Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Facebook breaks their RSS feeds

Without warning today Facebook broke all their RSS feeds. If, like me, you rely on your favourite RSS reader to keep up with your entire life, this is a major tragedy.

It all started when I received this on my Facebook friends status feed today.
Facebook Syndication Error
This feed URL is no longer valid. Visit this page to find the new URL, if you have access: http://www.facebook.com/statusupdates/
I got similar errors from my Notifications and Posts/Links feeds. Each of them pointed me to a place to find the new URL that were completely useless. Bless them...

I did some hunting around and it seems that all that's happened is that Facebook has changed their authentication keys from a numeric to a longer alphanumeric. The RSS URLs are all unchanged other than that.

To find your new authentication key you can follow these instructions to get the Notification or Links RSS URLs within Facebook.
  • Notifications: Go to http://www.facebook.com/notifications.php and you'll find a new link at the top of the page.
    format: http://www.facebook.com/feeds/notifications.php?id=YourID&viewer=YourID&key=YourNewAuthkey&format=rss20
  • Links: Go to http://www.facebook.com/posted.php and you'll find an RSS to My Friends' Links in the left column.
    format: http://www.facebook.com/feeds/share_friends_posts.php?id=YourID&key=YourNewAuthkey&format=rss20
The new News Feed/Status link is nowhere to be found on the Facebook web site as far as I can see. However I did manage to use the hints from the first 2 to fix the last one. You just need to change the authkey in your feed URL to get a new URL that works.

http://www.facebook.com/feeds/friends_status.php?id=YourID&key=YourNewAuthkey&format=rss20

Are you missing other RSS feeds after this change? If so, let me know!
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15 comments:

  1. Beth GranterJune 15, 2011 at 5:13 PM

    Thanks for this. I tried the same thing to get my profile RSS feed but it didn't work. The old URL was http://www.facebook.com/feeds/status.php?id=MYID&viewer=MYID&key=MYOLDAUTHKEY&format=rss20 and I followed step 1 for Notifications above, grabbed MYNEWAUTHKEY and replaced it in my status feed rss above, but this takes me to a Facebook error.

    ReplyDelete
  2. marthaJune 17, 2011 at 4:27 AM

    same here...hopefully someone'll get it working again!

    ReplyDelete
  3. DiemJune 17, 2011 at 11:19 PM

    I struggled initially, found that the problem was including the &viewer argument - this isn't needed for status updates.

    ReplyDelete
  4. UnknownJune 18, 2011 at 2:32 AM

    Fixed broken feed. Big thank you.

    Found you on http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=20531316728&topic=42430&post=173111

    You are first working solution in 3 days searching.

    Breaking important feeds is frustrating and disruptive without notice or alternative, you are not alone.

    ReplyDelete
  5. El Vikingo HolandesJune 20, 2011 at 2:11 PM

    thanks for the post, and thanks for the comments. However, I've been fiddling around with all your input above, and just can't get it to work.

    I keep getting "Facebook Syndication Error. This feed URL is no longer valid."

    Anyone any other suggestion? I tried Diem and Beth's input as well.

    ReplyDelete
  6. AnonymousJune 21, 2011 at 2:54 PM

    My status is still not available.

    Any news ?

    Thanks

    Ettore

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousJune 22, 2011 at 12:20 PM

    Weird... I get two different 16 char long keys from the RSS feeds found on http://www.facebook.com/notifications.php and http://www.facebook.com/posted.php .

    Only the first one will work with friends_status.php .

    This might be the reason people are getting errors. Check both links and see if the keys match. If they don't... try both.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Yohannes TampubolonJune 25, 2011 at 10:46 PM

    Even the new Auth key is not consistent.
    There are at least 2 auth keys for a user, depending on which rss you want to see.

    I use *my* notifications auth key to get my wife's status update through one of my friend lists (which contains only her)

    I use *her* share-friend-post auth key to get my status update through one of her friend list (which contains only me)

    ReplyDelete
  9. El Vikingo HolandesJune 27, 2011 at 8:05 AM

    Ok, got it to work with the Auth key from the My Friends' Links feed :)))))))

    very happy again!

    ReplyDelete
  10. UnknownJuly 4, 2011 at 5:17 PM

    Is there any way to filter an RSS feed for a specific friend list? I'm trying to pare down share_friends_posts.php for only the people I actually want RSS for...useful when you have lots of friends.

    ReplyDelete
  11. GeebArtJuly 5, 2011 at 7:01 PM

    I have made a short tutorial for obtaining these feeds. Let me know what other feeds you need!

    http://geebart.com/blog/facebook-status-rss-feed

    ReplyDelete
  12. Darling GwendyJuly 12, 2011 at 1:11 PM

    Ditto what Tony said - is there away to apply a friends list to this RSS feed? I tried adding
    &sk=fl_123456789876 to the URL, after &id=123456789, and also after &viewer=123456789, but neither attempt worked. That is, they worked, but I still got everyone's statuses, not just the people on that specific friends list. Any ideas?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Brian StirlingJuly 30, 2011 at 3:26 PM

    Agree Gwendy, there's some status updates I'm just not as interested in seeing. A way to thin the list would be awesome, however, I'm delighted to have my FB RSS back!

    ReplyDelete
  14. nick trippSeptember 14, 2011 at 7:27 PM

    Looks status updates from friends is broken again. Not sure about the rest just yet. Anyone here have an update?

    ReplyDelete
  15. Stephen JudgeSeptember 18, 2011 at 5:43 AM

    The Links RSS feeds are broken/gone again and there is now no RSS feed for "My Friends Links".

    Following the instructions above. I am able to get the RSS feed for my Notifications feed fine but not for my Links feed. Going to http://www.facebook.com/posted.php there is now no "RSS to My Friends' Links" in the left column.

    Facebook has not integrated your friends links and status updates into the one News feed and there is now no way you view your friend list of links. As a result of this it seems this has broken the RSS feed for the status updates news feed, so the last solution in the post is no longer working either.

    ReplyDelete

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