Facebook Errors
About
When you are using the Facebook Messenger integration, there are times that an Echo user may send a message to a conversation and Facebook will not accept it for some reason. When that happens, Echo will display the error message that Facebook sends back.
These errors are coming from the Facebook side, not the Echo platform. Echo displays the error to make you aware.
Below is a list of some of the common errors Facebook sends and what they say it means, as well as some tips for what to do when you get the error.
Common Errors
- This person isn't available right now.
What Facebook says it mean:
This error means that the recipient has closed your chat, or blocked you. According to Facebook's developer page, the error message means 'Message Not Sent: This person isn't available right now.' This occurs when a user deletes a conversation. This message can also appear when a customer has turned off messages on Facebook messenger to a page they are having the conversation. Unfortunately, Facebook doesn't disclose specifics of these reasons to protect the user privacy.
What you can do:
You may not want to do anything. If the recipient has closed your conversation or blocked you, it may be best to move on.
However, if you go directly to the Facebook Page, you'll be able to reply to this recipient even if the conversation is deleted. The recipient will receive a request to create a new conversation with you. No error is generated. This is not the case when using a third-party service like Echo. When you reply from Echo we use the Facebook Echo Application that is linked to your page, so this error will occur if the recipient closes the chat or blocks you.
- You're restricted from acting as your Page until you complete Page Publishing Authorization. Switch back to your Primary Profile to complete authorization under - Settings - Account Settings - Identity Confirmation. Complete verification or you will be restricted indefinitely.
What Facebook says it mean:
You're receiving this error because Facebook is requiring you to complete Publishing Authorization before you can leave a comment/send a message. If you manage a Page with a large audience you may be asked to confirm your identity and secure your account through a new Page Publishing Authorization process. Any Administrator on your Facebook Page may be asked to perform this action by Facebook.
What you can do:
You will need to go through the Page Publishing Authorization process before you're able to reply to seekers. You can follow Facebook's instructions here: https://www.facebook.com/help/1939753742723975
You may be able to determine which Admin needs to perform this action by having all Page admins log into the page and see if they are receiving the Page Publishing Authorization notification from Facebook.
Once all admins on the Page are showing that Facebook has confirmed their identity, you can delete and re-add the page in Echo Integrations.
- This message is sent outside of allowed window. Learn more about the policy here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/messenger-platform/policy-overview
What Facebook says it mean:
Most third party apps only allow you 24 hours to reply to a message before the reply option expires. However, Echo has received allowance from Facebook to allow users 7 days to respond to a message before restricting responses. This 7 day option is called a Human_Agent tag. Echo is set up to let users know when a message is getting close to expiration, so this error message should be rare.
What you can do:
First, check to make sure the message that returned this error was sent within the 7 day allotment of time. If it was, please report this error to support@echoglobal.org.
- You have been temporarily blocked from performing this action.
What Facebook says it mean:
There are two documented meanings for this error.
Facebook has issued a temporary block on your Facebook account. A Facebook block may limit only some of your abilities. For example, you could be blocked from posting to a Page or Group but still be allowed to post to your Timeline.
According to Facebook’s Support Page, they may temporarily block people when:
- Something the person posted or shared seems suspicious or abusive to Facebook's security systems.
- The person's messages or friend requests were marked unwelcome.
- The person did something that doesn't follow Facebook’s Community Standards.
The length of a block depends on the severity of the violation and the person's history on Facebook.
OR
Facebook has limits on outbound sending with third party apps and will temporarily throttle your Page if it detects that this is happening. We usually find this to be true if customers are sending a lot of marketing/promotional material. Unfortunately, when this happens, it impacts all third party apps connected to your Page, and prevents you from sending out further messages for a while.
What you can do:
Unfortunately, if you have been blocked by Facebook, there is nothing Echo can do to bypass the restriction. You will need to contact Facebook to dispute the block or wait until Facebook lifts the block.
You may want to try using Facebook Messenger directly to respond to the user, or you can wait for your temporary throttle to end.
- This action is not permitted due to new data privacy regulation in Europe. Please review the developer documentation for more info. OR Unsupported attachment. The EU's GDPR restrictions and Facebook prohibit this message from being displayed in Echo.
What Facebook says it mean:
In order to comply with European privacy regulations, Facebook has restricted certain features for the following Messenger users:
- Europe and Japan pages in all chats
- Pages with admins in Europe or Japan in all chats
- Any chats with people in Europe or Japan
The full details of these changes are listed in Facebook's Developer documentation here.
What you can do:
Remove the attachment from that message and provide it in hyperlink/URL form instead.6
- "(#10) Messaging permission check failure"
What Facebook says it means:
When you get this error when trying to reply, it's actually due to the profile settings the person/client has chosen.
The profile is giving us the error because they've either deleted their profile, or they've chosen in the settings to not allow DM's from people they're not 'friends' with or from 'business pages'. So it's not anything on our end, or yours (Echo/Facebook Page/settings etc.) and there's no way for us to find them natively via our DMs either bc of their settings."
What you can do:
There isn't a way for you to fix this. You may try to reply from the Facebook Page, but it is unclear if your message will go through there either if they've chosen not to receive messages from a business account.
