Instagram API does not return followers

Question

I am authenticated using Instagram and I received an access token with a scope of follower_list . Then I tried to find a list of my subscribers:

https://api.instagram.com/v1/users/self/followed-by?access_token=123.456

and all i got was an empty array like following

 { "pagination": {}, "meta": { "code": 200 }, "data": [] } 

I really don’t know if this is a problem on the part of Instagram, or is it the expected behavior since I am working in Sandbox mode (although the documentation says that I can expect to get real data even in Sandbox mode)

Answer 1

This is the expected behavior.

In sandbox mode, you only get data from you and your sandbox users.

Add one of your subscribers to your sandbox, then only that user will respond to the API. When you go live, all users will be in an API response.