Finding who INVITED you :: Facebook FQL Explorer Bug: "Inviter":null

Question

Similar unanswered question, however this question focusing more on where to proceed to now. I am led to believe that there is a bug with Facebook's FQL because the event_member table never returns a non-null answer for "inviter", [tested large and small events, public & private, and self admined events]. There are no reported "inviter" bugs on Facebook's site, and no references elsewhere on the internet. Is it common for Facebook to have an error in their graph ( I should hope not)? Could it be this is now depreciated (With no mark of it's existence)? Should I wait it out or keep trying? If it is a brand new feature of event_member, should there not be a news release etc?

TRY this example on Facebook's FQL explorer: https://developers.facebook.com/tools/explorer?fql=select%20inviter%2C%20inviter_type%2Cuid%2C%20rsvp_status%20from%20event_member%20where%20eid%20%3D%20321938874572158%3B

TL;DR: This doesn't work: Select inviter, inviter_type,uid, rsvp_status from event_member where eid = 321938874572158;

Anytime I'm querying the event or event_member table, the API Explorer is shutting down. I would say its time to file a bug: https://developers.facebook.com/bugs — Tommy Crush, Dec 10 '12 at 01:25
@Tommy, I think that’s due to the JavaScript they have running to format the output received from the API (coloring, make some values into links, etc.) — CBroe, Dec 10 '12 at 09:13

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 17 '12 at 18:12

The graph returned for the inviter field only reports the ONE person who FIRST invited YOU, not anyone else. If you created the event yourself, or "attended" the event without an invite (such as by finding the link), then you wont have an "inviter". So to answer your question, there is not a "crippling bug".

For the part of actual graph results returned shown below:

I have been invited 3 times,though only one ID shows up.
It has a privacy level of "friends of friends".
I am attending.
The command used was SELECT uid, rsvp_status, inviter FROM event_member WHERE eid=5612079XXXXXXXX;

{
"uid": 51454XXXX,
"rsvp_status": "attending",
"inviter": null
},
{
"uid": 3124XXXX,
"rsvp_status": "attending",
"inviter": 16498XXXX <------ HERE IS MY INVITE, FROM ANOTHER USER

},
{
"uid": 127868XXXX,
"rsvp_status": "attending",
"inviter": null
},
{
"uid": 164982XXXX,
"rsvp_status": "attending",
"inviter": null
}

Gunnar Karlsson · Answer 2 · 2012-12-15T14:10:01.050

This is what I can see after testing with my own events and events created by others:

The event_member table's inviter field will return null for the user who is the event creator.

For example, a hypothetical event with eid 111 was created by John who has uid 222. Then John invited Jane who has uid 333.

When we query:

select uid, inviter from event_member where eid=111

we receive:

{
  "data": [
   {
      //Jane's data
      "uid":333,
      "inviter": 222 
    }, 
    {
      //John's data 
      "uid": 222,
      "inviter": null
    }
  ]
}

So, all users except the event creator has a non-null inviter value.

I don't know if this all tallies with your findings or if what you've found is a different issue/bug.

Finding who INVITED you :: Facebook FQL Explorer Bug: "Inviter":null

2 Answers2