Facebook Sharer Returning 500 Internal Server Error on Desktop

Question

I am attempting to use the share button on http://www.desiringgod.org/ on a Mac. It works for me on mobile, and on a desktop, the sharer dialog comes up properly. However, when clicking the Share Link button, dialog shows a short Facebook status bar and then does not respond. After inspecting in the browser's dev tool console, I see an 500 error.

Here's what I see in Firebug. "POST https://www.facebook.com/ajax/sharer/submit_page/ 500 Internal Server Error" "NetworkError: 500 Internal Server Error - //www.facebook.com/ajax/sharer/submit_page/"

Is anyone else experiencing this issue? Any ideas on how to resolve?

It seems like a FB issue, but I can't find much else about this online or on FB forums.

Thanks!

Answer 1

I had the same error and realized I was using a wrong app id. I'm not an admin of that faulty app id, so I don't know whether it was some settings in it (perhaps sandboxed) or something else. But changing it will definitely solve the issue for you

Answer 2

This seems to be a bug on Facebook's behalf - as their Like button plugin doesn't require an appId and their Share Button code-generator doesn't include any references to it being required.

That said I've found a workaround that doesn't require signup/AppID-registration.

What I did was simply to copy any existing AppID and stuff it at the end of the sdk.js URL, Like so:

<div id="fb-root"></div>
<script>(function(d, s, id) {
  var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
  if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
  js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
  js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.0&appId=XXX";
  fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));</script>

(The one I used in place of the "XXX" above, was an App ID from one of Facebook's own sites.)

There seems to be no validation being performed, which again leads me to believe this is a temporary blunder made by Facebook.