2

I have an Android application already set up for deep linking via Facebook. Deep links, in particular, work fine when sharing by the Facebook SDK, when the Facebook Android app is not installed on the device. However, deep links are broken when sharing happens through the Facebook Android app: in particular, the Intent that is fired when clicking on a deep linked post from within the Facebook app carries an URL that has http as its scheme instead of the custom scheme that is used in the al:android:url meta property of the web page that can be downloaded at the shared URL.

I am using Facebook app version 37.0.0.48.234 and Facebook SDK 3.21.1.

Of course, everything worked fine... some weeks - or maybe months - ago. Yes, I know I am using an old SDK version. But, instead of blindly updating the library, only to discover that it still does not work, I would like to make a slightly more informed decision about it. So, I'm asking the following:

  1. does a specific, documented, or at least advertised incompatibility exist between the SDK version I'm using and the latest Facebook Android app? It almost seems that the URL set by ShareDialogBuilder.setLink is not correctly processed or recognized by the Facebook app, and therefore used as it is, instead of triggering deep linking by means of the al:android:url meta property which the page at that URL contains.
  2. Does a specific, documented bug exist that prevents the latest Facebook Android app to process deep links as they used to be set up some time ago, that will hopefully be fixed in the future, so that application developers do not have to jump here and there trying to work around the problem?
  3. Does a workaround for this problem exist? And, if the workaround involves updating the Facebook SDK, which specific mechanism (a name of an attribute that the Facebook application expects to receive, or what else?) has unexpectedly changed (such as that attribute being renamed, e.g. from link to contentUrl, or whatever) in the last weeks/months?
Giulio Piancastelli
  • 15,368
  • 5
  • 42
  • 62
  • Can you post the URL that you're sharing? If it's confidential, then you can file a bug at developers.facebook.com/bugs – Ming Li Jul 21 '15 at 18:47
  • @MingLi I indeed opened a bug already, since yesterday this question seemed not to reach a lot of people (or, the right people, as you are). However, it appears the problem lies within a caching issue on the Facebook application, which occurs on Android and iOS as well. I consider the problem solved on my part, then. I'll report the findings on the bug report as soon as I have the chance. Thanks a lot for stopping by and trying to be helpful! – Giulio Piancastelli Jul 22 '15 at 21:34

1 Answers1

1

Could it be the same issue on iOS SDK?

Look at this sad answer from FB:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/30617527/2707000

I had the same problem but using a different iOS device where open the link on FB app from the one that share the link lets it works!

ps: sometimes I needed to relaunch the FB app, probably in this way the app will re-pull the posts from the servers avoiding some sort of cache.

Cheers.

Community
  • 1
  • 1
aggshow
  • 158
  • 1
  • 7
  • I positively confirm that the behavior is the same. I shared something via Facebook app, then clicking the post from the timeline opened the app's internal browser. I entered the device settings, deleted all the app data, then started the app again, logged in, and this time, lo and behold, clicking on the post opened my app, as expected, properly using the deep link machinery. Thanks a lot! – Giulio Piancastelli Jul 22 '15 at 21:27