Why are some custom fields missing from the Instagram / user / media / recent API calls?
I am getting inconsistent results when hitting Instagram API schema endpoints /users/{user-id}
/ /users/search
versus endpoint users/{user-id}/media/recent
.
When I hit the endpoints /users/{user-id}
/ /users/search
, you can see from the example below, I get fields like website
and bio
:
https://api.instagram.com/v1/users/search?q=kellyslater
{
"username": "kellyslater",
"bio": "#Whappen?",
"website": "http://aspworldtour.com",
"profile_picture": "http://images.ak.instagram.com/profiles/profile_8139971_75sq_1333949277.jpg",
"full_name": "kellyslater",
"id": "8139971"
}
However, when you hit the endpoint users/{user-id}/media/recent
, you can see that these user fields are still returned, but not filled in (this seems to be consistent and it doesn't matter if I follow this user / this user follows me or not):
https://api.instagram.com/v1/users/8139971/media/recent
{
"user": {
"username": "kellyslater",
"website": "",
"profile_picture": "http://images.ak.instagram.com/profiles/profile_8139971_75sq_1333949277.jpg",
"full_name": "kellyslater",
"bio": "",
"id": "8139971"
}
}
So the question is: What is the intentional behavior?
- Should the Instagram API come back and populate those fields?
- Should Instagram API NOT return these fields?
- Or does it work as expected?
source to share
Instagram has resolved this with a March 2015 release; http://developers.instagram.com/post/112826291271/api-bug-fixes
In the end it was a mistake
There was a long-standing bug where some endpoints containing “user node” would have an empty “bio” and “website.” We have now removed those fields from all endpoints except / users / and / users / self.
source to share