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.

After trying for several days in a row, I am now completely lost. Your help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!