A FIX - Error Sharing Threads to Facebook

[Colin Molloy]

Forum URL: www.southernwaoutdoors.com.au

I encountered this error when conducting compliance functionality testing in my B5 stage III and it appears that it also occurs in V5. 

When I attempted to share a thread to Facebook, I received the following error:



So, drawing from my experience of building websites and business Facebook pages for my Clients, and ensuring when My Client (or anyone else for that matter) types in the Client's website URL - they get a controlled and desired output, I added the following to Admin Home> Themes> Layout Templates> Forum Wrapper:


       <link rel="image_src" type="image/png" href="http://storage.proboards.com/3647171/i/GzDzTuGjn77KujvBWGsy.png" />    
       <meta itemprop="image" content="http://storage.proboards.com/3647171/i/GzDzTuGjn77KujvBWGsy.png" />
       <meta property="og:title" content="SOUTHERN WA OUTDOORS" />
       <meta property="og:description" content="A FREE and FRIENDLY online forum for all those who enjoy the outdoors in the wonderful region of southern Western Australia - Camping and Caravanning | Fishing | Boating | Kayaking | Off Road | Trip Reports | Locations | Fauna and Flora - and so much more! " />
you will need to edit the following accordingly:

IMAGE TYPE - type="image/png

IMAGE URL - s17171.storage.proboards.com/3647171/i/GzDzTuGjn77KujvBWGsy.png  


TITLE - SOUTHERN WA OUTDOORS


DESCRIPTION - A FREE and FRIENDLY online forum for all those who enjoy the outdoors in the wonderful region of southern ...

Note - the above assumes that you have added a size compliant image in Admin Home> Settings> Forum Settings> Forum> Social Media - and to obtain the URL of that images (hosted on Proboards) simply click on the Link button and copy the image URL (web address).

Adding this code (suitably edited) in the HEADER section of the Admin Home> Themes> Layout Templates> Forum Wrapper will both circumvent the error and give you a controlled and desired output.

ONE MORE THING - FACEBOOK CACHE:

Type the URL (you don't need to start with HTTP://, just from the www and hit your space bar and see what displays, IF it isn't as you have coded, then you'll need to clear Facebook's Cache File, to do this, go HERE , type in your forum address and click on the Debug button, it's also handy to make sure you have coded everything correctly. 

Done successfully, this is what I now have when I share to Facebook:


 
Hope that's helpful 


EDIT - Oh, and I should add that this desired output is also shown if you type the web address directly into your Facebook 

[Michael]

Hi Colin,

Pasting your URL in on my Facebook page returned exactly what you inserted. Is this not the case for you?

[Colin Molloy]

Oct 10, 2013 16:11:01 GMT -8 Michael said:

Hi Colin,

Pasting your URL in on my Facebook page returned exactly what you inserted. Is this not the case for you?

Hi Michael - was that the first time you had pasted my Forum URL into your Facebook? (and no - see above   )

[Michael]

Oct 10, 2013 16:16:36 GMT -8 Colin Molloy said:

Oct 10, 2013 16:11:01 GMT -8 Michael said:

Hi Colin,

Pasting your URL in on my Facebook page returned exactly what you inserted. Is this not the case for you?

Hi Michael - was that the first time you had pasted my Forum URL into your Facebook? 

It was indeed.

[Colin Molloy]

That's why I think it worked for you, there was nothing in your Facebook Cache file - so Facebook followed the OG instructions 

[smashwords2]

I'm getting the same error when trying to post a Thread to Facebook, but only SOME Threads.

Checking the Facebook error listings there is only 1 major error "Your page has meta tags in the body instead of the head. This may be because your HTML was malformed and they fell lower in the parse tree.
Please fix this in order for the tags to be usable."

I think the Thread Descriptions plugin may be causing the problem, as I can successfully upload multiple multiple Shares of Threads which don't have anything in the Thread Description text area. Does this make sense to anyone?

[CheatAreZee]

Dec 10, 2013 11:07:41 GMT -8 smashwords2 said:

I'm getting the same error when trying to post a Thread to Facebook, but only SOME Threads.

Checking the Facebook error listings there is only 1 major error "Your page has meta tags in the body instead of the head. This may be because your HTML was malformed and they fell lower in the parse tree.
Please fix this in order for the tags to be usable."

I think the Thread Descriptions plugin may be causing the problem, as I can successfully upload multiple multiple Shares of Threads which don't have anything in the Thread Description text area. Does this make sense to anyone?

Just to test, if you were to disable the plugin on the forum are you able to share the topics that you weren't able to previously?

[smashwords2]

Disabling Plugin didn't help. Thread won't load to Facebook. Get the 'Oops there was an error' message.

[Brian]

Are those threads visible to guests?

[smashwords2]

Geez, now that you mention it, No. The Thread I was trying to Share with Facebook is restricted to Members and Staff. Let me try a different Thread from a public section of the boards.

[smashwords2]

Yup. Public boards share perfectly. Members and Staff boards don't play nice.

Any way to correct this, other than making a problematic board public?

[Brian]

It wouldn't be possible to do it without making the board visible to guests. Facebook does what it does with any other web page: Views it as a guest and grabs whatever info it can.

[smashwords2]

Colin, my text isn't appearing on Facebook but everything else is fine. Here's my text and your code:

<link rel="image_src" type="image/png" href="http://storage.proboards.com/3421707/i/iaL67txtpnCOcfZYMY8s.png" />
<meta itemprop="image" content="http://storage.proboards.com/3421707/i/iaL67txtpnCOcfZYMY8s.png" />
<meta property="og:title" content="Smashwords Forum" />
<meta property="og:description" content="A FREE and FRIENDLY online forum for AUTHORS." />

and in the template I placed it here:

<div id="wrapper">
<header>
<link rel="image_src" type="image/png" href="http://storage.proboards.com/3421707/i/iaL67txtpnCOcfZYMY8s.png" />
<meta itemprop="image" content="http://storage.proboards.com/3421707/i/iaL67txtpnCOcfZYMY8s.png" />
<meta property="og:title" content="Smashwords Forum" />
<meta property="og:description" content="A FREE and FRIENDLY online forum for AUTHORS." />
<div id="banner-container" role="banner">
<h2 id="banner">
$[forum.title]

[Beatrice Trang]

I figured a fwe things out, but now this is the only thing holding me back.. not sure how to fix the code.

Parser Mismatched Metadata The parser's result for this metadata did not match the input metadata. Likely, this was caused by the data being ordered in an unexpected way, multiple values being given for a property only expecting a... See More

[CheatAreZee]

Hi Beatrice,

It looks like you had the code outside of the forum wrapper. I have gone ahead and re-ordered it for you so that it's in the <head> area of the HTML on the page. If you try to share the forum now, you should see your description and title now