Getting "No Results" While Fetching Tweets with Apify Tweet Scraper Despite Correct Input Parameters

[Adebesin-Cell]

Hi everyone,

I've set up a Twitter tweet-fetching system using the Apify API and the apidojo/tweet-scraper actor. My goal is to retrieve tweets mentioning a specific Twitter handle within the last 24 hours. However, despite seemingly correct input parameters, the results consistently return with noResults. Here’s a quick breakdown of my setup:

Code Summary

Here's the main snippet:

const client = new ApifyClient({
  token: env.APIFY_TOKEN,
})
const botHandle = env.TWITTER_BOT_TAG as string

export const fetchMentioningTweets = async (
  logger: DiscordLogger,
): Promise<ApifyTweetResponse | null> => {
  const twentyFourHoursAgo = new Date(Date.now() - 24 * 60 * 60 * 1000)
  const formattedDate = formatDateForApify(twentyFourHoursAgo)

  const input = {
    mentioning: botHandle.replace('@', ''),
    sort: 'Latest',
    searchTerms: [`since:${formattedDate}`],
  }

  console.log('Input for Apify tweet scraper:', input)

  try {
    // Start the Apify actor for tweet scraping
    const run = await client.actor('apidojo/tweet-scraper').call(input)
    const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems()

    console.log('Fetched items:', items)

    // Check if there are any results or if no results were returned
    if (items[0]?.noResults) {
      logger.info('No tweets mentioning the bot handle found within the last 24 hours.')
      return null
    }

    // Filter and format items if needed (optional, based on what you want to extract)
    const processedTweets = items.map(item => ({
      id: item.id,
      text: item.text,
      user: item.user.screen_name,
      createdAt: item.created_at,
      url: `https://twitter.com/${item.user.screen_name}/status/${item.id}`,
    }))

    // Log or process the tweets (e.g., store in DB, send notification)
    logger.info(`Fetched ${processedTweets.length} tweets mentioning ${botHandle}`)
    logger.debug('Processed tweets:', processedTweets)

    // Return the processed tweets
    return processedTweets

  } catch (error) {
    logger.error('Error fetching tweets from Apify:', error)
    return null
  }
}

Input Example

The inputs I’m sending look like this:

input {
  mentioning: 'IQGPTcom',
  sort: 'Latest',
  searchTerms: ['since:2024-11-12_11:52:16_UTC']
}

Issue

Even though the mentioning field is correct and formatted with the recent searchTerms timestamp, the response always has noResults: true. I’m unsure if this is a bug in the Apify actor or if I'm missing a detail in the setup or input formatting.

Questions & Additional Info:

1. Is there a required format for the searchTerms parameter? Could since:YYYY-MM-DD_HH:MM:SS_UTC be causing the issue?
2. Are there any rate limits or constraints on the Apify side that might cause it to return no results?
3. Has anyone successfully used this actor to fetch tweets within a specific timeframe?

Any suggestions, tips, or guidance would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you in advance!