Why connections expire
Connections expire because Meta (Facebook and Instagram) issues time-limited access tokens, and those tokens eventually lapse. This is normal and expected — it is Meta’s security mechanism, not a fault in your account or ours. When a connection stops working, we email you and show an Error badge on the account so you can reconnect in a few clicks.
This page explains, in plain language, how Meta’s tokens work, which tokens your connected accounts actually use, what can end a token early, and how we alert you. When you are ready to fix one, go to Fixing a disconnected account.
Why this is normal
Section titled “Why this is normal”When you connect a Facebook or Instagram account, Meta gives us an access token (a time-limited key that lets the app read and moderate comments on your behalf). Meta sets the lifetime of that token — we cannot make it last forever, and we do not want to. A token that never expired would be a standing security risk if it ever leaked.
So expiry is designed in. Every connected account may need re-authentication (reconnecting through Meta’s login) from time to time. Nothing is broken when this happens; the token simply reached the end of the window Meta allows.
The tokens your account uses
Section titled “The tokens your account uses”Which token you have depends on how you connected the account. There are two connection methods, and they behave differently.
Facebook Login — long-lived Page tokens
Section titled “Facebook Login — long-lived Page tokens”When you connect through Facebook Login (a Facebook Page, and any Instagram account linked to that Page), the app stores a Page access token for each Page. These are long-lived tokens that last roughly 60 days.
If you connected an Instagram Business or Creator account through a linked Facebook Page, that Instagram account rides on the same Page token — so it follows the same clock.
Instagram Login — a refreshable long-lived token
Section titled “Instagram Login — a refreshable long-lived token”If you connected a standalone Instagram Business or Creator account directly (Instagram Login, not through a Facebook Page), the app stores a long-lived Instagram token. Meta sets its lifetime and tells the app the expiry date when it issues the token; the app records that date and renews the token before it arrives (see below). Instagram will not renew a token that has already expired, which is why the app renews early rather than waiting.
How refresh works
Section titled “How refresh works”Once an hour, the app looks for connected accounts whose token expires within the next 7 days and asks Meta to renew each one. A token therefore gets many chances to renew before it lapses, so a brief Meta outage does not cost you the connection. A failed renewal is retried on the next hourly pass; it does not, on its own, mark the account as broken.
For a Facebook Page, if a Page token is missing when the app goes to check for new comments, it also tries to re-derive that Page token from your account automatically.
So most of the time you will not notice a token being renewed. You only hear from us when Meta actually refuses the app’s access — at which point reconnecting is the fix.
What can end a connection early
Section titled “What can end a connection early”A token does not only end when its clock runs out. Meta can invalidate a token before its expiry date — for example when you remove a permission the app relies on, or remove the app from your account in Meta’s settings. Meta also ends access for reasons of its own; which account changes do that is Meta’s decision, described in Meta’s own help.
However the access ended, the app sees the same thing: Meta refuses the token the next time the app uses it. The account then shows a red Error badge on Accounts, with a banner showing the error text Meta returned when the app recorded one. That text is a clue, not a diagnosis: it does not name a specific missing permission or Meta-side event.
The fix is the same in every case: reconnect through Meta. See Fixing a disconnected account for the exact steps.
How we alert you
Section titled “How we alert you”You do not have to watch the Accounts page to catch an expired connection. We alert you two ways:
- By email. The first time the app tries to read one of the account’s pages and Meta refuses the access, we email a reconnect reminder to the person who connected the account. This article is the companion to that email. It is a service email about an account you connected, so there is no switch for it under Settings → Notifications, and you cannot turn it off.
- In the app. The account shows a red Error badge on Accounts and a banner with a Reconnect account button, and the Home page lists the pages that have stopped pulling in comments, with a link to the account.
What happens to moderation meanwhile
Section titled “What happens to moderation meanwhile”Expiry pauses moderation for the affected account’s pages; it does not delete anything and, in the normal case, does not silently drop the backlog. For the full behavior of the pause and backfill, see What happens while disconnected.