Just wanted to inform about the recent issue and to see if someone knows more details about it.
Recently, we have tried to create a Facebook ad for our ThemeForest items and I was surprised to find out that any URL starting with https://themeforest.net cannot be accepted.
Yeah, I just experienced the same problem few hours ago. I thought it’s another FB update that crush something, I was trying to paste goo.gl short link with a link to themeforest inside, and it doesn’t fetch the link and preview like before.
I also experienced this when trying to share using the share button under the Item Preview Panel.
I found this a few days ago but thought it was at my end but now I believe this is because of Themeforest.
@BenLeong@matthewcoxy can you confirm or deliver this issue to the dev team and check about this?
Thank you in advance!
Some general notes on these types of issues:
The Could not scrape URL because it has been blocked error is fairly common on Facebook. It tends to occur when people use the debugger tool to scrape a domain too frequently, and Facebook thinks this is bot activity. Domains are usually unblocked after a few hours.
Note that it’s also possible for Facebook to block you from scraping a domain at an individual account level, if you keep refreshing and trying to get it to scrape new info for your link In that case, you’ll see the blocked message, but other people can scrape links from that domain with no issues.
While a block is active, the whole domain is blocked from scraping new data. However, if you’re posting a link that has already been shared to Facebook, it should display normally.
Specific notes for today’s issue:
There also seem to be some bugs affecting Status Updates on Facebook today. We’re not seeing the sorts of things that usually accompany a block on our domains, so it’s more likely that the current matter is connected to Facebook’s Status Update bugs, and not caused by the usual domain blocking issue.
So, what should you do right now?
If your Facebook posts rely on link previews to new themeforest.com items (or ThemeForest links that haven’t been shared on Facebook before), you have a few options:
If you use 3rd party tools like Hootsuite or Buffer, these are still working fine and can generate link previews for your posts.
If you post directly from Facebook and require link previews, I recommend hold off on any non-urgent content for 24hrs and checking again tomorrow. Based on previous cases, it’s highly likely that any domain-level blocks will be removed by then, and that the Status Update bugs will also be resolved quickly.
Just wanted to let you know that this is not an “account issue” as we have the same problem for all Facebook accounts we have.
Also, I can confirm the issue is present for 48h so far, I’m not sure when it started to happen. As I have explained I was trying to use a themeforest link for Facebook ads, but it seems that problem is not with ads specifically, but on the global level.
If you can share further insights with us, we would highly appreciate it as significant part of our marketing strategy is done via Facebook and I guess we are not the only one…
Just a quick update on this, we’re currently talking with some representatives from Facebook to find out what’s happened, and they’re in the process of investigating it for us. It looks like some kind of automated filter has been “triggered” but what and why is currently unknown.
We’re confident that we’ll have an answer later today and with any luck we’ll have the issue resolved pretty quickly.
In the meantime i’ll create an announcement thread where folks can keep track of the issue.
Was anything else ever discovered regarding this issue? I have had the same problem since May with a few personal sites but I don’t have the luxury of a team to talk to (or even access) Facebook representatives.
In that case, you’ll see the blocked message, but other people can scrape links from that domain with no issues.
