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Facebook Share returning Blank Thumbnail

Goh Yew Hoe
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12 years 10 months ago #100964 by Goh Yew Hoe

Facebook Share returning Blank Thumbnail was created by Goh Yew Hoe

I can't seems to get the thumbnail to display when I share my articles onto facebook. With the debugging tool, I see that facebook is able to find my image and it's url but it display it as a blank?

Here's the link to try it with an article from my site.
Facebook Debugger Tool

As you can see under object properties, for OG Image, the thumbnail is blank but if you click on it. It actually links to the image in my article. The large version of the image.

However I understand that in K2 parameters, there is a place to define image size to share to facebook. Looking at the scrap data from facebook, I can find that meta tag which I define as extra small.

Lefteris
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12 years 10 months ago #100965 by Lefteris

Replied by Lefteris on topic Re: Facebook Share returning Blank Thumbnail

Hi. It seems that Facebook did some changes and now it uses the open graph meta tag (<meta name="og:image" content="XXX" />) instead of the image tag. The best way to do this is find a plugin since Facebook requires also other open graph tags.

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Goh Yew Hoe
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12 years 10 months ago - 12 years 10 months ago #100966 by Goh Yew Hoe

Replied by Goh Yew Hoe on topic Re: Facebook Share returning Blank Thumbnail

I have a plugin that handles the opengraph however it doesn't work very well for the image. The og image tag will only be detected properly if I insert the image into full text of the article thru the editor. It doesn't work if I just use the intro image given to K2.

This creates a redundant step and also causes problem if using simple image gallery pro plugin because it will just return transparent.gif as placeholder for the gallery. I think the reason why facebook returns with a blank thumbnail at times is also because its trying to download the _L large image size which then timeout in the process, I'm not sure.

I think the simpler way atm would be perhaps to modify K2 source so that instead of saying

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Lefteris
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12 years 10 months ago #100967 by Lefteris

Replied by Lefteris on topic Re: Facebook Share returning Blank Thumbnail

Facebook requires much more tags than just the og:image. So adding just this is not a solution. URLs will still get errors by the Facebook debugger tools. That's why i suggested seperate plugin for this. You can however do this in your template overrides:

$document = JFactory::getDocument();
$facebookImage = 'image'.$this->params->get('facebookImage','Small');
if($this->item->$facebookImage){
$document->setMetaData('og:image',substr(JURI::root(),0,-1).str_replace(JURI::root(true),'',$this->item->$facebookImage));
}

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Goh Yew Hoe
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12 years 10 months ago #100968 by Goh Yew Hoe

Replied by Goh Yew Hoe on topic Re: Facebook Share returning Blank Thumbnail

I added the code you suggested to item.php with template overwrite and see this added attribute from the scrape url now.

Goh Yew Hoe
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12 years 10 months ago #100969 by Goh Yew Hoe

Replied by Goh Yew Hoe on topic Re: Facebook Share returning Blank Thumbnail

After some very tedious Google search, I found an old topic that contains a solution code by one of the users here. Topic Link

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Kannan Naidu Venugopal
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Aham Brahmasmi

12 years 10 months ago #100970 by Kannan Naidu Venugopal

Replied by Kannan Naidu Venugopal on topic Re: Facebook Share returning Blank Thumbnail

I'm using this for now and works like a charm too :D. Thanks Lefteris Kavadas for the facebook image code.

					
					K2 Rocks \m/

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Darko Petkovski
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12 years 9 months ago #100971 by Darko Petkovski

Replied by Darko Petkovski on topic Re: Facebook Share returning Blank Thumbnail

Kannan Naidu wrote: I'm using this for now and works like a charm too :D. Thanks Lefteris Kavadas for the facebook image code.
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Kannan Naidu Venugopal
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Aham Brahmasmi

12 years 9 months ago #100972 by Kannan Naidu Venugopal

Replied by Kannan Naidu Venugopal on topic Re: Facebook Share returning Blank Thumbnail

Create template override and add this in item.php

K2 Rocks \m/

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Lul Blaka
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12 years 8 months ago #100973 by Lul Blaka

Replied by Lul Blaka on topic Re: Facebook Share returning Blank Thumbnail

I really don't understand where to put this code ,,,
i putted it in k2 template-default-item.php
but nothing is changed....
i still can not share my k2 items in facebook page

please someone assist...

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Lefteris
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12 years 8 months ago #100974 by Lefteris

Replied by Lefteris on topic Re: Facebook Share returning Blank Thumbnail

@Lul Blaka

Have you read the documentation? Take a read at getk2.org/documentation/tutorials/item/174-templating-with-k2-and-the-concepts-of-sub-templates

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George Savvoglou
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12 years 8 months ago #100975 by George Savvoglou

Replied by George Savvoglou on topic Re: Facebook Share returning Blank Thumbnail

A think this code works!!!

But the tumbnail at facebook is very small!! can i change this for a little bit bigger image?? :)

Kannan Naidu wrote: I'm using this for now and works like a charm too :D. Thanks Lefteris Kavadas for the facebook image code.
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Lefteris
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12 years 8 months ago #100976 by Lefteris

Replied by Lefteris on topic Re: Facebook Share returning Blank Thumbnail

@George Savvoglou

If you have hardcoded the image then it depends on the image. Otherwise go to K2 paramters and select the desired width for the Facebook image.

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nodun
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12 years 7 months ago #100977 by nodun

Replied by nodun on topic Re: Facebook Share returning Blank Thumbnail

I have similar issue but describen steps are not working for me.

Somewhere in code my domain is doubling for og:image and generate code in single articles like:

<meta property="og:image" content="xtri.pl/http://xtri.pl/cache/multithumb_thumbs/b_500_450_16777215_00___images_Lunarglide4_DSC_0099.JPG">

you can check it on:

xtri.pl/sprzet/testy/item/243-test-nike-lunarglide4

Do you guys have any idea how to repair this issue?

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Lefteris
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12 years 7 months ago #100978 by Lefteris

Replied by Lefteris on topic Re: Facebook Share returning Blank Thumbnail

@nodun

We have added the og:image tag to K2 2.6 Beta version. So if you are using an earlier version the tag is not coming from K2. You need to search your templates and plugins for code that is generating.

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Lul Blaka
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12 years 7 months ago #100979 by Lul Blaka

Replied by Lul Blaka on topic Re: Facebook Share returning Blank Thumbnail

i have readed the documents,,, and then overided the files, as the manual said

pls help me, where should i put the code, in which part of item,php,,, and which code exactely (because here I c many codes)

please someone help me share my k2 items on fb

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Goh Yew Hoe
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12 years 7 months ago - 12 years 7 months ago #100980 by Goh Yew Hoe

Replied by Goh Yew Hoe on topic Re: Facebook Share returning Blank Thumbnail

Hmm.. depending on your template the file could be in a different folder, but it should be something like com_k2\template_name\item.php You can put the code near the top of the file, say after line 17.

Anyway, for anyone still looking to use this code, I have modified it to be as dynamic as possible so the field values are pulled from joomla instead of a static value. Note: Make sure you check the 2nd logo path though, it's picking logo.jpg from the root image folder but you can change it yourself to read from any folder or file.

<?php
        $fbog =& JFactory::getDocument();
                $app = JFactory::getApplication();
                $facebookImage = 'image1'.$this->item->params->get('facebookImage','Small');
        $opengraph_meta = '
        <meta property="og:title" content="'.$this->item->title.'"/>
        <meta property="og:type" content="article"/>
        <meta property="og:url" content="'.substr(JURI::root(),0,-1).str_replace(JURI::root(true),'',$this->item->link).'"/>
        <meta property="og:site_name" content="'.$app->getCfg( 'sitename' ).'"/>
        ';
        if (!empty($this->item->$facebookImage)) {
            $opengraph_meta .= '<meta property="og:image" content="'.substr(JURI::root(),0,-1).str_replace(JURI::root(true),'',$this->item->$facebookImage).'" />';
        }
        else {
            $opengraph_meta .= '<meta property="og:image" content="'.substr(JURI::root(),0,-1).'/images/logo.jpg"/>';
        }
        $fbog->addCustomTag( $opengraph_meta );

?>

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Kannan Naidu Venugopal
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12 years 7 months ago #100981 by Kannan Naidu Venugopal

Replied by Kannan Naidu Venugopal on topic Re: Facebook Share returning Blank Thumbnail

The path should be /templates/YOURJOOMLATEMPLATE/html/com_k2/

It's better to upgrade to K2 2.6.x (latest version) as it already comes with OGP meta tags.

K2 Rocks \m/

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Goh Yew Hoe
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12 years 7 months ago #100982 by Goh Yew Hoe

Replied by Goh Yew Hoe on topic Re: Facebook Share returning Blank Thumbnail

I just updated to 2.6.1 to test the OG support and it seems the og tags are defined wrongly.

For example, it's defined as this at the moment.

<meta name="og:type" content="Article" />

That's wrong, it should be

<meta property="og:type" content="Article" />

So technically speaking, the og tags in K2 at the moment aren't working. Now to figure how to disable those faulty tags in K2...