Candid Helpdesk

Common Errors With The New Instagram Graph API (2018-2020)

Some users may experience the error "Your Instagram comment was not added - please verify its content" or "This post can't be commented on right now", both of these should be transient errors that should subside on their own, allowing you to retry later:

{
   "error":{
      "message":"This API call does not support the requested response format",
      "type":"OAuthException",
      "code":20,
      "error_subcode":1772107,
      "is_transient":false,
      "error_user_title":"Instagram Comment Not Added",
      "error_user_msg":"Your Instagram comment was not added - please verify its content.",
      "fbtrace_id":"C9lfCOm7Xsp"
   }
}

{
   "error":{
      "message":"An unknown error occurred",
      "type":"OAuthException",
      "code":1,
      "error_subcode":1772019,
      "is_transient":false,
      "error_user_title":"Action Not Allowed",
      "error_user_msg":"This post can't be commented on right now.",
      "fbtrace_id":"DRSHUAq6HbX"
   }
}

Frequently Asked Questions

Do you have templates for terms & conditions that we can use?

Each brand requests different terms based on how they intend on using the media and which markets they operate in. Feel free to reference these samples to build your own.

Can I have more than one rights message at a time?

Of course, as mentioned above, personalization is not only supported but encouraged, both from a spam avoidance perspective as well as approval rates. However, each collection can only have 1 acceptance code and request template active at any given time. 

How do I program the acceptance response code?

This is currently set by your account manager and can be altered any time via a support request.

Can I have it post from different brand accounts?

Yes, but much like the acceptance code itself, you can only have 1 account and 1 code active at any given time on a given collection, you can change either at any time. The proper way to do this is through multiple collections, where each is dedicated to a single account.

Is there a way to search for a specific Instagram pic on Candid? Say I have a URL to it and want to ask for rights through candid, do I need to open up a stream for the user and then search for the pic, or is there a quicker way to do it?

You can add it directly or import your likes. 

Can I select a bunch of assets and ask for rights in bulk?

At Instagram's request, and to encourage personalization, we do not allow this at this time. Any platform that allows the bulk sending of messages or rights requests is in violation of Instagram's platform policies which risks both your account and their access (this applies even to offline batch processing).

How do I see which entries are awaiting consent?

From your dashboard, select the Media Rights service, then select Pending. Remember that rights approval statuses are independent of moderation statuses.

How do I see which entries were approved?

From your dashboard, select the Media Rights service, then select Approved. Remember that rights approval statuses are independent of moderation statuses.

Can you import rights we've obtained on another UGC platform, like Olapic?

Yes, you should be able to export a CSV file that contains the original media ID, the approval code, the user's response and timestamp. Email support with this export and they can import it for you.

Some users are reporting that they're unable to reply with a comment that includes a hashtag?

We have seen cases where Instagram incorrectly blocks comments containing certain approval hashtags. This is quite common if the user has already used a lot of hashtags in the caption or earlier comments. In these cases, you have a few options which include: using a different approval hashtag, triggering manual approval of the asset using whatever comment the user responded with, or using our sentiment analysis offering to infer whether the user said YES or NO without having to ask them to type in an approval hashtag. Speak to your account manager, this can handled a variety of ways.

How do I download approved entries?

From you dashboard, select the Media rights service, then from the Tasks drop-down select Download Approved. As approvals accumulate, you will notice additional archives becoming available for download under the same menu. You can also use the email feature to bulk select media to receive as an email attachment.

Can we archive the actual Rights Acquisition "Handshake" Records?

Yes, many teams routinely perform internal backups of all images they've acquired rights to via the Candid platform. There is a way to download the “handshake”/acknowledgement of rights release from Candid and it's provided via a JSON endpoint that can be queried in real-time.

Can we view and obtain rights to content posted by private/protected users if our brand account is "friends" with them?
Absolutely. Your collection can be configured to pull content using your brand's personal access token, meaning your collection can collect everything that you see when using Instagram or Twitter directly. Once the media appears in your collection, you can issue a media rights request like you would for public content.

How do I know when a user has accepted?
Candid will poll and check the status of all outstanding rights request on a regular basis (you can also trigger this at anytime using Tasks -> Update Pending Requests). Once the request has been approved, it will appear under the Approved tab of the Media Rights Service dashboard. Hovering over the Rights Approved button under each image will reveal the user's exact acceptance message.

How do I ensure my displays are only showing "rights approved" media?
You can set rightsFilter:'Approved' on all display plugins to ensure only rights approved media are included in that display. Remember that the moderation flag on each media is different than the rights approval flag - the two mechanisms are completely independent.

Yes, please email support with a list of Instagram and Twitter accounts that are considered 'owned' channels and we can modify your collection settings so these assets are 'Rights Approved' when they enter the collection for the first time.

Yes, you can include @username or @firstName in your request template and Candid will automatically inject the appropriate value into the request text. For Twitter, it's best to have @@username at the beginning of your request template so that the rights request does not appear on your timeline and instead only appears as a nested reply to the status that you're seeking rights for.

Facebook has long offered an invitation-only program that helps with intellectual property issues. Instagram has recently implemented Facebook’s Rights Manager program as well, which now means publishers and creators can upload a library of their content to be monitored on Instagram. Publishers can then block their content if it’s being posted by an unapproved source. This program is more about broad scale enforcement rather than obtaining consent.

I keep getting the error message "It looks like you already left this comment. Try posting a new one. (APInvalidParametersError)"
This error message is directly from Instagram and indicates that your comment has triggered spam filters. Remember from the guidelines above that requests must not be automated and should be varied on a per message. This is a core requirement that you need to respect, please try varying your request template.