Google+ unable to insert moment - A Year and 6 Revisions After - api

Question

NOTE: Using the Sign-in button is NOT an option
A year ago I was having a problem creating a moment. Back then I was using version 1.2 of the Google+ API .Net client. As I described in this post, I had it working although the code failed to insert a moment from time to time. I was hoping that the process is more stable and easier to implement now, and it seems like it as can be seen in the example that you can download here - the current version as of this writing is v1.8. So I created a simple project following the SimpleOAuth2 sample in the download, but implementing Google+. This is the code I came up:
public partial class _Default : System.Web.UI.Page
{
private PlusService service;
// Application logic should manage users authentication.
// This sample works with only one user. You can change
// it by retrieving data from the session.
private const string UserId = "user-id";
protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
GoogleAuthorizationCodeFlow flow;
var assembly = Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly();
using (var stream = assembly.GetManifestResourceStream(
"GPlusSample.client_secrets.json"))
{
flow = new GoogleAuthorizationCodeFlow(
new GoogleAuthorizationCodeFlow.Initializer
{
DataStore = new FileDataStore("GPlusSample.Store"),
ClientSecretsStream = stream,
//
// Tried only this scope but it did not work
//Scopes = new[] { PlusService.Scope.PlusMe }
//
// I tried the following: but did not work either
//Scopes = new[] { PlusService.Scope.PlusMe,
// "https://www.googleapis.com/auth/plus.moments.write" }
//
// I tried this as well and it failed
//Scopes = new[] { PlusService.Scope.PlusLogin }
//
// Maybe this... but still no joy
Scopes = new[] { PlusService.Scope.PlusLogin,
PlusService.Scope.PlusMe }
});
}
var uri = Request.Url.ToString();
var code = Request["code"];
if (code != null)
{
var token = flow.ExchangeCodeForTokenAsync(UserId, code,
uri.Substring(0, uri.IndexOf("?")), CancellationToken.None).Result;
// Extract the right state.
var oauthState = AuthWebUtility.ExtracRedirectFromState(
flow.DataStore, UserId, Request["state"]).Result;
Response.Redirect(oauthState);
}
else
{
var result = new AuthorizationCodeWebApp(flow, uri, uri)
.AuthorizeAsync(UserId, CancellationToken.None).Result;
if (result.RedirectUri != null)
{
// Redirect the user to the authorization server.
Response.Redirect(result.RedirectUri);
}
else
{
// The data store contains the user credential,
// so the user has been already authenticated.
service = new PlusService(new BaseClientService.Initializer
{
ApplicationName = "Plus API Sample",
HttpClientInitializer = result.Credential
});
}
}
}
/// <summary>Gets the TasksLists of the user.</summary>
public async System.Threading.Tasks.Task InsertMoment()
{
try
{
var me = service.People.Get("me").Execute();
var request = service.Moments.Insert(new Moment()
{
Target = new ItemScope {
Id=Guid.NewGuid().ToString(),
Image="http://www.google.com/s2/static/images/GoogleyEyes.png",
Type="",
Name = "test message",
Description="test",
Text="test message",
},
Type = "http://schemas.google.com/AddActivity",
}, me.Id, MomentsResource.InsertRequest.CollectionEnum.Vault);
var response =await request.ExecuteAsync();
output.Text = "<h1>" + response.Id + "</h1>";
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
var str = ex.ToString();
str = str.Replace(Environment.NewLine, Environment.NewLine + "<br/>");
str = str.Replace(" ", " ");
output.Text = string.Format("<font color=\"red\">{0}</font>", str);
}
}
protected async void createMomentButton_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
await InsertMoment();
}
}
That code always give me a 401 Unauthorized error, even if I have the Google+ API turned on for my project. Here's the actual error I got:
The service plus has thrown an exception: Google.GoogleApiException:
Google.Apis.Requests.RequestError Unauthorized [401] Errors [
Message[Unauthorized] Location[ - ] Reason[unauthorized]
Domain[global] ]
It's interesting to see that the insert moment is failing even though the call to People.Get("me") works - get("me") works with all of the scope combinations I listed above. It's important to note that each time I try a new scope, I first log out of my Google account and delete the access token that is stored in GPlusSample.Store.
EDIT
I tried setting just the Url instead of individual items as suggested by Ian and I got the exact same error.
var request = service.Moments.Insert(new Moment()
{
Target = new ItemScope {
Url = "https://developers.google.com/+/web/snippet/examples/thing"
},
Type = "http://schemas.google.com/AddActivity",
}, me.Id, MomentsResource.InsertRequest.CollectionEnum.Vault);
var response =await request.ExecuteAsync();

Answer 1

https://www.googleapis.com/auth/plus.login is the right scope for writing moments, but you need to have requested the specific app activity types you want to write as well. The parameter for this is request_visible_actions, and it takes a space separated list of arguments of the types (Listed on https://developers.google.com/+/api/moment-types/ - e.g. http://schemas.google.com/AddActivity).
The client library may not have a method for adding request_visible_actions, so you may have to add it on to the auth URL you redirect the user to manually (remember to URLencode the app activity type URLs!)