Azure CTP signup - azure

I am trying to signup to the Azure CTP but am finding the whole process real non user friendly. On this http://www.microsoft.com/windowsazure/getstarted/ web page it gives me a link to go to get a token, but when I click it doesn't appear to do anything. It takes me to another page but doesn't tell me if a token has been sent or I have to do something else.
On the dashboard of Microsoft Connect it tells me my status in Azure is 'Participating'. What does this mean? I am not participating because I don't have a token. The whole process is very frustrating!
Is it possible to contact an actual person?

It sounds like you already submitted a request for a token. I tried to sign up a week ago or so and I haven't received anything yet. However, I did get my SQL Azure license and it seems to be working well.
Also, you are absolutely correct, their website is a mess and it's very hard to figure things out. I hope they will be cleaning it up soon!
And I don't think they have any kind of support setup yet.

Related

How can I get my app using Instagram Basic Display API pass app review?

This is now the 4th time I am sending my app for review. I want to use Instagram Basic Display API and therefore require instagram_graph_user_media permission to access media (and incidentally instagram_graph_user_profile). I have 2 test users, my personal IG account with a bunch of pics and a test user that I created with an empty feed. I can login with both users. But when the Instagram app reviewer is logging in, my app can't access their media. I successfully retrieve the access token but when comes the time to call the Graph API here is what happens:
https://graph.instagram.com/me/media?fields=media_type,media_url,permalink,thumbnail_url&access_token=IGQV....
returns
{"error":{"message":"Application does not have permission for this action","type":"IGApiException","code":10,"fbtrace_id":"A99vuaAC41DSvlt0Hxvcly-"}}
Here is an update from my latest app review rejection. This time, I added the code above to catch code 10 errors and if I did, try to fetch the user profile data. Guess what, that failed with a code 10 error as well. So, whatever the app reviewer is doing, it is granting access to neither the profile or the media API.
Another update. The reviewer I had this time sent me two screenshots, one of the Instagram login screen and one of my app's error screen. Interestingly, the Instagram login screen had a strange Instagram username that I have never heard of before. It certainly wasn't my test Instagram account. So I now have evidence of them both using my test account and their own special test accounts.
The question in my mind now is, is there something special about their test accounts that ruins the process? After all, I have not added them to be testers of my app, although if someone who hasn't accepted my test invite tries to log in, it errors in an entirely different way.
I am running out of ideas here. My next thing to try is to exchange the short-lived access token for a long-lived token, as well as trying to use the new access token to server-side (where I exchange the code for the access token) to check if the access token ever works or if it is created with insufficient access.
This whole process is a nightmare.
I will put this as an answer because we have dealt with this thing now for over 2 weeks and quite a few submissions. I think you should remove the bounty though.
What you have done so far:
Created and approved IG test accounts
Double and triple checked parameters & permission
Tested your app a dozen times
Created dozens of screencast spoon-feeding, making sure a 5 yo kid would be able to test your app
Having the above, I am sure you noticed:
The reviewer will add a generic text as 'reject reason.'
The reviewer will submit the irrelevant and out-of-scope screenshot(s)
The reviewer will not test with the Instagram credentials provided.
Maybe he WILL test with the Instagram test credentials provided (in fact you're left in the dark as to how they actually simulate IG access)
The reviewer will claim he's unable to sign in using provided credentials
The reviewer claims having tested, but you see no traces in your DB whatsoever (would be smart to do so, to know whether they're actually doing something or not, up to a certain point)
Conclusion
You have to know that your app is at the reviewer's mercy and approval sometimes arbitrarily. Eventually, you will find your app being approved while having submitted it to change at all.
This should be obvious but when you are so deep in the hole and try to think why your app is being rejected you stop thinking logically.
Here is what I did:
Create a dummy Instagram account.
Link this account to an email provider that doesn't require a phone/another way of verification (I used ProtonMail).
Use an Instagram Tester account (do the whole process).
In your instructions let the reviewer that they need to log in to ProtonMail to get the Instagram confirmation code; since they will do login from an unknown location (if you could simulate the above in your screencast that would be great, but I didn't do it).
If you apply for both instagram_graph_user_profile and instagram_graph_user_media you need to do this in 2 steps individually.
The second step getting the instagram_graph_user_media permission is much easier.
I lost a couple of days and tried everything and anything before I realized that.
Hopefully, this should help someone that is having the same problem.
The app was approved the first time.
It is possible that the App Reviewer is unchecking the instagram_graph_user_media access in the authentication screen, thus giving you only access to instagram_graph_user_profile. I had the exact same error code being thrown back my way, and I did the following:
Catch the error code 10 error
Try to fetch the https://graph.instagram.com/me?fields=account_type,username&access_token=${accessToken}
If that works, then display a page that makes it clear that you have successfully connected to the Instagram User Profile (and here is your username and account type) but, if the user wants to do X they also need to approve media access, and here is a button to go and reauthenticate again.
See the image I have below.
Now, I did the above and I still got an app review failure of code 10, which means that the second fetch to only the username and account type failed, and I do not know how they could possibly have managed to do that.
They admitted issue but not fixed yet: https://developers.facebook.com/support/bugs/543633182940083/
To get approved for Instagram Basic Display:
create a Facebook test user
create an Instagram account with that FB test user
give the credentials (email/address) of the Facebook test user to the reviewer in the Instagram Basic Display submission
Basic Display API review process is so bad its beyond words. I have been hitting the brick wall of their rejections for 3 weeks and almost got bald by pulling my hair in frustration. You really have to read between the lines to get a hint of what they are doing.
Turns out what the reviewer was doing is selecting "Continue with Facebook" on the Instagram Login screen and going that route (via Facebook login) instead of entering the instagram credentials directly. Only once I realized that I was able to pin point the problem. Interestingly though testing on the Simulator was fine but the problem only became apparent once I tested on the real device. The reason - simulator doesn't have neither Facebook app nor Instagram app installed, so it behaves differently versus the device where these apps get involved in the flow via deep linking.
The bottom line:
Test on real device.
Make sure to test both the direct Instagram log in and the "Continue with Facebook" option.
Test on the device with and without the Facebook and/or Instagram app installed.
Make sure to use brand new instance of WKWebView with non persistent data store to bring up the login screen, so that it doesn't have any cookies from previous logins:
let configuration = WKWebViewConfiguration()
configuration.websiteDataStore = WKWebsiteDataStore.nonPersistent()
let webView = WKWebView(frame: .zero, configuration: configuration)
Pray the God of your choosing.

Instagram: unable to create client in Manage Clients

The problem is that in Manage Clients at https://www.instagram.com/developer/clients/manage/ client was created,
but it became invalid, the id did not work, i.e. instagram disabled it, the inscription was disabled.
We decided to delete the old client and create a new One, but instagram does not register it. The line of consent and the captcha does not issue. Respectively writes 2 errors:
1.Incorrect Captcha. Try again.
2.Error sending: fill in all required fields.
How can this be corrected?
I've had this same issue, and haven't been able to get anywhere with it. The support page for Instagram says to report a bug using the "Report Bug" button on the Developer Dashboard (http://instagram.com/developer/clients/manage/). If you click that button it takes you to a form that asks if you want to report a bug for the old API or new API. If you select the old API it says "we're not taking bug reports for the old API", if you select new API it takes you to Facebook's developer support page. I created a ticket there, and they told me I had to report it through Instagram's support links. WTF?? That's what I did .....
Anyways, the problem is related to a bunch of javascript errors on that client registration page. I first encountered this problem about 3-4 weeks ago, and it's still around. Feels like IG really doesn't give a crap about their developer community ....

Instagram API throwing OAuthAccessTokenException 400 error using client id

I was using the following api to get the latest 3 posts from public accounts to show on the website:
https://api.instagram.com/v1/users/{user-id}/media/recent/?client_id={client-id}&count=3
I had created an app to get the client-id.
However from today, this API has started throwing the following exception:
{
meta: {
error_type: "OAuthAccessTokenException",
code: 400,
error_message: "The access_token provided is invalid."
}
}
Could you please let me know as how to resolve this?
Based on the date, you probably have an older app that got hit by the API migration today, like mine. In short, Instagram decided to make developing for their platform WAY more annoying by requiring all API requests to be authenticated per user, even for data that users shares publicly. So you (like me) will likely be redesigning you app entirely.
To tell, log in to instagram.com/developer and click manage clients; then hit edit next to the set of keys your're trying to use. Up near the top, it will have a section called 'Client Status' -- if yours reads 'Sandbox Mode', fun times ahead! Hopefully you interact with less than 10 users and can stay in sandbox mode, otherwise you'll have to write an essay, film a video, and basically plead to get your permissions back (probably in a few months, when some Instagram intern finally digs his way down to you in the pile of applications). If it reads something eles, you've got another problem altogether and should thank your lucky stars.
In the meantime, I guess I'll get back to sending out dozens of emails to the maintainers of our many, many affiliated Instagram accounts to explain the issue and try to get permissions, so provided we get approved by then, all our social media displays aren't broken during a huge event Saturday. Another option might be to use the OAuth-less json response available here, but that might break terms of service.
I have a solution to this. If you are using the same code I am, which appears likely. I was pulling the last two images using this.
https://api.instagram.com/v1/users/{user-id}/media/recent/?client_id={client-id}&count=3
What I did to get this working is the following.
Login to your Instragram account you are using as the application.
Go to the developer (API) area. https://www.instagram.com/developer/clients/manage/
Manage clients. Make sure your website URL is the same as your valid redirect URL.
Add new Sandbox User. Put in the account of the IG photos you want to reach.
Hit this URL: https://api.instagram.com/oauth/authorize/?client_id=CLIENTID&redirect_uri=REDIRECT_URI&response_type=token where the client ID is the same one you used in your previous app above.
You should get back and access token URL. Copy your access token.
Login as your account that you want the IG photos of. The account you added as a sandbox user and go to developer and approve the Sandbox Invites.
Change your original URL above from https://api.instagram.com/v1/users/{user-id}/media/recent/?client_id={client-id}&count=3 to https://api.instagram.com/v1/users/self/media/recent/?access_token=ACCESS_TOKEN with your access token.
This is the IG API Media endpoint documentation: https://www.instagram.com/developer/endpoints/users/
After that, it all worked for me and while you are in the sandbox, you should be able to pull the last 3 photos or at this point, figure out how to read the JSON to do so.
Has your app been approved after the June 1st Instagram platform changes?
http://developers.instagram.com/post/145262544121/instagram-platform-update-effective-june-1-2016
If you want to retrieve the user media file then try this, It's working for me
https://graph.instagram.com/me/media?fields=id,caption,media_url,media_type&access_token=ACCESS_TOKEN
For some reason the token is no more valid. Request it again.
Possible reasons why a token is no more valid:
changed password
verified the account
logged-in from a different country

Libspotify: There was an error generating your application key

I have a premium Spotify account and I am trying to generate an application key to use with libspotify. I am doing this using the form here: https://developer.spotify.com/technologies/libspotify/request-key/, but the generation of the key always fails with a message "There was an error generating your application key".
I tried formatting my application name differently (e.g., spaces, no spaces, no dashes, etc), but the outcome is still the same.
Not sure if it's of any relevance, but I am logged in through facebook and my user name on the application form is shown as a number.
Is it possible that there is something wrong with my account ?
Thanks in advance,
-Kal.
I suspect that something is up with the API key registration page. I've filed an internal bug report with the team that maintains that (I work at Spotify), and hopefully it'll be up and running soon! I'll update this answer if it turns out to be something other than that.
Edit: The error was on Spotify's website, everything seems to be working again.

LIKES done by me on my own page don't show up anymore after making an app to post to my page's fanpage

I really hope someone can tell me more about what's going on, because I spent days searching the net and for the life of me can't say what is going on.
Here's what happened. I have a website 4nieuws.nl . On every article's page I put a like button using the Javascript SDK. All worked well. On facebook I created a fanpage for the website, facebook.com/4nieuws and every now and again I would copy an interesting article there. The like button and Javascript SDK on 4nieuws.nl uses the APP Id from an app I created specifically for that purpose.
Then I thought I might automate to publish the most popular articles on the fanpage using the PHP api. I set about getting the proper authorization key using the sequence explained on this page: http://www.typeoneerror.com/articles/post/permanent-facebook-sessions-and-posting-as-a-page
For this to work I authorized the previously mentioned app to publish on the facebook fanpages that I am admin of. And this works.
Now for the strange part. Ever since I authorized the app, if I go to 4nieuws.nl and like a page, or even 'post to facebook', the button shows 1 more like. But the like message never shows up on my personal wall. My wife, logged in to her own facebook account, gets a notification that I liked a page, but when she clicks the notification she is sent to a Facebook 404 page. When I subsequently reload the article, my 'like' is not there anymore.
Has anyone ever come across something like this ? I'm a bit anxious because I am not sure if other peoples likes on 4nieuws.nl are working as it should. I do see likes on pages but have no idea if those likes are actually registering on peoples walls.
Any help greatly appreciated.

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