How to change topic image for Facebook?

[Feneroin]

Hello.

I share my topic link on Facebook, i see my avatar instead image on topic.

 

 

How to show topic's image (below)

 

or i'll delete my avatar for showing topic's image 🫤

 

 

 

Edit:

 

Bizarre...

When i try to share this topic on Facebook, i see what i want to see for my forum. How i can fix it on my forum?

 

Edited March 28 by Feneroin

[Feneroin]

I think, because image on my forum isn't uploaded to my server, it's an image inserted by a link. So the problem is this?

But before and on v3 it was properly working... Why not now???

[Stuart Silvester]

10 minutes ago, Feneroin said:

I think, because image on my forum isn't uploaded to my server, it's an image inserted by a link. So the problem is this?

Yes, that's right. We pick an attachment to suggest to Facebook (and others) via the Open Graph tags. It does sound like you may not have a default sharing image set for when an open graph image isn't available. You can do that in AdminCP > Customisation > Icons & Logos.

[Feneroin]

@Stuart Silvesteri have removed it, because i was thinking it'll work with latest version but still not.

on v3 even i insert an image by another site,  Facebook was shown but since v4 this feature is removed bizarrely...

There isn't another solution?

[Jim M]

8 minutes ago, Feneroin said:

on v3 even i insert an image by another site,  Facebook was shown but since v4 this feature is removed bizarrely...

V3 was the wild, wild west. It was solely on Facebook to go to your website and grab a random image. The image may not even have been related to your topic, it could have been someone's profile photo, an ad, etc... It was pure luck that you were able to get it to be something related to your topic 😉 .

V4, we changed this so we are now suggesting a photo to Facebook (and others) via OpenGraph to grab this photo. Typically, it is the first attached image in the topic, otherwise, it will fallback to the default sharer image. 

There may be third party plugins out there which may allow you to have better control if this is something you desire. However, this is not something which we support.

[Feneroin]

[marklcfc]

Needed a way to set a share image for topics for years, never happened and doubt it ever will. Yes I'm aware there is a default you can set so the same image shows for every topic, but who really wants that

[Jim M]

3 hours ago, marklcfc said:

Needed a way to set a share image for topics for years, never happened and doubt it ever will. Yes I'm aware there is a default you can set so the same image shows for every topic, but who really wants that

As mentioned in both Stuart's and my replies, we actually released a feature a while back to allow the first uploaded image of the topic to be the og:image now which is suggested to social media and other embeds. The default sharer image is the fallback.

[marklcfc]

1 hour ago, Jim M said:

As mentioned in both Stuart's and my replies, we actually released a feature a while back to allow the first uploaded image of the topic to be the og:image now which is suggested to social media and other embeds. The default sharer image is the fallback.

I'm aware of that but I don't want to upload the share image to a post, everyone reading the topic will see an image in a post which is out of place. Should be a way to set a share image for topics you want to share to social media. I had a hook made but it never worked properly.

[Randy Calvert]

3 hours ago, marklcfc said:

I'm aware of that but I don't want to upload the share image to a post, everyone reading the topic will see an image in a post which is out of place. Should be a way to set a share image for topics you want to share to social media. I had a hook made but it never worked properly.

In that case, you might want to post this request in the feedback forum so it can be considered later by the dev team.  What you're asking for is not part of the default iPB software and it's not designed to work the way you want it to.  As a result, it's not a break/fix issue, but instead a feature request.  

[Feneroin]

11 hours ago, Jim M said:

As mentioned in both Stuart's and my replies, we actually released a feature a while back to allow the first uploaded image of the topic to be the og:image now which is suggested to social media and other embeds. The default sharer image is the fallback.

So it'll still not work for images called via an url (from another site) ?

[Randy Calvert]

1 hour ago, Feneroin said:

So it'll still not work for images called via an url (from another site) ?

I just checked several topics on my site by looking at the "og:image" property. If the file was actually attached (meaning it was in the section defined for uploads in the storage settings), the first image attached was used.  If there was an image pasted from an external URL, the og:image returned the default share image.  

After looking at an entire page of topics, I could not find any that had an og:image return an external image.  

If you want to look for yourself, view the page source code and look for:

<meta property="og:image" content="XXX">

Edited March 31 by Randy Calvert

[Feneroin]

Thanks @Randy Calvert but on IPB3 it was sharing first image of topic event it's an external URL but now, image must be uploaded for this... And we don't upload image on our forums.

Seeing all time same image on Facebook is just annoying and not interesting to clicking...

[Jim M]

3 hours ago, Feneroin said:

but on IPB3 it was sharing first image of topic event it's an external URL but now, image must be uploaded for this... And we don't upload image on our forums.

This is false, I’m afraid. I would reread what I posted earlier about V3.