searchForThread could not find thread name

[lyneca]

The docs for searchForThread say that it can be used to search for "chat titles", but when I search for the name of one of my group chats, it returns Could not find thread [name]. Is the documentation old or am I just using it wrong?

[ravkr]

You're right, I just tried to search by thread name and nothing is found... but when I'm putting e.g. name of one of the participants then I get array of threads with that user :/

[lyneca]

Must be a Facebook thing then - this has worked in the past. I'll poke around in the chrome dev tools and see what I can find

[lyneca]

Ok it has changed, Facebook now sends a call to messenger.com/api/graphqlbatch/ which returns three JSON strings - one for users that match your search, one for threads that match your search, and a paging info string.

It's a get request with form data - the important bits of data that I could see are these:

'batch_name': 'MessengerTypeaheadResultRoute',
'queries':
'{
  "q3": {
    "priority": 0,
    "q": "Query MessengerTypeaheadResultRoute {entities_named([my search]) {id,@F4}} QueryFragment F0 : User {id,name,is_memorialized,is_viewer_friend,is_viewer_coworker,profile_picture.width(32).height(32) as _profile_picture4QyiK {uri},messenger_contact {is_on_viewer_contact_list,id},url,is_messenger_user,is_work_user,viewer_affinity} QueryFragment F1 : Node {id,__typename} QueryFragment F2 : Page {id,name,profile_picture.width(32).height(32) as _profile_picture4QyiK {uri},url,is_messenger_user} QueryFragment F3 : Application {id,name,instant_game_info {icon_uri}} QueryFragment F4 : SearchableEntitiesQuery {search_results.of_type(user).include_messenger_only_results_for_web_messenger(true).first(20) as _search_resultsLr77o {edges {node {__typename,@F0,@F1},cursor},page_info {has_next_page,has_previous_page}},search_results.messenger_commerce(true).include_games(true).first(5) as _search_resultsSJD9D {edges {node {__typename,@F2,@F3,@F1},cursor},page_info {has_next_page,has_previous_page}},id}",
    "query_params": {}
  },
  "q4": {
    "priority": 0,
    "q": "Query MessengerTypeaheadResultRoute {viewer() {@F2}} QueryFragment F0 : User {is_messenger_user,id} QueryFragment F1 : MessageThread {thread_key {thread_fbid},name,image {uri},is_group_thread,other_participants.first(250) as _other_participantsDPwC6 {edges {node {messaging_actor {id,name,__typename,@F0},id},cursor},page_info {has_next_page,has_previous_page}},id} QueryFragment F2 : Viewer {message_threads.with_thread_name([my search]).last(8) as _message_threads4xmW31 {edges {node {id,@F1},cursor},page_info {has_next_page,has_previous_page}},message_threads.with_participant_ids(494192200755039).last(8) as _message_threads1Sj6ZQ {edges {node {id,@F1},cursor},page_info {has_next_page,has_previous_page}}}",
    "query_params": {}
  }
}'

Looks like they've got their own query language. I've replaced my search with [my search], and it looks like there are a bunch of numbers that we could add into a function.

The q3 and q4 bits increment every time you search, I don't think we would have to generate them.

[lyneca]

Yup, their query language is called GraphQL and it's apparently quite popular (I've never heard of it 😛). There's a node.js module for it here

[ravkr]

I haven't heard about it to... :/
Are you going to update searchForThread function? :D

[lyneca]

Haha I'll have a shot

[lyneca]

Wow, one of these requests shows the affinity between you and all of your friends - i.e. my girlfriend as an affinity of 0.99999999999973, whereas a less interacted-with friend has an affinity of 0.58893558687104

[ravkr]

woow 😃
if I remember correctly getUserID() was returning something similar as score

[Schmavery]

Nice investigation @lyneca, we've been wondering for a while when graphql would come to haunt us.
Let us know if you run into any trouble fixing this.

[bsansouci]

Hey @lyneca if you're interested you could look at other requests they make from messenger.com. That would be an immense help and could be super fun. If we can understand their query language for messenger we can have a much more solid API.
Their graphql backend should be 100% backwards compatible, forever. They brag a lot about still supporting the early version of FB ios app thanks to graphql.

[lyneca]

Yeah, I reckon supporting the graphql backend would be pretty awesome. One question, which method in your API allows you to send a cookied request? Once I know where that is I can do a lot more testing

[Schmavery]

@lyneca sorry, never saw your question. defaultFuncs.post should be what you're looking for. You can check some other files in src for an example, almost all of them do this.

[bsansouci]

@lyneca Hey I just commited https://github.com/Schmavery/facebook-chat-api/blob/9df16a7727edc080cb4974a8f888bfeddab0abc0/src/getThreadHistoryGraphQL.js which is our first graphql support.
If you're still interested that file might help you see how we're going about implementing this. We're open to PRs ;)

[lyneca]

Oh awesome! Sorry, I completely forgot about that. I'll have a look when I have some time.