Facebook Graph API and FQL like count on photo'

Question

Hey all,

I've made a facebook application for a contest, which allows users to upload their photo. Once uploaded, the photo gets posted to a dedicated album on their profile. Once the photo is there, the users should collect as many likes as possible.

Currently i have tried both the Facebook Graph API and Facebook FQL to retrieve the amount of likes, but the retrieved likes don't always match the likes on a users profile.

Some users claim to have more then 200 likes, yet the API only returned a maximum of 101 likes so far.

All users are requested to grant the application the following permissions:

user_hometown, publish_stream, read_stream, user_photos and offline_access

Using Facebook PHP SDK 3.0.1 I tried this FQL query to collect the amount of likes of a photo:

  # fql query
  $fql = "SELECT object_id FROM like WHERE object_id=" . $photo_id;

  # api request
  $request = array(
    'method' => 'fql.query', 'query' => $fql
  );

  # run batch request
  $likes = $this->facebook->api($request);

  # return like count
  return count($likes);

I also tried the following Graph API request (Also with Facebook PHP SDK 3.0.1) to collect the amount of likes of a photo:

$likes = $this->facebook->api($photo_id.'/likes');
return count($likes['data']);

Strangely, neither seem to return correct results. I can understand if the API is slightly inaccurate, but according to the API some pictures recieved 100 likes this morning and then 0 likes a few hours later.

Does anyone have any ideas what i might be doing wrong? Do the photo's and their albums need to be public? Do the people who liked the photo need to have a public profile in order to show up in the API? Do i need to request additional permissions?

Any help or suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Just had the same problem here. The likes seems to be paginated by hundreds by default. Override this setting by using the "LIMIT" query option.

Answer 2

Does anyone have any ideas what i might be doing wrong?

yes, I believe that it is against Facebook policy to use their likes plugin for a contest. See: https://www.facebook.com/promotions_guidelines.php

Answer 3

   # fql query
   $fql = "SELECT like_info FROM photo WHERE object_id=" . $photo_id;

   # api request
   $request = array(
    'method' => 'fql.query', 'query' => $fql
   );

  # run batch request
  $likeInfo = $facebook->api(array(
    'method' => 'fql.query', 'query' => $fql
  ));

  var_dump($likeInfo);die;

=> get like info of photo