When using the Facebook Pages Insights integration by Catchr, you may encounter a message like:
Facebook Pages Insights by Catchr
An invalid response has been received from the gateway – facebook-analytics with error code from API = 500 and status code: 1.
Message: Please reduce the amount of data you’re asking for, then retry your request.
This article explains why this error happens and how to resolve it.
This error is returned by Meta (Facebook) APIs, not by Looker Studio itself. It usually occurs when the API cannot process a request from the connector.
The most common reasons are:
Facebook APIs have strict limits on:
Date range size
Number of metrics
Number of dimensions
Breakdown combinations
If the request is too large or complex, Facebook returns a 500 Internal Server Error.
Requesting data over long periods increases the likelihood of API timeouts or failures.
Facebook APIs can occasionally be unstable. Even valid requests may fail temporarily.
Follow these steps in order.
Edit your report or chart
Use a shorter date range (for example: last 7, 14, or 30 days)
Avoid “All time” or multi-year ranges
This is the most effective solution.
Remove unused metrics
Avoid combining too many breakdowns (e.g. age + gender + country)
Split complex charts into multiple simpler charts
Go to Resource → Manage added data sources
Edit the Facebook Pages data source
Click Reconnect
Save and reload the report
If the issue is caused by a temporary Facebook API outage:
Wait a few minutes
Reload the report
Try again later
This issue most often occurs on post-level tables, especially for Facebook Pages that publish a large volume of posts. In this case, the best practice is to avoid live queries to Facebook by using Google Sheets as an intermediate data source.
You can use the Catchr Google Sheets add-on (included in every subscription) to import your Facebook Posts data into Google Sheets, then connect Google Sheets to Looker Studio.
Recommended process:
Create a first request in the Catchr add-on to import 6 months of post data
Enable the option “Combine and update data”
Once completed, edit the request and change the date range to cover the next 6 months
Repeat this process until you have imported the full historical period you need
If you encounter the error with a 6-month range, reduce the number of months and retry
For ongoing updates:
Set the final request to “Last X days” or “Last X months”
Enable auto-schedule so the data refreshes automatically
Finally, connect this Google Sheet to your reporting tool. Your reports will then use Google Sheets instead of querying Facebook directly, which prevents API 500 errors and ensures more stable post-level dashboards.
This error is caused by Facebook API limitations
It usually means too much data is being requested
Reducing the date range, metrics, and chart complexity resolves most cases
