Long-lasting FB access-token for server to pull FB page info
These are the steps that were previously in the question - they have been migrated to this answer.
Having found that it is possible to generate a Facebook Page Access Token that does not expire (with help from @Igy), here is a clear, step-by-step quide for all those looking to the same:
- Make sure you are the admin of the FB page you wish to pull info from
- Create a FB App (should be with the same user account that is the page admin)
- Head over to the Facebook Graph API Explorer
- On the top right, select the FB App you created from the "Application" drop down list
- Click "Get Access Token"
- Make sure you add the
manage_pages
permission - Convert this short-lived access token into a long-lived one by making this Graph API call:
https://graph.facebook.com/oauth/access_token?client_id=<your FB App ID >&client_secret=<your FB App secret>&grant_type=fb_exchange_token&fb_exchange_token=<your short-lived access token>
- Grab the new long-lived access token returned back
- Make a Graph API call to see your accounts using the new long-lived access token:
https://graph.facebook.com/me/accounts?access_token=<your long-lived access token>
- Grab the
access_token
for the page you'll be pulling info from -
Lint the token to see that it is set to
Expires: Never
!
That should do it. You should now have a Facebook Page Access Token that doesn't expire, unless:
- You change your Facebook account password
- You lose admin access for the target page
- You delete or de-authorize your Facebook App
Any of these will cause the access token to become invalid.
If you are getting (#100) Tried accessing nonexisting field (accounts) on node type (Page)
, go to the Access Token Debugger, copy the value of User ID
, and use it to replace the "me" part of the URL in step 9.
This is covered in the Offline Access deprecation document
Use the 60-day token for the page admin to retrieve a Page Access Token (via /PAGE_ID?fields=access_token
or /me/accounts
) - the Page access token will not have an expiry time