Can't get Advanced Access to public_profile on a disabled app?

Question

Last night Facebook disabled our app with the following justificative:

Developer Policy 6.1: Verify that you have integrated Login correctly. Your app shouldn't crash or hang during the testing process.

During Login, your app is crashing or hanging excessively, creating a broken experience for people trying to use your app. To make sure this flow runs smoothly, check that you've integrated Facebook Login correctly. We recommend that you test Login on all integrations. If you have not already done so, please:

• Here's our quickstart guide for implementing Facebook Login for Android: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/facebook-login/android • We encourage you to test your Login integration following these steps here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/facebook-login/testing-your-login-flow/ • Best Practices for Login can be found here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/facebook-login/best-practices

After going through the app options for Facebook Login, I found out that our public_profile permission is in "Standard Access." To allow our users to use Facebook Login, I will need to upgrade to "Advanced Access."

The documentation says that "Business apps created before February 16, 2021, were automatically approved for Advanced Access for the email and public_profile." I should be able to move our public_profile permission to "Advanced Access" because our app was created way before 2021. The problem is that after I click on the "Get Advanced Access" button and type my password, the page reloads, and the public_profile permission is still on the "Standard Access" mode.

So, these are my questions: what I am doing wrong? Is my app unable to upgrade our permissions to "Advanced Access" while being in this "Disabled" state? How can I debug my app to make it work again?

Some additional info about my app:

• It passed through the Facebook App Review in 2019, and we already got permission to manage Pages and read connected Instagram accounts;
• Everything was working fine until Facebook warned us that our Login integration was not working correctly;
• In response to the Facebook notification and before Facebook disabled our app, we enabled the "Login with the JavaScript SDK" and updated the "Allowed Domains for the JavaScript SDK" (such as "https://www.example.com/").
• I can't switch back our app to "Dev Mode" because the option is not showing up (is it due to being "Disabled"?)

Urease

@igfischer, have you solved this issue? I'm experiencing the same: my app is blocked and I can't get the advanced access (public_profile or email) – Piggott

@Piggott I posted an answer to my question, I hope it can help you. – Urease

After 1 week of emails, it worked! Thank you! – Piggott

Hi, I've been trying to do what you did by contacting Facebook Appeal, could you please say what you said to them exactly which got them to help? I always only get the same automated message in reply. Thanks a lot! – Shull

hi, I believe that company verification is missing, for this reason, even if you click on Confirm and then enter your Facebook account password, nothing happens. If you move your mouse closer to the 'Request company verification' button (I hope the translation is correct) a hint appears that says exactly this. I believe that only companies will be able to use the Facebook login. – Albemarle

Answer 1

I discovered that it is not possible to modify your permission settings while your app is blocked.

I recovered my app using the appeal form, saying that I can't correct it while it is blocked because I need to change the permission settings. In case anyone needs an example, this was the exact text I sent to Facebook on the appeal form:

To get our app into compliance, we still need to upgrade our permissions from "Standard Mode" to "Advanced Mode", but we can't do this while our app is disabled. I would like to ask Facebook for an Extension of the deadline and to re-enable our app, to allow our team to change the permissions to "Advanced Mode" and properly test and get our app into compliance. In case it is not possible to make an extension to the deadline, we ask Facebook to revoke all permissions given through the App Review process and then re-enable our app, in Dev Mode. This way, we would be able to make all the required changes, properly test our app, and submit it again to the App Review.

Urease

I'm facing the same issue and do appeal for the permission settings access but their response is, Unfortunately, this isn't the appropriate channel to address any technical issues that you might have with your Developer Dashboard. We are sorry we cannot support you with more technical details at this end. Could you please help me – Anastaciaanastas

@MittalVarsani I not sure how to proceed in your case. I suggest you to ask the people on the Facebook Developer Community (facebook.com/groups/fbdevelopers). There I could get some help for other issues with the Facebook API. – Urease

Could you perhaps quote the exact message you used that got the Facebook Appeal team to respond to you and help? :) Like @MittalVarsani, I've been trying to resolve this issue for quite sometime and submitted several Appeals but they responses have always been semi-automated and ignored my questions. Thanks a lot! – Shull

@Shull I've updated my answer with the exact message I used on the Facebook Appeal form. – Urease

unfortunately this is not working for me because facebook is answering like a robot and sends me always the same messages. Unfortunately its not fixed for me with this text. – Spineless

Same here. And Im soooo tired of Facebook and their incompetence. They should not be allowed providing authentication service. Robot answers form the appeal team, I could explode. – Gay

Similar situation here. I got through to a human at some point, they said they cannot turn on Advanced Access for us. But we cannot make the login work in that case. They claim that test users pass those restrictions, but that does not seem to be in our case. So sadly, removing Facebook Login is the only option. – Diarchy

unfortunately did not work for me :( – Emery

Answer 2

For anyone landing here from google: I had the same issue, it is a brand new Facebook app, it's not blocked nor disabled. I needed to enable login through Facebook, thus needing advanced access to public_profile. When I tried that, it sometimes asked for my FB password, sometimes not, but it did nothing. There were no errors in the javascript console in the browser, nor any failed requests. I managed to make it work by simply waiting 10-30 seconds after each click (Request advanced access -> wait -> check the box -> wait -> write password -> click submit) to let the JS in the browser finish whatever was going on and then click the next button etc.

Rowlett

it's insanity that this works – Lilas

yeah this right here is the correct answer. ridiculous that this is how to get around it. Thank you @prem – Metagalaxy

Sadly does not work for us. :( – Diarchy

Unbelievable, this actually worked out for me. More than a year later, this is absurd. Saved my life, thanks! – Heulandite

Answer 3

for me it was not possible to get a reply from facebook with the text of @lgfischer. All the time only chatbots answered. After 2 weeks of writing we decided to remove the facebook login from the app.

the end result is: no more facebook login in our app. 😁 thanks to all facebook chatbots and to the intelligent metaverse. ;-)

Spineless

We've been pinging back and forth with bots on Facebook as well. Cannot turn on Advanced Access if we are not live, and login cannot work without it. Facebook Appeal bots (and support) cannot turn it on for us either. So we're stuck in a loop where we cannot fix it without being live, but we cannot be approved and live, if we do not fix it. Removing Facebook login seems like the only way forward. Great job on supporting your own systems, Meta! – Diarchy

Same here, our org is not eligible for business verification , so cannot get advanced_access that is required for login. No help from FB forums either. Have to just remove the FB login altogether, it seems. The review trick does not work anymore either , it is also bundled to business verification now. – Corbicula

Answer 4

In my experience, Meta has introduces a new policy and now only the Verified Companies can request the advanced profile.

At the end, indie developers cannot use FB Login anymore.

Congrats to Meta for another horrible experience.

Novation

Answer 5

Hit the same issue with our disabled FB app. I took inspiration from lgfischer's text above and also provided a screenshot of the red banner saying we need the public_profile advanced access permission AND a video of me trying to enable it and it not turning on. With that, they re-enabled our app and I was able to turn on the permission and FB is off our backs.

Peterkin

Answer 6

I had the same issue, it is a brand new Facebook app, it's not blocked nor disabled. I needed to enable login through Facebook. It asked me to enable advanced access to public profile setting When I tried that, it sometimes asked for my FB password, sometimes not, but it did nothing. There was no errors, the setting was just not turning on to advanced. this problem was faced by some others too, who have posted their answers under this same topic

I have been able to access the advanced setting now. All I had done was change from brave browser (Tried with chrome also, but didn't work) to Mozilla Firefox It just worked like magic. make sure you enter the right password for that account.

If this helps, hit an Upvote. or comment your experience below

Transport

I have same issue using chrome, changed that to safari still the something I don't know if using firefox will help or not but I guess it's by luck -_- – Soddy

We tried Safari, Chrome and Firefox in both mobile and desktop versions, on several computers and private modes. Nothing helps, so it feels like you were lucky @Ajay. – Diarchy

Answer 7

I found a solution to this, it is a bit of a process but it is worthwhile. What you need to do is create a new app on Facebook (but don't delete your disabled app). Once you do this just copy across all the settings from your old app to the new one and implement Login With Facebook on this new app. On this new app you will be able to convert the public_profile attribute to advanced access. Once you do this, implement Login With Facebook on this new and (everything should work).

Once you have published your app(s) go back to the old/disabled app and log an appeal. In your appeal, state how you managed to get Login With Facebook to work on a new app merely by turning on advanced access on the public_profile attribute (something you are currently unable to do on the old app due to it being disabled). Proceed to ask Facebook to manually turn on the advanced access switch for you and tell them that this will get Login With Facebook to work.

They will turn it on for you and then you can switch back to your old app. This process worked for me. They manually turned on my advanced access flag for the public_profile attribute once I demonstrated that this worked for me with a new app.

I know it is quite a lengthy process, but it is worth it.

Purgatorial

We tried this approach, however Facebook Appeal says they cannot turn it on for us manually. So this is not a working answer anymore. :( – Diarchy

Answer 8

My solution was similar to NdaJunior's solution. Create a new app with Facebook Login and install it in place of the disabled app.

In my experience, Meta's support team doesn't pay attention to anything you write in an email or appeal reason. I sent lgfischer's clear message 3 times in a row with screenshots without luck. The support team does however test your login every time you write them.

When you swap out the disabled app with the new working app, they won't bother to verify which app they are testing. They will simply see that your Facebook Login is suddenly working and put the original app back into compliance.

Some people might be in different situations. My app stopped working because Advanced Access wasn't enabled. I then got my business account verified and went to enable Advanced Access but was unable to. It seems creating a new app with a verified business turns on Advanced Access by default. There were will lots of warnings on the developer dashboard about my account being restricted, but somehow the new app worked fine. After the original app was re-enabled, Advanced Access was on (likely because of the business verification but who knows). After that you can switch your site back to the original app and be good to go.

Doukhobor