Facebook Sharing on Android - no URL or Image (or Message)

[rajatrocks]

On Android 4.4 I've tried sharing to Facebook via .share, .shareViaFacebook, and . shareViaFacebookWithPasteMessageHint - with no image and a url. My url never gets added. Maybe this has something to do with the splitting out of Messenger functionality?

On iOS this works fine.

[EddyVerbruggen]

Hi, that URL should be picked up by Android to show a little preview of that webpage. Which URL are you trying to share? Perhaps my code thinks it's malformed...

[rajatrocks]

You're right! My domain is one of the new TLD's - .fail - so my URL looks like http://www.cannot.fail?id=something. That fails to attach properly to the Facebook post on Android. Using a .com instead works fine. Any chance that can be changed to accept other TLDs? Thanks!

[EddyVerbruggen]

Haha, cool domain ;)

Are you able to use the .fail domain in a regular Facebook post? I guess so, because iOS works..

Or is it perhaps a whitelisting issue in your config.xml?

[rajatrocks]

Yes, I can use it with no problems using Facebook's normal feed dialog (https://developers.facebook.com/docs/sharing/reference/feed-dialog/v2.2) and the iOS version of the social sharing plugin.

My config.xml currently has access origin="*". Is there something else I should look at?

Thanks!

[EddyVerbruggen]

Hmm, strange. I just tried this myself and it works on my Samsung Galaxy S3 (Android 4.3). Can you give it a try?

<button onclick="window.plugins.socialsharing.shareViaFacebook('hi', ['http://www.icu.fail/public/style_images/tctc91_simplify/feed.png'], null, function(msg) {alert(msg)}, function(err) {alert(err)})">img via Facebook</button>

[rajatrocks]

Hi Eddy - sorry if my original post wasn't clear - I'm trying to share a URL, not an image.

.share("Hello there", "Test Subject", null, "http://www.cannot.fail?id=something")

[EddyVerbruggen]

Ehm oops you're right - I'll take a look tomorrow!
Knowing the exact url may help me. If it's sensitive feel free to PM me.

[rajatrocks]

Thanks! Sent it to you in email.

[EddyVerbruggen]

Hi, I've tested this URL and every time I try to share it to facebook, the log spits out a stacktrace of the Facebook app. It can't resolve a specific class it seems to need to share this url.

I tried a workaround: use a link shortener, which actually tricks it into sharing the damn thing. It may not produce a nice preview and shows the shortened url, but it does share your original link.

[rajatrocks]

Thanks @EddyVerbruggen !

[replysam2009]

@EddyVerbruggen Hi, I am using Social Sharing plugin in one of my Ionic2 projects. Earlier everything was working fine but from past 3 days I am not being able to share anything using different share functions (except for shareViaMail()). Whenever I try to share anything it says: "Attempt to invoke virtual method 'android.content.res.XmlResourceParserandroid.content.pm.ProviderInfo.loadXmlMetaData(android.content.pm.PackageManager, java.lang.String)' on a null object reference."
This happens only when I try to share image. If I share only message and Url, it works fine but if I try to share any image (by giving its url as a string), it throws an error.
Is there anything you can help me with?

[gianpaj]

Do we know why this happens only on Android? Is the Android Facebook or Messenger App doing something after a cordova/ionic sends the correct URL, but not on iOS?
Or can we update some native SDK/code inside this plugin, that could allow for this?

[marceviana]

I can´t share anything via facebook. The facebook app will crash before opening completely if I use window.plugins.socialsharing.shareViaFacebook

                    window.plugins.socialsharing.shareViaFacebook(null, [fileURL], null, 
                        function successShare(s) {
                            console.log('share ok')
                        }, function errorShare(errormsg){
                            console.log('Error in: shareViaFacebook >> msg:')
                            console.log(errormsg)
                        })

The only function currently working that won't make fb to crash is window.plugins.socialsharing.shareVia('facebook', null, [fileURL]) but then the sharing activity is shown but won't load the file. I've tried both with a local file (file:/...) and a web hosted one, and also video files. All the other apps work as expected (whatsapp, gmail, drive, etc) both with image and video. Any ideas what might be happening?

I'm using version 5.2.1 of the plugin for android:minSdkVersion="14" and android:targetSdkVersion="26"