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Preamble:
I'm not a Facebook user, I never had any Facebook account, so I'm not familiar at all with the Facebook website.

I need to create a Facebook App

Today I need to implement "Facebook Connect" (authentication) for the website of a client. I'm using an existing extension which requires me to enter my App ID and Secret key, which can be obtained by creating a Facebook App.

1: Where to get started?

According to both the Facebook Documentation and the extension I'm using, a Facebook App can be created by going to the following URL: https://developers.facebook.com/apps/

2: Account required

When I go to that URL I am asked to login. Very well, so I go ahead and create my very first Facebook Account. On the registration form it says that if the account is created for a business then I don't need to enter my personal name. This account is not for me but for my client's website, and my client being a business, I go on and open a business account.

3: Account verification

To complete, I am required to verify my email address, which I do successfully. After that, it asked me to verify my personal phone number, which I do successfully.

4: Account created & verified: still can't access the App Creation page

Now, I finally have a Facebook Business Account. I go again to that same URL to create a Facebook App: https://developers.facebook.com/apps/. However, I still can't access the page as according to the Facebook Documentation it seems that I need to convert my account to a "Developer Account".

5: Developer Account required

Very well, I follow the process of converting my account to a Developer Account, provide all kind of information about me and the company hiring me, and finally, I now have a Developer Account, yeey!!

6: Second attempt

Ok, now it should certainly work and I will FINALLY be able to create this dawn app to start implementing Facebook Connect on my client's website!

Double checking that the URL is the correct one from the documentation of the plugin, and also from the Facebook Documentation itself, I go ahead and refresh this page: https://developers.facebook.com/apps/

7: Still fail: now getting redirected to Facebook Advertising

But now, when loading the above URL, I am automatically redirected to the following page: https://www.facebook.com/advertising

I have tried to log-out, erase all my cookies, login again, but nothing will do, when I go to https://developers.facebook.com/apps/ I am always redirected to https://www.facebook.com/advertising which is about creating ads but what I need is to create an app!

8: Personal Account required

I searched all over the place for an explanation or maybe for a newer URL, but no luck. I finally found on StackOverflow (Can't access Facebook Developers App!!?! Redirected to my page repeatedly) that I can't create a Facebook App with a Business Account, and that I need a Personal Account instead.

9: Personal Account creation

Very well, I go ahead and create my very first personal account on Facebook.

10: Can't create a personal account, email and phone already used!

Oops, it says that my email was already used for another account. Hmmm OK so I go ahead and create a new email address especially, and then try to register a personal account again. Now it is asking to verify my phone number, which I do, but unfortunately it says that my phone number was already used to verify another account earlier today!

Dawn, I'm really starting to feel exhausted by Facebook. Let's think about a solution. I have only one phone number, and I wouldn't use the phone of a friend as they all have Facebook and all probably verified their own accounts using their phones.

11: Deleting my Business Account created earlier

Solution founds! I will delete my business account, so my real email and my phone number will be available again! Yeey!!!

12: Facebook won't delete my account today

A few minutes later, I understand that my Facebook Account cannot be deleted today. I can deactivate it. But this won't free my email nor my phone number. After some research on the web I found a hidden form that allows to really delete my account. I go ahead through the deletion process, enter my password about 10 times, and fill 10 really hard CAPTCHAS, and finally my account is deleted! Oh wait... it says it won't be deleted before 2 weeks!!!

13: Final attempt: fail again

Anyway, I still try to use my phone number again to create a personal account, but still no luck, Facebook won't let me use my own phone number to activate my account.

What are my options?

Community
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Community
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  • Create a normal account and then open the developer's site – Sahil Mittal Aug 22 '13 at 05:46
  • @Shadowfax Awesome. Did you read my story? When creating a normal account, it asks me to verify it using my phone number. – Community Aug 22 '13 at 05:51
  • Facebook ways of doing things is simply horrible -- I am even surprised they can be so successful with something which is so clunky - Compared to Google API or Twitter's API it's simply a nightmare to make it working. Documentation is poor and this verified account thing simply doesn't work well. – user18490 Oct 08 '14 at 10:51

2 Answers2

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Have you looked at all into dummy phone numbers, such as with Google voice (free) or with Skype (nominal fee)? Some sites, such as Craigslist, can sniff those numbers out and still not allow them to be used for verifying, but others can't tell the difference. Could be useful.

Depending on how big your client's budget is, maybe grab a throwaway prepaid phone from the store and use it. Just a few thoughts on how to avoid the phone issue. Everything else seems straightforward after that.

Morgan Culture
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  • @ Morgan thanks for your answer. Unfortunately it's not as simple as that. First, Google Voice is not available in my country, when I go to http://voice.google.com/ I'm being redirected to http://www.google.com/chat/voice/. Any workaround for that? Perhaps using a VPN from the U.S.? Secondly, SkypeOut Numbers are also only available for a limited set of countries, which doesn't include mine. Finally, throwaway phones are not available everywhere in the world, for example in Taiwan each SIM card is registered with your ID, therefore it's very expensive to have 2 lines, as it means 2 contracts. – Community Oct 12 '13 at 06:53
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Building an app on Facebook gives you the opportunity to deeply integrate into the core Facebook experience. Your app can integrate with many aspects of Facebook.com, including the News Feed and Notifications. All of the core Facebook Platform technologies, such as Social Plugins, the Graph API and Platform Dialogs are available to Apps on Facebook.

In this document we will explain the following concepts:

Canvas Page: The Page in which your app is loaded. Social Channels: The key channels that help you grow your user base and re-engage existing users. Analytics: Accessing analytics for your application. If you wish to start building an App on Facebook now, please refer to our getting started tutorial. If you want to build an app to add to the tab of a Facebook Page then you should refer to Page Tabs.

Visit this site

https://developers.facebook.com/docs/guides/canvas/

louisalice
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    This link you provided (and copied text from) appears as the very first result when searching for "[how to create a facebook app](https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+create+a+facebook+app)" on Google. You really think that I would post such a long and detailed question without first searching on Google and reading all the existing Facebook Documentation? Try harder my friend ;) – Community Aug 22 '13 at 06:07