Starting out and problems posting, unknown reason

  • Resolved HikingMike

    (@hikingmike)


    8 years, 4 months ago

    Hi,

    I’ve been working quite a bit to get the plugin going, and I have several questions, suggestions, etc. I definitely have to start with saying thanks for this plugin. I think I will be able to use it for what I need and it will be great once I have everything in place.

    I was able to install and activate fine. I followed the initial instructions for that. Easy enough.

    Then I needed to set it up for Facebook and Twitter.

    Facebook was a pain at first, until I found out from another website that you have to be logged in as a personal user to create an App. I was logged in as my organization’s Facebook Page since that’s what I’ll be using this plugin for. I logged out and into my personal account and then I was able to complete the App steps there.

    I used the plugin’s Facebook instructions here-
    https://www.nextscripts.com/instructions/facebook-social-networks-auto-poster-setup-installation/

    I understand the notes about – “Please use your own information, don’t literally re-type “NextScripts Blog”, “NextScripts.com” and other sample info.”

    Please note that the example screenshot shows “NextScripts” in the Display Name field though so that doesn’t quite match the note.

    However, what should I use for Display Name? Where is this used? I have no idea. Will this just be the name of the app for me to see while I manage my Facebook account and the plugin in WordPress? Or will this name appear in Facebook posts that the plugin creates? I have not made a new post yet so I do not know.

    I have called it NextScripts WP Plugin so that I could identify what it was, but this may be a mistake. I will want to change it if this appears in the Facebook posts. Can we have an example screenshot or at least a description of where this appears? I am hoping for automatic Facebook posts that come from this plugin to look like they were just posted by the admin of the Facebook page basically, or at least as close as possible.

    I successful completed Facebook setup. Then it was on to Twitter, instructions here – https://www.nextscripts.com/instructions/setup-installation-twitter-social-networks-auto-poster-wordpress/

    The first item in Twitter’s “Create an application” form is “Name”. Twitter actually has a little description there too saying “Your application name. This is used to attribute the source of a tweet and in user-facing authorization screens.”

    Ok, that’s a little more info, but I still can’t tell if it will appear in tweets. I tried entering NextScripts WP Plugin here for the heck of it, but then it actually said that name was already taken. Wow. Does that mean every app name has to be unique across Twitter? Maybe this does actually show in the tweet. In any case, I just changed it to my organization’s name. We’ll see what happens.

    Next I want to test this out. I’d like to do this for a recent WordPress post from a few days ago. I didn’t see anything on the post’s edit screen. I went back to the plugin’s info page on WordPress’ site and I see it just posts automatically when you publish a post.
    There is the Reposter option. I read up on that here – https://www.nextscripts.com/snap-features/reposter/

    From what I read, it seems like I can just do a single post if I want to, maybe more than one post, using the “Exact Posts and Pages” section. I set the time to just 2 minutes so it will show soon and I can check it.

    But in the Exact Posts and Pages menu, I had a problem. I see that posts/pages will autocomplete in a dropdown as you type (the title) so you can select them. However, the post that I want does not appear. It is a Custom Post Type, so maybe that’s the problem? I went to the Settings page and included my Custom Post Type there in the Autoposting Filters section. Then I went back to Reposter, but that post still does not appear. I thought maybe I can just type the title without selecting anything from the dropdown and that will work, but I’m not sure. It seems when you do select one from the dropdown, it will fill in a bluish background entry of the title with an X on the right side, so it seems specially tagged, probably with the post ID.

    So I gave up on Reposter.

    I remember reading about the plugin somewhere that it activates when a post changes status from something not published to published. So I went to that post and edited the status from Published to Draft and saved. Then I hit Publish.

    I looked in the Query/Timeline and I do see entries there for Autopost to Twitter and Facebook. I also see “Scheduled” entries in the Log/History. That’s great. However, they never showed up on Twitter or Facebook. It has been maybe 35 minutes now and they still haven’t shown up.

    Do you know what might be going wrong? Thank you for any help.

    [2018-01-10 16:51:50] [Cancel] User ID: 7 – [Scheduled Autopost to TW – (TW – Twitter @xxxxxxxx) Post ID:(5635)] 5635 – xxxxxxxx
    [2018-01-10 16:51:50] [Cancel] User ID: 7 – [Scheduled Autopost to FB – (FB – Facebook xxxxxxxx) Post ID:(5635)] 5635 – xxxxxxxx

    | WHERE (flt = “snap” OR (flt = “cron” AND (type = “E” OR type=”W”))) |
    [2018-01-10 16:51:43] [User ID:7] – [Scheduled] [Twitter (Twitter @xxxxxxxx)] – Scheduled for 2018-01-10 16:51:50) PostID:(5635)
    [2018-01-10 16:51:43] [User ID:7] – [Scheduled] [Facebook (Facebook xxxxxxxx)] – Scheduled for 2018-01-10 16:51:50) PostID:(5635)
    [2018-01-10 16:51:43] [User ID:7] – [Start =- ]- ——=========#### NEW AUTO-POST REQUEST ####=========—— PostID:(5635) Scheduled +3
    [2018-01-10 16:51:43] [User ID:7] – [*** ID: 5635, Type: rd]- Status Changed: draft_to_publish. Autopost requested. 0

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Plugin Author NextScripts

    (@nextscripts)

    8 years, 4 months ago

    1. Sorry, but, you are seriously overthinking this. The rule here is this: if we don’t mention in the instructions that this field will be used for something, it’s either won’t be used for anything or it won’t be used for anything important. App name for both Facebook and Twitter is just a name of the app, nothing else. It’s used only in the app configuration interface, so you can identify what app you are looking at. Calling it “NextScripts WP Plugin” might work if you have only one app. If you have a hundred apps with that name, you never will be able to figure out what app used where. It makes much more sense to call it something like “App for MySuperSite.com” or “Autoposter for MySuperSite.com”

    2.

    I didn’t see anything on the post’s edit screen.

    It is a Custom Post Type, so maybe that’s the problem?

    If you read our instructions you will see that only “posts” are enabled by default. If you would like to auto-post custom post types, you will need to go to the Plugin Settings->Filters and include your custom post type. You will see SNAP Metabox on the edit screen and posts in the selection after that.

    3. Do you have WP Cron setup correctly?
    http://www.nextscripts.com/tutorials/wp-cron-scheduling-tasks-in-wordpress/

    Please go to the Log/History page and check only “All Cron Events” checkbox.

    You should see ONLY crons executed from WGET or Mozilla every one or two minutes. If you see nothing at all, calls from “WordPress/4.x.x” or calls made at irregular time intervals, your cron is not set correctly.

    Thread Starter HikingMike

    (@hikingmike)

    8 years, 4 months ago

    1. Ok, I won’t sweat the name then. That’s good to know it won’t be used for something important or display on the FB or Twitter posts. I don’t expect to have more than one Twitter or FB app with the name “NextScripts WP Plugin” since we only have one website and one NextScripts plugin. This will just be for the website. I can see what you mean if I am a personal Twitter user (1 Twitter account) and I work with 5 websites that might use the NextScripts plugin. But this Twitter account is solely dedicated to the organization which has just one website. I see other Apps enabled in our account for LinkedIn and Instagram. I may rename it to “NextScripts WP for xxxxxxxx.com”. Anyway, good to know.

    I redid the Twitter App so I could change the name. Then I saw there was an option to “Submit Test Post to Twitter”. I tried that and it worked.

    2. Ah. I actually did that to enable auto-post of Custom Post Types, but that was after I had already looked around on the post’s Edit screen. I look again now and I see it, great.

    3. I didn’t realize I had to adjust the WP Cron settings. We have our own server so I don’t think we have cPanel or Plesk. The OS is Ubuntu, so we may be able to use cron, but I have never done something like that before. I know cURL is installed also. I may have to revisit this, and maybe just publish immediately or use the Post Now links.

    Here is Log/History with only “All Cron Events” checked-
    Y:| WHERE (flt = “cron”) |
    0

    I decided to change the auto-post settings to Publish Immediately and check if that works. It didn’t.

    Then I tried the Post Now link on the Edit screen of the post to post to Twitter, and that worked. FB gave me an error – Array ( [Warning] => [Error] => (#200) Requires either publish_actions permission, or manage_pages and publish_pages as an admin with sufficient administrative permission )

    I then enabled my Facebook personal acct (used to create the Facebook App) to have Admin privileges on that Facebook page and tried again, but had the same error. I went to the accounts page, then changed the “where to post” and used the last option in the dropdown to enter the ID of the Facebook page found on the About section.

    Thread Starter HikingMike

    (@hikingmike)

    8 years, 3 months ago

    Twitter auto-posting is now working fine.

    Any ideas on the problem with posting to Facebook?

    Array ( [Warning] => [Error] => (#200) Requires either publish_actions permission, or manage_pages and publish_pages as an admin with sufficient administrative permission )

    That Facebook account is an admin of the Facebook page.

    Thanks for any help.

    Thread Starter HikingMike

    (@hikingmike)

    8 years, 3 months ago

    Aha, I got it working. I went back to the accounts screen in the plugin settings and saw an error there. I used the re-authorize link, and apparently I had to do some more authorizing within Facebook. I authorized the app to see my FB info for this account and to post to pages that I manage. Then it worked. Excellent.

    Next to look at the cron issue more, or just stay with immediately posting.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

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