
Posts: 674
Joined: Sat Aug 26, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Upper Darby, PA, USA
Name: Dan Morton

Re: Can no longer post to Facebook Groups

by shortmort37 » Fri Mar 15, 2024 7:49 pm

OK, I've made an interesting discovery.

I've been testing with three devices - a Windows 11 desktop PC, with Chrome, Firefox and Edge browsers; an iPad running iOS, with Chrome and Safari browsers; and an iPhone, same OS and browsers as the iPad.

Both the iPad and the desktop PC deliver the same outcome - neither permit you to select a group in which to post. That is, not anymore; this was working, prior to March 7, 2024. I don't know when it stopped.

However: on my iPhone - using either Chrome, or Safari - it still works!
IMG_9453.PNG
If I click in the URL bar at the bottom, it shows "m.facebook.com" - clearly Facebook has recognized the post as coming from a mobile device, and treats it differently. That is to say, Facebook is now treating non-mobile devices differently.

This issue has nothing to do with the extension; Facebook has broken the Share Dialog for desktops and tablets, either inadvertently or intentionally. I've been posting to the Developer Community Forum, but that appears to be a place where issues go to die - Facebook refers you to similar posts, all of which are ancient, all of which have not received a response. I'm not sure how to go about getting this fixed, if it can be fixed.
User avatar
shortmort37
Registered User
Posts: 674
Joined: Sat Aug 26, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Upper Darby, PA, USA
Name: Dan Morton

Re: Can no longer post to Facebook Groups

by shortmort37 » Tue Aug 06, 2024 6:17 pm

An update - I posted this to the Facebook Developer Community Forum, to which Facebook Support now directs you; Facebook's way of ignoring you, since inquiries go there to die.
The issue appears to be related to the "User-Agent" string that the browser reports to www.facebook.com. Here's what I did...

I set up Fiddler on my desktop to act as a proxy to my iPad, so that I could capture web traffic.
I installed iCab for iOS on my iPad, so that I could simulate different devices, i.e., User-Agents.
In turn, I configured iCab with a User-Agent for iPhone, iPad, and Windows 10 desktop, tested and captured the traffic. (I also used Safari on my iPad for the sake of completeness; it reported the same User-Agent string as iCab configured as iPad, and the behavior was the same.)

Here are the three user strings:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 17_5_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/17.5 Mobile/15E148
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (iPad; CPU OS 17_5_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/17.5 Mobile/15E148 Safari/604.1
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/74.0.3729.169 Safari/537.36

The "GET" that was issued to www.facebook.com that was issued in each instance was the same; in each instance, there was a 302 redirect. However, for both the iPad and Win10, the redirect was to the following:
https://www.facebook.com/share_channel/ ... ay&hashtag

In the case of the iPhone, the 302 redirect was to this:
https://m.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.ph ... 4%23p23384

In other words, based on the User-Agent string for an iPhone, the redirect was to m.facebook... instead of www.facebook... - along with a distinction in the parameters that followed.

This change happened on or about March 7, 2024. Prior to this, the behavior was identical on all three devices - in particular, I had the opportunity to share with a Facebook Group on each.
You'll note that in the iPhone redirect, the only parameter required is the URL - the Topic Title is not provided. On a lark, I edited the Facebook row in listener.php to substitute "m." for "www.", and struck the $topic_title component. I got the same result; it apparently still respects the User-Agent that's supplied in the GET.

My next experiment would be to fake an iPhone user agent, as iCab can do; but I presume this would entail building an http block and submitting it. Is there an easy way to do that - or, @_Vinny_, do you have a suggestion?

-Dan
User avatar
shortmort37
Registered User
Posts: 674
Joined: Sat Aug 26, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Upper Darby, PA, USA
Name: Dan Morton

Re: Can no longer post to Facebook Groups

by _Vinny_ » Wed Aug 07, 2024 3:30 pm

I did a test, on the PC I can't share in the group, on the Android phone it is possible, it seems to be something on Facebook
User avatar
_Vinny_
Style Customisations
Style Customisations
Posts: 10222
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 12:45 am
Location: Brazil
Name: Marcus Vinicius

Re: Can no longer post to Facebook Groups

by shortmort37 » Wed Aug 07, 2024 3:44 pm

_Vinny_ wrote:I did a test, on the PC I can't share in the group, on the Android phone it is possible, it seems to be something on Facebook
Exactly right, Vinny. Facebook examines the string in the http header "User-Agent", and decides based on that to redirect you m.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php if it thinks you're on a phone (which permits you to choose a group), or to www.facebook.com/share_channel if it thinks you're not (which doesn't provide the option). And it made this change, on or about March 7, 2024 (I know, that's when it stopped working on a desktop for me). Why?!? Beats me.

The question is, is it possible in an html href to supply a mobile User-Agent string. I suspect not, but just askin'.

Thanks
Dan
User avatar
shortmort37
Registered User
Posts: 674
Joined: Sat Aug 26, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Upper Darby, PA, USA
Name: Dan Morton

Re: Can no longer post to Facebook Groups

by _Vinny_ » Wed Aug 07, 2024 4:43 pm

shortmort37 wrote: The question is, is it possible in an html href to supply a mobile User-Agent string. I suspect not, but just askin'.
Not currently. Even if you access the mobile version (m.facebook.com) on a computer, you are redirected to the desktop version.
User avatar
_Vinny_
Style Customisations
Style Customisations
Posts: 10222
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 12:45 am
Location: Brazil
Name: Marcus Vinicius

Re: Can no longer post to Facebook Groups

by shortmort37 » Wed Aug 07, 2024 8:00 pm

_Vinny_ wrote:Even if you access the mobile version (m.facebook.com) on a computer, you are redirected to the desktop version.
Yes - I made the same observation above:
shortmort37 wrote:On a lark, I edited the Facebook row in listener.php to substitute "m." for "www.", and struck the $topic_title component. I got the same result; it apparently still respects the User-Agent that's supplied in the GET.
I suppose it might be possible to build a symfony_request header with a mobile User-Agent, but that would be significant additional complexity.
User avatar
shortmort37
Registered User
Posts: 674
Joined: Sat Aug 26, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Upper Darby, PA, USA
Name: Dan Morton

Re: Can no longer post to Facebook Groups

by RMcGirr83 » Wed Aug 07, 2024 11:03 pm

You can force your browser to act have a different user agent. For example in Chrome
Screenshot 2024-08-07 19.01.15.png
Granted not the easiest solution but maybe it will work until facecrack gets their sh*t together.

PS in chrome you right click anywhere on the screen and click on "inspect". The user agent stuff is under network then click on the network icon at the top and scroll down to user agent.
Former Modifications/Extensions Team Member | My extensions | github | All requests for support via PM will be ignored
Appreciate the extensions/mods/support then you can support me by buying a beer 🍺
User avatar
RMcGirr83
Former Team Member
Posts: 22068
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2005 4:33 pm
Location: Your display
Name: Rich McGirr

Re: Can no longer post to Facebook Groups

by shortmort37 » Thu Aug 08, 2024 1:11 am

RMcGirr83 wrote:You can force your browser to act have a different user agent.
Understood, Rich; and that's essentially what I did with iCab. But I can't ask my board membership to force their browser to present a different User-Agent; my goal is to find a solution that's transparent to them. There's really only two solutions to this problem:

1) Get "Facecrack" to fix what they broke [insert something here about windmills, and tilting at them; although, I am tilting]; or

2) Invoke their Share Dialog with a mobile User-Agent through phpBB coding, regardless of the browser from which it's launched.

I know, e.g., that the cURL "-A" option permits you to overwrite the User-Agent; and someone smarter than me could build a request header for Symfony that dictates the User-Agent. All machinations, in an effort to resolve a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place.
User avatar
shortmort37
Registered User
Posts: 674
Joined: Sat Aug 26, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Upper Darby, PA, USA
Name: Dan Morton

Re: Can no longer post to Facebook Groups

by RMcGirr83 » Thu Aug 08, 2024 10:20 am

You can overwrite headers using Symfony BUT the class required to do so within symfony (the panther class/object) isn't available in phpBB. At least I don't believe it is.
Former Modifications/Extensions Team Member | My extensions | github | All requests for support via PM will be ignored
Appreciate the extensions/mods/support then you can support me by buying a beer 🍺
User avatar
RMcGirr83
Former Team Member
Posts: 22068
Joined: Wed Jun 22, 2005 4:33 pm
Location: Your display
Name: Rich McGirr

Re: Can no longer post to Facebook Groups

by shortmort37 » Thu Aug 08, 2024 1:59 pm

Hmmm... What about curl_exec()? cURL is enabled on my server (admittedly, for some phpBB sites it may not). This reference discusses how to set a custom User-Agent:

Code: Select all

$curl = curl_init();
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_URL, 'https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=' . urlencode($share_url));
curl_setopt($curl, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, "Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 17_5_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/605.1.15 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/17.5 Mobile/15E148");
$response = curl_exec($curl);
curl_close($curl);
I might have mangled some of the PHP here, but you get the idea.
User avatar
shortmort37
Registered User
Posts: 674
Joined: Sat Aug 26, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Upper Darby, PA, USA
Name: Dan Morton

Re: Can no longer post to Facebook Groups

by shortmort37 » Sun Aug 11, 2024 9:37 pm

shortmort37 wrote:Hmmm... What about curl_exec()?
Of course this won't work; the Share On extension builds a (in my case) Facebook URL that is invoked client-side - from the browser - not server side, where curl_exec operates. I know that now, after trying, failing and googling.

Still, I wonder; if there isn't something that could be done programatically from the client side, that would instruct an HTML 5 client browser to respect a User_Agent directive...
User avatar
shortmort37
Registered User
Posts: 674
Joined: Sat Aug 26, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Upper Darby, PA, USA
Name: Dan Morton

Re: Can no longer post to Facebook Groups

by shortmort37 » Sun Aug 11, 2024 10:08 pm

shortmort37 wrote:Still, I wonder; if there isn't something that could be done programatically from the client side, that would instruct an HTML 5 client browser to respect a User_Agent directive...
This suggests there is.
User avatar
shortmort37
Registered User
Posts: 674
Joined: Sat Aug 26, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Upper Darby, PA, USA
Name: Dan Morton