I have an Android app that uses the 'publish_actions' and 'user_photos' permissions to create photo albums on Facebook. I have already applied and been approved for 'publish_actions'. However, it will not let me apply for the 'user_photos' permission, because it says my app has not used this permission in the last thirty days.
My app does in fact use this permission. I have successfully published albums repeatedly from developer accounts and test user accounts. This only works if I use the 'user_photos' permission. If I try to create an album when I haven't requested 'user_photos', it doesn't work
Yet it still says I'm not using this permission. And I didn't have this problem with the 'publish_actions' permission; it was able to recognize that I was using it.
What do I need to do to make this permission available for applying? It almost seems like creating an album "requires" the permission, but does not "use" it.
I've heard some suggest that you need to be using the app owner's account, but again, this was not necessary for 'publish_actions'.
I solved this problem by changing the functionality of my app. Now my app reads in a user's albums, and appends photos to the album if it already exists. Doing so results in Facebook recognizing the use of the permission, which allows me to apply for it.
Overall, this still seems like a bug on Facebook's end.