I’m having trouble with the Facebook Graph API when trying to fetch my friends list. The API call works but it doesn’t give me the complete list of friends. Only a few friends show up in the response, not everyone from my actual friends list.
I expected to get all my friends but the returned data seems incomplete. Has anyone else experienced this issue? I’m wondering if there are some permissions or API limitations that I’m missing.
Is there a specific way to make sure I get the full friends list through the Graph API? Any help would be appreciated.
This limitation arises from Facebook’s privacy policies. The Graph API displays only those friends who have granted permission to your app. I’ve encountered this issue while developing social applications, prompting me to rethink my friend invitation strategy. If you require access to a complete friends list, you may want to explore alternative platforms that offer less restrictive access.
Yeah, Facebook changed their API big time around 2014-2015 - that’s what’s biting you. The friends endpoint only shows friends who’ve also used your app, not your whole friends list. They did this for privacy reasons. I found out the hard way when I migrated an old project and got way fewer results than expected. The user_friends permission only works both ways now - you and your friend both need to have used the same app. There’s no way around it unfortunately. Facebook locked it down on purpose to protect user privacy.
yeah, it’s super frustrating! facebook really tightened things up. you only get to see friends who’ve used the app, not everyone. it’s really annoying, but that’s their new privacy stance.
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