Summary
I have been trying to publish reels on Instagram using the Instagram API. However, none of my attempts have worked so far.
My setup
- I'm using an un-audited app on developers.facebook.com
- I want to publish on an instagram page I own (business account)
- This page was added to the app as an instagram tester
Documentation used
I have been following this page of the documentation on developers.facebook.com
My process
Step 1: OAuth
This part I did directly from the developer dashboard. The token I got has the following permissions:
- business_basic
- business_manage_messages
- business_content_publish
- business_manage_comments
Step 2: Create media container
For this part I'm doing just like the documentation says.
def create_instagram_media_container(ig_id: str, video_url: str, access_token: str): url = f"https://graph.instagram.com/v20.0/{ig_id}/media" headers = { "Content-Type": "application/json", } data = { "media_type": "REELS", "video_url": video_url } response = requests.post(url, headers=headers, json=data) if response.status_code == 200: return response.json() else: response.raise_for_status()
I am able to get a container ID with this step.
Note: After reading materials online, I have tried a few variations, including adding "Authorization": f"OAuth {access_token}" to the header and "upload_type": "resumable" to the data, but this didn't fixed it.
Step 3: Publish container
Once again, I am following the documentation.
def upload_instagram_video(ig_id: str, ig_container_id: str, access_token: str): url = f"https://graph.instagram.com/v20.0/{ig_id}/media_publish" headers = { "Content-Type": "application/json" } data = { "creation_id": ig_container_id, } response = requests.post(url, headers=headers, json=data) if response.status_code == 200: return response.json() else: response.raise_for_status()
At this stage however, I get an error.
At first I had the following description:
b'{"error":{"message":"Unsupported post request. Object with ID \'[...]\' does not exist, cannot be loaded due to missing permissions, or does not support this operation. Please read the Graph API documentation at https:\\/\\/developers.facebook.com\\/docs\\/graph-api","type":"GraphMethodException","code":100,"error_subcode":33,"fbtrace_id":"AKe1_Gl1c5kNSTrKHPYuyHG"}}'
But now I just get a 400 error stating "Sorry, this content isn't available right now".
Note: After reading materials online, I have also tried adding "Authorization": f"OAuth {access_token}" to the header here, but this didn't fixed it.
My thoughts
I have a few ideas as to where the confusion could be comming from, but I didn't really manage to make anything out of them.
- Endpoints: I am querying the
graph.instagram.com endpoint, but there is also a graph.facebook.com. This seemed a bit more complete, as the documentation mentions extra fields like caption, but I didn't manage to make it work either. I think I should still go with the Instagram one as the documentation states that "Unlike the Instagram API with Facebook Login, this API doesn't require a Facebook Page linked to the Instagram professional account." which seems simpler. - Token: Reading online, I could see some mentions of a difference between a page token and a user token. I didn't really understand the distinction. I generated my token directly from the "Instagram" tab of the developer website, and there is no such distinction there. From the migration guide I'd guess that it's not applicable in that case since I'm using the Instagram API setup with Instagram Login.
After trying for several days in a row, I am now completely lost. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
