Album does not sync

I’m sorry to hear you are having issues with the plugin. I just imported your Timeline Photos from your page without any issue in a multi-site environment. Depending on your server, their may be an issue where it could be timing out trying to import the images. I fixed that issue in version 0.4 by limiting the number of photos it processes at one time, so make sure you have the most updated version of the plugin. If you are running version 0.4 and still having the issue, try unchecking the checkbox in the import section titled “Import images to WordPress media library?”. By unchecking, that will not import the actual images to WordPress and just use the images on Facebook. If none of those work, let me know. Also, if you know how to use the Network tab in a browser like Chrome and can see an error there, let me know. Thanks!

Something similar to this is happening to me too. I can get it to start importing photos, but it always to stop at 25. The spinny thing is still going but no more photos are being uploaded.

Is this in any way dependent on WordPress core being updated? My client’s site is still on 3.8.7.

@mmcdermott can you send me a link to your Facebook page and the album you are trying to import? I can try to reproduce your issue.

Well, that was fast! Here’s the FB page:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Woolwich-Gymnastics-Club/300356110018961?sk=timeline
(sorry, pasted wrong link before)

I’ve tried Mobile Uploads and Timeline photos and neither get past 25.

Thanks a lot for your help! I don’t have a WP development environment set up at the moment otherwise I would do the same.

Hi mmcdermott,

I did a test and I was able to import the Mobile Uploads album. It did take a while to upload, but that may be due to large images being imported into WordPress. So the question is, how long did you wait before you gave up on the import? The issue could be the server timing out. I may need to limit to less than 25 photos at a time if there are time out issues. In the mean time, you can also uncheck the box that says “Import images to WordPress media library”. This will make it so the album images are served from Facebook rather than being imported into WordPress and being served from the site. Let me know if that works and/or if waiting a little longer for the import works. If it is a timeout issue, I’ll start limiting the number of photos to send at once in a future update.

Thanks,
Mike

Thanks so much for helping! I tried it again today and it’s still getting stuck at 25. I’ve left it going for over an hour and it hasn’t gotten any further.

Can you think of anything else I could try to get this working? If I don’t import the photos, I can only embed the full album gallery, right? My client wants to be able to select individual images to put into a post gallery embedded in a post. She isn’t very tech-savvy so I’m not sure if I could get her to put her images in separate albums on Facebook, and then import that album each time she wants to do this.

You bet!

It sounds like there is a timeout issue on your server. If you don’t mind, can you try again, but this time (in Google Chrome browser) open the Network tab in development tools, click the filter icon, click XHR and then try to import the album. You will see an ajax request that makes a post request to the server. If that request timesout, it will return a red 500 error. That would confirm the timeout.

Whether you import the images or not, it will show the whole gallery if you use the fb_album shortcode. At the moment, there isn’t a way to edit the display. However, importing the images does allow you to use other methods of displaying them, but it would require the use of another gallery display not associated with my plugin. If you plan on using the fb_album shortcode associated with the Facebook gallery, importing or not importing makes no difference. The only difference is that the images will be served from Facebook rather than the WordPress site. There’s nothing else functionally different. Importing the gallery without importing the actual images will likely not timeout since no images are being downloaded and saved, just the gallery data.

Hi, 0.5.1 release now imports image 1 at a time rather than 25 at a time. This will hopefully prevent any timing out you’ve been experiencing. Let me know if things have improved for you. Thanks!

Marking resolved. If you are still have the issue with the current version of the plugin, just reopen this ticket and we’ll investigate further. Thanks!