No image_url for book cover

[Jesús]

Hi!

I'm loading my friend's updates from: goodreads.com/updates/friends.xml

And there is no image_url for the book cover, specifically for the status type:"readstatus". I now that you are not able to use all the book covers due to copyright, but I've seen that in that case you send the nocover photo (which I'm not receiving).

There seems to not to be image_url at all (for book cover). Also I noticed that I'm receiving the user photo twice (could this be the bug?)

Thanks in advance.

[Ettore]

Can you post a sample of the api response you receive?

[Jesús]

Of course.

update type="readstatus">
 action_text>
 ![CDATA[
is currently reading a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/..." only_path="false">La espada del destino (La saga de Geralt de Rivia, #2)/a>
]]>
 /action_text>
 link>http://www.goodreads.com/read_statuse...
 image_url>
 http://d.gr-assets.com/users/14209681...
 /image_url>
 actor>
 id type="integer">39028781/id>
 name>Jose Monarrez/name>
 image_url>
 http://d.gr-assets.com/users/14209681...
 /image_url>
 link>
 http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/39...
 /link>
 /actor>
 updated_at>Mon, 27 Jul 2015 09:00:20 -0700/updated_at>
 object>
 read_status>
 id type="integer">947365312/id>
 review_id type="integer">1346815432/review_id>
 user_id type="integer">39028781/user_id>
 old_status nil="true"/>
 status>currently-reading/status>
 updated_at type="datetime">2015-07-27T16:00:20+00:00/updated_at>
 review>
 id type="integer">1346815432/id>
 user_id type="integer">39028781/user_id>
 book_id type="integer">10602422/book_id>
 rating type="integer">0/rating>
 read_status>currently-reading/read_status>
 sell_flag type="boolean">false/sell_flag>
 review nil="true"/>
 recommendation nil="true"/>
 read_at type="datetime" nil="true"/>
 updated_at type="datetime">2015-07-27T16:00:26+00:00/updated_at>
 created_at type="datetime">2015-07-27T16:00:19+00:00/created_at>
 comments_count type="integer">0/comments_count>
 weight type="integer">0/weight>
 ratings_sum type="integer">0/ratings_sum>
 ratings_count type="integer">0/ratings_count>
 notes nil="true"/>
 spoiler_flag type="boolean">false/spoiler_flag>
 recommender_user_id1 type="integer">0/recommender_user_id1>
 recommender_user_name1 nil="true"/>
 work_id type="integer">1877799/work_id>
 read_count nil="true"/>
 last_comment_at type="datetime" nil="true"/>
 started_at type="datetime">2015-07-27T16:00:19+00:00/started_at>
 hidden_flag type="boolean">false/hidden_flag>
 language_code type="integer" nil="true"/>
 last_revision_at type="datetime">2015-07- 27T16:00:26+00:00/last_revision_at>
 non_friends_rating_count type="integer">0/non_friends_rating_count>
 book>
 id type="integer">10602422/id>
 work_id type="integer">1877799/work_id>
 isbn nil="true"/>
 isbn13>9788498890051/isbn13>
 title>
 La espada del destino (La saga de Geralt de Rivia, #2)
 /title>
 sort_by_title>
 espada del destino, (la saga de geralt de rivia, #2) la
 /sort_by_title>
 author_id type="integer">38569/author_id>
 author_role nil="true"/>
 asin nil="true"/>
 description>
 La vida de un brujo cazador...
 /description>
 format>Paperback/format>
 publication_year type="integer">2008/publication_year>
 publication_month type="integer">5/publication_month>
 publication_day type="integer" nil="true"/>
 num_pages type="integer">287/num_pages>
 publisher>Alamut/publisher>
 language_code>spa/language_code>
 edition_information nil="true"/>
 url>
 http://www.alamutediciones.com/alamut...
 /url>
 source_url nil="true"/>
 image_uploaded_at type="datetime">2011-09-18T22:58:32+00:00/image_uploaded_at>
 s3_image_at type="datetime">2015-06-16T00:42:14+00:00/s3_image_at>
 reviews_count type="integer">161/reviews_count>
 ratings_sum type="integer">450/ratings_sum>
 ratings_count type="integer">106/ratings_count>
 text_reviews_count type="integer">15/text_reviews_count>
 book_authors_count type="integer">1/book_authors_count>
 updated_at type="datetime">2015-06-16T00:42:14+00:00/updated_at>
 created_at type="datetime">2011-02-26T22:00:12+00:00/created_at>
 author_id_updater_user_id type="integer">4137663/author_id_updater_user_id>
 author_role_updater_user_id type="integer">4137663/author_role_updater_user_id>
 description_updater_user_id type="integer">4137663/description_updater_user_id>
 edition_information_updater_user_id type="integer" nil="true"/>
 format_updater_user_id type="integer">4137663/format_updater_user_id>
 image_updater_user_id type="integer">4993692/image_updater_user_id>
 isbn_updater_user_id type="integer" nil="true"/>
 isbn13_updater_user_id type="integer">4137663/isbn13_updater_user_id>
 language_updater_user_id type="integer">4137663/language_updater_user_id>
 num_pages_updater_user_id type="integer">4137663/num_pages_updater_user_id>
 publication_date_updater_user_id type="integer">4137663/publication_date_updater_user_id>
 publisher_updater_user_id type="integer">4137663/publisher_updater_user_id>
 title_updater_user_id type="integer">4923605/title_updater_user_id>
 url_updater_user_id type="integer">4137663/url_updater_user_id>
 title_language_code nil="true"/>
 publisher_language_code nil="true"/>
 description_language_code nil="true"/>
 asin_updater_user_id type="integer" nil="true"/>
 author>
 id type="integer">38569/id>
 name>Andrzej Sapkowski/name>
 updated_at type="datetime">2015-07-29T20:21:40+00:00/updated_at>
 created_at type="datetime">2007-02-05T16:10:23+00:00/created_at>
 searched_for_at type="datetime">2007-07-13T18:07:51+00:00/searched_for_at>
 image_uploaded_at type="datetime">2009-04-29T14:21:42+00:00/image_uploaded_at>
 user_id type="integer" nil="true"/>
 gender>M/gender>
 country_code>PL/country_code>
 born_at type="datetime">1948-06-21T00:00:00+00:00/born_at>
 died_at type="datetime" nil="true"/>
 about>
 Andrzej Sapkowski, born June 21...
 /about>
 uploader_user_id type="integer">238199/uploader_user_id>
 image_copyright>http://molksiazkowyy.blox.pl/resource...
 influences/>
 url>http://www.sapkowski.pl//url>
 genre1>Science Fiction & Fantasy/genre1>
 genre2>Historical Fiction/genre2>
 genre3/>
 books_count type="integer">522/books_count>
 reviews_count type="integer">152365/reviews_count>
 ratings_sum type="integer">434132/ratings_sum>
 works_count type="integer">64/works_count>
 hometown>Łódź/hometown>
 rating_dist>5:2645|4:2141|3:1185|2:333|1:64|total:6368/rating_dist>
 s3_image_at type="datetime">2015-05-14T23:07:07+00:00/s3_image_at>
 ratings_count type="integer">102631/ratings_count>
 text_reviews_count type="integer">2724/text_reviews_count>
 author_program_at type="datetime" nil="true"/>
 postal_code nil="true"/>
 fanships_count type="integer">1649/fanships_count>
 best_book_id type="integer">1128434/best_book_id>
 name_language_code nil="true"/>
 /author>
 /book>
 /review>
 /read_status>
 /object>
/update>

I hope it is displayed correctly.

[Ettore]

Hey Jesùs, it's a little hard to read through it but I *think* this is a bug. I do see the user image being repeated in the first image_url tag, even if there's a whole actor element that also includes the same URL.

I will file a ticket for this.

In the mean time, a (pretty sucky) workaround would be to also hit the /read_statuses/ID endpoint, parse and cache that response, and get the book image url from it.

[Filipe]

I actually thought this was just how the api worked normally.. I built a small app last year and just opted to hide the book information until a user 'expanded' the status update. (since waiting 1 second between calls would mean the updates would take ages to load)

[Jesús]

Hi Ettore, thanks! I will try the workaround.

I know it is not easy to work in a great project as Goodreads, but it would be awesome if this bug was fixed in the future :)

Thanks again.