tlock878

I’m not a developer but I asked good ol’ ChatGPT how to do it – not sure if this is helpful:

Step 1: Register a Facebook App

1. Go to the Facebook Developer site.
2. Create a new app and get the App ID and App Secret.
3. Generate a long-lived access token with the user_videos permission.

Step 2: Fetch Facebook Video Thumbnail

Use the Graph API to fetch the video thumbnail. Here’s an example function in PHP:

function get_facebook_video_thumbnail($video_url) {
    // Parse the video ID from the URL
    preg_match('/facebook.com\/.*\/videos\/([0-9]+)/', $video_url, $matches);
    if (isset($matches[1])) {
        $video_id = $matches[1];
    } else {
        return false;
    }

    // Make an API call to get the video thumbnail
    $access_token = 'YOUR_ACCESS_TOKEN'; // Replace with your long-lived access token
    $api_url = "https://graph.facebook.com/v12.0/{$video_id}?fields=thumbnails&access_token={$access_token}";
    
    $response = wp_remote_get($api_url);
    if (is_wp_error($response)) {
        return false;
    }

    $body = wp_remote_retrieve_body($response);
    $data = json_decode($body, true);

    if (isset($data['thumbnails']['data'][0]['uri'])) {
        return $data['thumbnails']['data'][0]['uri'];
    }

    return false;
}

Step 3: Set the Featured Image in WordPress

Use WordPress functions to set the featured image:

function set_featured_image_from_facebook_video($post_id) {
    $post = get_post($post_id);
    if (has_post_thumbnail($post_id)) {
        return; // Exit if the post already has a featured image
    }

    // Extract the first Facebook video URL from the post content
    preg_match('/https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/.*\/videos\/[0-9]+/', $post->post_content, $matches);
    if (isset($matches[0])) {
        $video_url = $matches[0];
    } else {
        return;
    }

    // Get the thumbnail URL
    $thumbnail_url = get_facebook_video_thumbnail($video_url);
    if (!$thumbnail_url) {
        return;
    }

    // Upload the image to the media library and set it as the featured image
    $image_id = media_sideload_image($thumbnail_url, $post_id, null, 'id');
    if (is_wp_error($image_id)) {
        return;
    }

    set_post_thumbnail($post_id, $image_id);
}

// Hook into the post save action
add_action('save_post', 'set_featured_image_from_facebook_video');

Hi Michael,

Thank you for the quick response. Here is an example where a FB video is embedded:
https://telemundominnesota.com/medidas-que-podemos-tomar-para-mejorar-el-puntaje-de-credito/

Hi Thomas,

That did the trick.

Thanks!