Temporarily banned...friends scraper

[topliftarm]

hi i am try to scrape friends by get_friends(_id, cookies="cookies.json" ,timeout=90, start_url=start_url, request_url_callback=handle_pagination_url)

with time.sleep(randint(5,15))

Question: i can see friend list of target in browser manually BUT programmatically Temporarily banned! why?

[neon-ninja]

You're probably scraping too much too fast. Increase your time.sleep. Try one minute per

[topliftarm]

thanks, test it, why i can manually see and scroll down friends on facebook page without any problem! but with script banned?

when using m.facebook.com -> i have problem "We limit how often you can post, comment or do other .... " BUT when using facebook.com -> i Don't have any problem!

[neon-ninja]

The scraper uses m.facebook.com. The two domains have different rate limits

[bessiethacow]

Hi all, just wondering what are some of the ways to know whether you've been banned or not.

I see in this thread in particular, the message "We limit how often you can post, comment or do other .... " mentioned. On my end, I am just unable to see the posts that have been scraped, as the results for the scraping show up as blank (values of postText, postCount, postImage and postURL not being updated). I attach a snippet of code as follows

postText = ''
postCount = 0
postImage = ''
postURL = ''

for post in get_posts('MinistryofHealthTT', pages=1):
    if postCount == 2:  # change to 2 if no pinned included
        break
    else:
        postText    = post['text']
        postImage   = post['image']
        postURL     = post['post_url']
        postCount   = postCount + 1

please note that I am already logged in to my Facebook, so didn't include the credentials in the get_posts parameters.

Also, if I am indeed banned, how long does this last for, and how can I get around the ban?

Looking forward to hearing form you all, with thanks.

[neon-ninja]

Hi @bessiethacow - I don't think you're banned, I just think you're scraping Facebook unauthenticated. This page requires you to be logged in to see posts (try open https://m.facebook.com/MinistryofHealthTT in an incognito or inprivate window). You will need to pass cookies or credentials to the scraper as per the readme, it doesn't automatically share cookies with your browser.

[neon-ninja]

That might be a useful function though, I've added that new functionality in https://github.com/kevinzg/facebook-scraper/commit/b0acdf28defc5352182d91d056de757638419def

[Tsarikovich]

I have 2200 friends and I request get_posts from each of my friends and sleep for 90 seconds. After scraping 180 friends's posts and almost 5 hours I got banned. And ban is for 2 days. What to do :(

[neon-ninja]

That doesn't sound reasonable for a human to do. See https://github.com/kevinzg/facebook-scraper/issues/409#issuecomment-907639417