Facebook Syndication Error

sunset 300x211 Facebook Syndication Error As of June 8, 2011, it appears that Facebook is discontinuing certain types of syndication or RSS feeds. Facebook RSS feeds were used to feed content from a Facebook page into RSS readers, applications and mobile apps. This means that applications that have relied on Facebook content feeds, are now displaying the following message:

“You probably reached this page by entering the guide of a syndicated error message into the location bar of your browser. This probably means that you can’t see the feed that you were trying to access. This is probably because the owner of the feed changed his or her privacy settings or deleted content on the feed. You may be able to get access to the feed by contacting the owner of the content being syndicated in that feed.”

Facebook published RSS feeds in 2010, and this was viewed widely as a positive feature, allowing the content aggregated on Facebook to be viewed across a multiple of platforms.

While some types of Facebook pages still deliver RSS feeds, others have recently stopped. Open standards on the internet are vital. Many bloggers and developers are disappointed that easily accessible feeds, public or authenticated, seem to be disappearing on the internet.

Facebook has not made their position on the RSS feed issue readily apparent. Additionally, there is little third party discussion from the media regarding this change. Other bloggers have reported on this issue as well as Twitter’s end of RSS. However, in a world where every sneeze of a new media company is reported in the Wall Street Journal, it is interesting that national media has not picked up on this change. It is clear that Facebook and Twitter have little incentive to keep distributing their content using RSS feeds. Advertising revenue and control via API seems to be the wave of the future.

Please let us know your thoughts. Has your Facebook RSS feed been cut? Are you seeing “Facebook Syndication Error” messages on mobile apps or online? Why do you think Facebook has eliminated this function?

June 9th, 2011 | admin | 12 Comments | Tags: Facebook Syndication Error

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Kris 06.09.2011

Yup. I had my friends status updates fed to my Google Reader and that stopped today. I used to use it to browse status updates, and then click on the ones I wanted to comment on or see pictures. Guess I won’t be using Facebook very much in the future. Sad.
Joey Connick

I *just* saw this error message today. Very disappointed… was using a combo of the RSS of my friends’ statuses and Yahoo Pipes to make sure I wasn’t missing updates from anyone important.
Tudza

Yes, my RSS reader today reported that my Facebook feed now generates a syndication error. You would think that a page on Facebook called “News Feed” would offer an actual feed, you know Atom RSS or whatever, but I see no options for this on this page.
OBLIN Anthony

I get a “Facebook Syndication Error” in my RSS facebook feeds this morning… and no other feed since.
Bill

This is very aggravating to me. The feeds for notes, shared items, and friend lists were the easiest way for me to filter out the firehose of junk that facebook sends out without missing anything just because another deluge of comments over the latest story appeared,
Jon

This seems less to do with Facebook cutting off RSS and more to do with a change in the “key” section at the end of the feed.

I got the syndication error this morning on the three facebook feeds I have set up. Facebook still officially supports the feed for friends’ shared posts (Applications->Links->My Friends’ Links). After regenerating the feed for friends’ shared posts you can still substitute friends_status or friends_notes for share_friends_posts. I was able to regenerate all three feeds again this morning. It appears that the only change was to the key at the end.

Now if only there was a feed for friends’ posted photos. Sadly. it does seem more likely that Facebook will eventually cut off these feeds rather than support additional ones.
Brad

This is very frustrating … I like to have an RSS feed of Status messages from my friends, but that has been disabled. Only reason I can come up with is they want us logging into Facebook to see the advertisements. Seems the world of Facebook has crossed the line from social media to business media. What a shame.
Tor Anders Johansen

Facebook RSS feeds still works, they just changed what authentication keys they use.
Follow this guide and the RSS feed will be available once more:
http://plasticlimey.blogspot.com/2011/06/facebook-breaks-their-rss-feeds.html
Robin

I used a Facebook RSS feed to display my status updates on my WordPress blog. Now I’m getting that error. Grrr!
chris g

Here is a solution for those of you who wish to publish from an app or page wall to WordPress:
http://chrisgilligan.com/wordpress/remote-publishing-to-wordpress-from-facebook-via-rss/
Petteri

I found a solution for my “Facebook syndication error”. In Edit page -> Manage permissions -> Country restrictions I had limited the wall content for one country only. I cleared the field and now RSS works again!
Thomas

Jepp my RSS feed dosn´t work. Please help me if possible