Since last Wednesday’s update, we published a game spotlight on SongPop and shared guidance on how to capture growth by leveraging photos and the Open Graph.

Javascript SDK Cleanup

In the continued effort to reduce the number of unofficial methods exposed by the Javascript SDK, we recently sent out an email to app developers who we believe are using such methods.

If you received such an email please make sure that you review your codebase. This is easiest done by using the app and looking at the developer console in the browser.
Some of you might have received this email for no apparent reason, (some sites ‘borrow’ app_id’s from other apps, developers try out things), and to you we apologize for the inconvenience.

‘Translate your app’ link moving into the Localize tab

We recently launched a new tab, “Localize”, in the App Dashboard. Developers can use this tab to submit translated assets for App Center, as well as any other content that can be translated in their app. As a result we have also moved the “Translate your app” link into this tab accordingly, now available under “Advanced Options”.

Facebook at Casual Connect Seattle

If you’re planning to attend Casual Connect Seattle next week, join us for talks from members of the games product and partnerships teams:

Unlock new frontiers of growth with Facebook
Tuesday, July 24th at 11:00am in the Taper Auditorium
Sara Brooks, Games Strategic Partner Manager, will share insight on new frontiers of growth across geographies, genres and platforms for Facebook games developers, while delving into success stories from developers.

Growing social games across mobile and web with Facebook
Wednesday, July 25th at 10:00am in the Recital Hall
Matt Wyndowe, Games & Apps Product Manager, will discuss how Facebook can be a primary growth engine for your mobile game and showcase examples of how Facebook helped fuel massive growth for FreshPlanet’s music recognition game, SongPop.

October 2012 breaking changes (90-day notice)

The following changes will go into effect on October 3rd, 2012:

Built-in like/follow action required
We will stop allowing the use of Custom Open Graph “like” and “follow” actions now that there are built-in “like” and built-in “follow” actions. Please convert any custom “like” or “follow” actions you may have created to instead use the built-in “like” or “follow” actions.

Removing Bookmark URL – Originally scheduled for December 1, 2011
As mentioned on the blog, this optional field was originally created to help developers track user referrals from app bookmarks. We now pass a ref parameter to let you know that the user is coming from a bookmark (i.e. ref=bookmarks). As such, we will remove the “Bookmark URL” field from the apps settings.

The following change can be enabled/disabled using the “Remove offline_access” migration until October 3rd when it will go into effect permanently for everyone:

offline_access permission removal

The offline_access permission is deprecated and will be removed October 3rd, 2012 (originally scheduled for July 5th). Please see the Removal of offline_access Permission doc for more details.

The following changes can all be enabled/disabled using the “October 2012 Breaking Changes” migration until October 3rd when they will go into effect permanently for everyone:

Removing Live Stream plugin
The Live Stream plugin has been deprecated and will render the Comments Box plugin in its place. While it offers similar functionality, there are a few functional differences. Please see the Live Stream plugin documentation for more info.

Summary field being replaced by description field
Because the two fields were somewhat redundant, we will be removing the “Summary” field (found in the “Auth Dialog” section of an app’s settings) and instead using the “Description” field (found in the “Advanced” section of an app’s settings) in places where “Summary” was previously used.

Removing position field for photos
The position field in both the photo FQL table as well as the Photo Graph API object will start returning 0 for all photos. The photos connection on an Album object in the Graph API will continue to return photos in the order they appear in the album. FQL queries on the photo table that have a WHERE clause containing the aid or album_object_id columns will return in the correct order as well without needing an ORDER BY position clause.

/picture connection will return a JSONP dictionary when a callback is specified
We will start returning a dictionary containing the fields url, height, width, and is_silhouette when accessing the /picture connection for an object and specifying a callback property. Currently we just return the picture URL as a string.

Weekly Stats

The following stats are for activity between Wednesday, July 11th and Wednesday, July 18th.

Bugs activity between Wednesday, July 11 and Wednesday, July 18

• 206 bugs were reported
• 48 bugs were reproducible and accepted (after duplicates removed)
• 13 bugs were by design
• 19 bugs were fixed
• 84 bugs were duplicate, invalid, or need more information

Bugs fixed between Wednesday, July 11 and Wednesday, July 18

• FB.getSession() is undefined
• Create New Group not listing friends
• Playlist Sharing on FB Issues
• Report/Contact developer form does not send “Additional Details”
• Console error that FB.UA.nativeApp is not officially supported
• fb logout button moving from right to left
• Dramatic drop in Like Button Impressions count
• half of the user cannot load the game, the whole page is just blank white
• App name issue
• Alcohol-restricted applications not working in South-Korea
• Intermitent SSL certificate errors: “Could not create SSL/TLS secure channel.”
• OAuthException: (#240) Requires a valid user is specified (either via the session or via the API parameter for specifying the user.
• FB.UI send fails with 500 (Internal Server Error) when sending a link with a sub-subdomain
• comment box doesn’t work on non 443 port SSL Page
• Browsing to my app page by username fails with http error 500
• OG Facepile tag not respecting max_rows
• fb.api feed: users tag accepted but no user being tagged in the post
• edge.create callback triggered with delay or no triggered at all with “fb:like”
• New developer site bluebar is screwed in some conditions

Activity on facebook.stackoverflow.com between Wednesday, July 11 and Wednesday, July 18

• 461 questions asked
• 349 questions with a score of 0 or greater
• 95 answered, 27% answered rate
• 174 replied, 50% reply rate

Since last Wednesday’s update, we announced App Center global rollout, and launched Facebook SDK 3.0 Beta for iOS. We published details on the Photo Hack Day in San Francisco.

Javascript SDK cleanup

We are continuing to reduce the number of methods exposed by the global FB object in the Javascript SDK and are now logging a warning to the console whenever a non-documented method is used. At a later time, these will all be stubbed with empty functions before finally being removed entirely from the FB object. For the list of publicly available methods, please see the Javascript SDK documentation.

October migration now available

The “October 2012 Breaking Changes” migration is now available for you to test your apps to see if they will be affected by the breaking changes happening on October 3rd, 2012. Check out the Developer Roadmap for more information on what changes are included in the migration.

Weekly Stats

The following stats are for activity between Wednesday, July 4 and Wednesday, July 11.

Bugs activity between Wednesday, July 4 and Wednesday, July 11

• 174 bugs were reported
• 44 bugs were reproducible and accepted (after duplicates removed)
• 14 bugs were by design
• 54 bugs were fixed
• 78 bugs were duplicate, invalid, or need more information

Bugs fixed between Wednesday, July 4 and Wednesday, July 11

• Unable to add App Privacy Policy URL
• FB JS SDK does not refresh cookies & access tokens anymore
• Facebook Authentication Error code 100: “This authorization code has been used.”
• the FB.Canvas.setAutoGrow() something not working
• App Center Submit
• FB registration plugin validation stopped working
• Adding attachment causes bug creation to fail to create with a POST 500 server error
• No longer able to get OAuth token via Facebook in my Windows Phone 7 application
• Sandbox apps redirecting me to 4oh4.php
• Login button gives “You have already authorized” response
• Mobile Comments Plugin – Stuck in infinite loop
• display=touch forwards to “Page you requested was not found”
• login-button with registration-url not invoking onlogin callback + does not display as ‘Register’ if user has not authorized the app
• Bugs losing comments and subscribers
• Facebook request displays FB Login Button
• HeroMessagingServerException – No more data to read.
• App center submission error: missing other language information
• Edit app lead to page not found
• Graph API returns user picture as an object when not logged in to Facebook.
• FB.login does not trigger callback + does not close itself on localhost:8080
• A document page is completely broken and can’t even click “Report Documentation Bug”
• Cannot enable Enhanced Auth Dialog
• Mobile comments are no longer fluid
• Page Administration not created for webpages when admin clicks ‘Like’
• Dislpay name cant be changed on AppCenter- Save doesnt “hold water”
• Basic Settings on Edit App Page Empty
• Official Facebook WordPress plugin fails to publish actions for Auth Dialog Preview User
• Sandbox canvas page requires secure URL
• Unreachable URL warning near comments in bug tool
• Can’t save advanced settings (There was a problem saving your changes. Please try again later.)
• Request ID’s not passed when User enters Canvas via Facebook Notification
• iOS Client Library throws exception while extending access token
• Error in enable access offline
• Open Graph action links in Timeline rendered by the FB Mobile apps are broken with App Center release
• Locale param for iframe Like button causes incorrect like count
• Facebook raise error, when trying to edit extended preferences of application
• send dialog changes a https link into http
• API Error Code: 11 – FB.login failing to work on Blackberry device
• app request url doesnt contain app request_id parameter when namespace is not defined
• Image quality is very very poor after upload
• Javascript SDK URI Error in Android WebView and iPhone UIWebView
• Malformed FQL query made via api results in all.js error
• App Request page is broken when ?scrollto= is in URL.
• iPhone App/iPhone Safari/Android Mobile Browser: Timeline links not redirecting to correct URL
• FB.ui – loading forever if user is logged in / works fine if user needs to login
• FB.api doesn’t work at Opera browser when using https connection
• Post-Authorize Redirect URL issue
• all.js does not check origin in FB.provide.PostMessage.onMessage
• Built-In actions can’t be resubmitted
• Canvas height is not working
• Facebook API not work in Opera
• Text direction problem on credit dialog
• XDomain issues in opera
• video upload doesn’t work in Hackbook example

Activity on facebook.stackoverflow.com between Wednesday, July 4 and Wednesday, July 11

• 431 questions asked
• 332 questions with a score of 0 or greater
• 109 answered, 33% answered rate
• 200 replied, 60% reply rate

Since last Wednesday’s update, we launched an API that allows you to get the user’s preferred currency along with the conversion rate to Credits.

Streamline review of your Open Graph actions and objects

This week we published a new guide titled Creating Usage Instructions. When you submit your Open Graph actions and objects for review, you must include usage instructions. This guide outlines how to create clear instructions so that we can quickly review your submissions.

Javascript SDK cleanup

We are continuing to reduce the number of methods exposed by the global FB object in the Javascript SDK and are now logging a warning to the console whenever a non-documented method is used. At a later time, these will all be stubbed with empty functions before finally being removed entirely from the FB object. For the list of publicly available methods, please see the Javascript SDK documentation.

Breaking changes effective today

As announced in April per our 90-day breaking change policy, ten breaking changes are going into effect today:

1. Event GETs from Graph API/FQL will require an access token
2. Removing display=wap dialogs
3. Removing some event FQL object fields
4. Coordinate-less tags
5. Removing bookmark.add and profile.addtab dialogs
6. Moving “type” property into “metadata” array
7. Removal of FBML
8. Updating Page “hours” property
9. Batch API exception format
10. Removing timezone from event times

For the full details on all these changes, please check out the Developer Roadmap.

October 2012 breaking changes (90-day notice)

The following changes will go into effect on October 3rd, 2012:

Built-in like/follow action required
We will stop allowing the use of Custom Open Graph “like” and “follow” actions now that there are built-in “like” and built-in “follow” actions. Please convert any custom “like” or “follow” actions you may have created to instead use the built-in “like” or “follow” actions.

Removing Bookmark URL – Originally scheduled for December 1, 2011
As mentioned on the blog, this optional field was originally created to help developers track user referrals from app bookmarks. We now pass a ref parameter to let you know that the user is coming from a bookmark (i.e. ref=bookmarks). As such, we will remove the “Bookmark URL” field from the apps settings.

The following change can be enabled/disabled using the “Remove offline_access” migration until October 3rd when it will go into effect permanently for everyone:

offline_access permission removal

The offline_access permission is deprecated and will be removed October 3rd, 2012 (originally scheduled for July 5th). Please see the Removal of offline_access Permission doc for more details.

The following changes can all be enabled/disabled using the “October 2012 Breaking Changes” migration (will be available for use by July 18th) until October 3rd when they will go into effect permanently for everyone:

Removing Live Stream plugin
The Live Stream plugin has been deprecated and will render the Comments Box plugin in its place. While it offers similar functionality, there are a few functional differences. Please see the Live Stream plugin documentation for more info.

Summary field being replaced by description field
Because the two fields were somewhat redundant, we will be removing the “Summary” field (found in the “Auth Dialog” section of an app’s settings) and instead using the “Description” field (found in the “Advanced” section of an app’s settings) in places where “Summary” was previously used.

Removing position field for photos
The position field in both the photo FQL table as well as the Photo Graph API object will start returning 0 for all photos. The photos connection on an Album object in the Graph API will continue to return photos in the order they appear in the album. FQL queries on the photo table that have a WHERE clause containing the aid or album_object_id columns will return in the correct order as well without needing an ORDER BY position clause.

/picture connection will return a dictionary when a callback is specified
We will start returning a dictionary containing the fields url, height, width, and is_silhouette when accessing the /picture connection for an object and specifying a callback property. Currently we just return the picture URL as a string.

Weekly Stats

The following stats are for activity between Wednesday, June 27th and Wednesday, July 4th.

Bugs activity

• 217 bugs were reported
• 34 bugs were reproducible and accepted (after duplicates removed)
• 8 bugs were by design
• 17 bugs were fixed
• 66 bugs were duplicate, invalid, or need more information

Bugs fixed

• Mobile Web feed links have “apps/[NAMESPACE]” twice
• setAutoGrow() not working.
• JavaScript SDK (all.js) error in FireFox: n.onload is not a function
• Deleted app still exist
• FB.getLoginStatus errors for logged out users when the app has an alcohol restriction
• Open Graph Insights not updating when you filter by action
• Cannot view “Roles” for a particular app
• Status: Changes needed
• No Facebook Insights data since June the 12th
• Already authorized
• photo URLs now contain underscores which causes issues in Java
• Mobile comments to wide when no width is set.
• data-width takes no effect on facepile
• phpunit failure on PHPSDKTestCase::testAppSecretCall
• Information concerning automatic creation of App Profile Pages outdated.
• FB.Canvas.setUrlHandler() doesn’t call callback function
• Facebook PHP SDK Deficiency in handling cluster environment

Activity on facebook.stackoverflow.com

• 440 questions asked
• 326 questions with a score of 0 or greater
• 115 answered, 35% answered rate
• 182 replied, 56% reply rate