If you try to pull a protected users' timeline w/o authentication then it will throw a 401.
You can confirm whether a user id is valid by trying to call: http://twitter.com/users/show.xml?id={insert_id_here} users/show will throw a 404 on a non existent user. -Chad On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 1:43 AM, Ryan Rosario <[email protected]> wrote: > > *bangs head on desk...again* > > Now that I know what what my Twitter ID is, and I know that I am a > valid user, I tried it and it worked. > It's gone way past 15 users now without a problem (without error > checking). > > I see what is happening now. After 15 users or so, I hit a > user that no longer exists. On a 404, I skip the user, but on a 401, > for the time being, I am retrying, and then quickly maxing out my > hourly > limit. > > The other part was my overworked mind. I was pulling numbers that > looked like Twitter IDs from the site HTML that actually weren't. > And...then testing over and over with those bad numbers. Sigh. > > I suppose it is safe to treat 401 as a 404? I don't think it would be > used for anything else in the REST API, right? > Is an HTTP error thrown if I try to pull a protected user's timeline? > > To make a long story short, it does appear that invalid users are > returning 401 instead of 404. > > Thanks, > Ryan > > On Oct 20, 9:10 pm, Chad Etzel <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hi Ryan, >> >> I think part of the problem is that user id 1255997062 does not exist, >> so it should really be returning a 404 instead of a 401. Do you get >> the same 401 result with a known valid user id? >> >> -Chad >> >> >> >> On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 3:13 PM, Ryan Rosario <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> > Correct. I thought that was weird, but didn't know what to make of it. >> > Same IP. >> > The unauthenticated call was from an IP that is not whitelisted, so >> > 150/hr. >> > The second call was from the same IP, but authenticated as a >> > whitelisted account, so should be 20000/hr. >> >> > I usually only work from the whitelisted IPs, but wanted to check an >> > IP that had never been used before for data mining. >> >> > On Oct 20, 11:36 am, Dewald Pretorius <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Apart from the 401 issue, the following is also very weird: >> >> >> < X-experimental-RLS-remaining: 0 >> >> < X-experimental-RLS-maxvalue: 150 >> >> < X-RateLimit-Limit: 20000 >> >> >> This is on the second authenticated call. On the unauthenticated call >> >> X-RateLimit-Limit was 150. I assume both calls were made from the same >> >> IP address? >> >> >> Dewald >> >> >> On Oct 20, 3:10 pm, Ryan Rosario <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> > Below are the responses. I tried various combinations of - >> >> > uusername:pass -u=username:pass -u username:pass and each time got an >> >> > authentication error. >> >> >> > Without authentication >> >> > [madhatter:~/Desktop] ryan% curl >> >> > -vvvhttp://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline.json\?user_id=1255997062\&count=100 >> >> > * About to connect() to twitter.com port 80 (#0) >> >> > * Trying 168.143.162.100... connected >> >> > * Connected to twitter.com (168.143.162.100) port 80 (#0)> GET >> >> > /statuses/user_timeline.json?user_id=1255997062&count=100 HTTP/1.1 >> >> > > User-Agent: curl/7.19.4 (universal-apple-darwin10.0) libcurl/7.19.4 >> >> > > OpenSSL/0.9.8k zlib/1.2.3 >> >> > > Host: twitter.com >> >> > > Accept: */* >> >> >> > < HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized >> >> > < X-experimental-RLS-remaining: 132 >> >> > < X-experimental-RLS-maxvalue: 150 >> >> > < X-experimental-RLS-reset: 1256065275 >> >> > < X-experimental-RLS-th: notreq >> >> > < X-RLS-id: sjc1c032 >> >> > < Via: Cachet/0.91 >> >> > < Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:03:41 GMT >> >> > < Server: hi >> >> > < X-RateLimit-Limit: 150 >> >> > < X-Transaction: 1256061824-5820-4214 >> >> > < WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="Twitter API" >> >> > < Status: 401 Unauthorized >> >> > < Last-Modified: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:03:44 GMT >> >> > < X-RateLimit-Remaining: 133 >> >> > < X-Runtime: 0.05350 >> >> > < Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8 >> >> > < Pragma: no-cache >> >> > < Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate, pre-check=0, >> >> > post-check=0 >> >> > < Expires: Tue, 31 Mar 1981 05:00:00 GMT >> >> > < X-Revision: 726d1f10cbe49a923e837d8c3fca3a3993a0f964 >> >> > < X-RateLimit-Reset: 1256065275 >> >> > < Set-Cookie: lang=en; path=/ >> >> > < Set-Cookie: >> >> > _twitter_sess=BAh7CDoRdHJhbnNfcHJvbXB0MDoHaWQiJWM5OTU5MWNkNmE5MjMwNzU0Nzhh >> >> > %250AMzdkMTA3NzE2Zjk5IgpmbGFzaElDOidBY3Rpb25Db250cm9sbGVyOjpGbGFz >> >> > %250AaDo6Rmxhc2hIYXNoewAGOgpAdXNlZHsA--73f950f824e3e048d3691a3eeec8a8fbbab2 >> >> > 1743; >> >> > domain=.twitter.com; path=/ >> >> > < Vary: Accept-Encoding >> >> > < Content-Length: 118 >> >> > < Connection: close >> >> > < >> >> > * Closing connection #0 >> >> > {"request":"/statuses/user_timeline.json? >> >> > user_id=1255997062&count=100","error":"This method requires >> >> > authentication."} >> >> >> > With authentication: >> >> > [madhatter:~/Desktop] ryan% curl -vvv >> >> > -uusername:passhttp://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline.json\?user_id=1255997062\&count=100 >> >> > * About to connect() to twitter.com port 80 (#0) >> >> > * Trying 168.143.162.68... connected >> >> > * Connected to twitter.com (168.143.162.68) port 80 (#0) >> >> > * Server auth using Basic with user ' '> GET >> >> > /statuses/user_timeline.json?user_id=1255997062&count=100 HTTP/1.1 >> >> > > Authorization: Basic *redacted* >> >> > > User-Agent: curl/7.19.4 (universal-apple-darwin10.0) libcurl/7.19.4 >> >> > > OpenSSL/0.9.8k zlib/1.2.3 >> >> > > Host: twitter.com >> >> > > Accept: */* >> >> >> > < HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized >> >> > < X-experimental-RLS-remaining: 0 >> >> > < X-experimental-RLS-maxvalue: 150 >> >> > < X-experimental-RLS-reset: 1256064142 >> >> > < X-experimental-RLS-th: succ >> >> > < X-RLS-id: sjc1c032 >> >> > < Via: Cachet/0.91 >> >> > < Date: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:04:33 GMT >> >> > < Server: hi >> >> > < X-RateLimit-Limit: 20000 >> >> > < X-Transaction: 1256061882-45021-11545 >> >> > * Authentication problem. Ignoring this. >> >> > < WWW-Authenticate: Basic realm="Twitter API" >> >> > < Status: 401 Unauthorized >> >> > < Last-Modified: Tue, 20 Oct 2009 18:04:42 GMT >> >> > < X-RateLimit-Remaining: 19823 >> >> > < X-Runtime: 0.11979 >> >> > < Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8 >> >> > < Pragma: no-cache >> >> > < Cache-Control: no-cache, no-store, must-revalidate, pre-check=0, >> >> > post-check=0 >> >> > < Expires: Tue, 31 Mar 1981 05:00:00 GMT >> >> > < X-Revision: 726d1f10cbe49a923e837d8c3fca3a3993a0f964 >> >> > < X-RateLimit-Reset: 1256064139 >> >> > < Set-Cookie: lang=en; path=/ >> >> > < Set-Cookie: lang=en; path=/ >> >> > < Set-Cookie: >> >> > _twitter_sess=BAh7CjoTcGFzc3dvcmRfdG9rZW4iLTg1ZTQ4OTU0ZjdmM2MyOGQzMjFhOGIy >> >> > %250ANjEyYjBhZDAzZjYzZjY3M2Y6EXRyYW5zX3Byb21wdDA6CXVzZXJpA57usDoH >> >> > %250AaWQiJTgxZTNhMGNlYmE0YjRlNWI2NWRlZjdhZjU3ZDk3MmM2IgpmbGFzaElD >> >> > %250AOidBY3Rpb25Db250cm9sbGVyOjpGbGFzaDo6Rmxhc2hIYXNoewAGOgpAdXNl >> >> > %250AZHsA--26052e0c4f20f2f852537f173106f426be9df437; >> >> > domain=.twitter.com; path=/ >> >> > < Vary: Accept-Encoding >> >> > < Content-Length: 118 >> >> > < Connection: close >> >> > < >> >> > * Closing connection #0 >> >> >> > On Oct 20, 10:25 am, Chad Etzel <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> >> > > Hi Ryan, >> >> >> > > This sounds like a bug. Can you provide full HTTP request/response >> >> > > headers+body traces for some of these requests? (be sure to obscure >> >> > > the authentication header). Using curl -vvv would be good. >> >> >> > > -Chad >> >> >> > > On Tue, Oct 20, 2009 at 1:10 PM, Ryan Rosario <[email protected]> >> >> > > wrote: >> >> >> > > > I have been running into a recurring problem that I have been facing >> >> > > > for the past couple of days, on numerous machines. >> >> >> > > > I am extracting 200 tweets for a large number of users, using the >> >> > > > numeric user ID (user_id). After a small number of requests (between >> >> > > > 10 and 50) I receive nothing but "This method requires >> >> > > > authentication". Authenticating with my username and password does >> >> > > > not >> >> > > > make the message go away. I have verified that the users I am trying >> >> > > > to pull are not protected users. I have also verified that I am not >> >> > > > hitting the rate limit. >> >> >> > > > On my latest attempt, I used an IP I have not used in the past. I >> >> > > > was >> >> > > > able to extract the first 200 tweets for *12* users, then I started >> >> > > > receiving 401s ("This method requires authentication") on every >> >> > > > single >> >> > > > request of this type. >> >> >> > > > After about 10 minutes, I tried again and it worked for about >> >> > > > another >> >> > > > 15 users, then I started getting the same message as well as other >> >> > > > messages including 502. >> >> >> > > > Is this behavior expected? Does this 401 message possibly mean >> >> > > > something else? >
