Book-shelf XML not being returned for a specific user

[Rob]

Hi all,

Any idea why this doesn't work?
http://www.goodreads.com /review/list/4965408?shelf=to-read&format=xml&key=[my key]

The same URL works with any other User ID I have tried, but for some reason it doesn't work with user 4965408. This prevents him from connecting my web app to goodreads.

Any suggestions much appreciated.

-Rob

[Kiwidude]

Rob,

Did you get this sorted? I have a user have exactly the same issue with my application (id# 4990992). Some API calls work, such as getting their list of shelves. But not the contents of their shelf.

Quite frankly the deathly silence in these forums from the Goodreads developers/support team is rather concerning. What is the point of having a public API if you don't support it when it has issues?

[Rob]

I did some testing, and it seems to be related to the 'Who can view my profile' setting.

My Account -> Who Can View My Profile -> "goodreads members" doesn't work, but set it to "anyone" and it works ok.

I didn't think this would be necessary given I am authenticating via OAuth, but perhaps I need to access the user shelves differently.

[Kiwidude]

Thanks for that Rob, I shall pass that information on to the user. I agree on the OAuth thing, although of course this particular API call doesn't require passing OAuth information being just a standard HTTP get. Maybe that's why it has been made to behave in this way?

It would be nice for some clarity from the Goodreads API developers on this. For now at least I shall have to tell my application users that they need to change their "Who Can View My Profile" settings. It would be nice to have a working API alternative for users who do lock their profile down though.

[Michael]

it should not be doing that... I'll see about fixing this.

[Louise]

Sorry about the inconvenience, folks. I've fixed this so that if you're oauthed, you should always be able to see your own shelf. This will be live in the next release.

[Louise]

Did this fix it for everyone?

[Kiwidude]

Are you saying the new release is live now? As I don't see any difference in the behaviour and still get the same error.

Do we have to change our code? I don't see any change to the documentation page (btw the list.xml API call is missing from the index above on that page). As soon as I change my profile setting to "Goodreads members only", it falls over. Change it back to "Everyone", it works.

[Michael]

Are you using oauth? or just an api-key?


If you're using oauth, it should work.

[Louise]

Kiwidude, the release is live now.

If member A is set as "goodreads members only" then member B can only see member A's shelf through the API if member B is oauthed.

Is this not working for you? I'll check the documentation and add that part in if it's missing.

[Kiwidude]

I've changed my code to be an OAuth-based HTTP GET and this does work now which is great thanks.

Note as per my comments above that there is no mention of OAuth in the documentation for this API call, which realistically it needs to be to avoid the issues several of us have hit even with the fix.

As an aside I see this now makes the "id" parameter redundant in the scenario where you are getting books for your own shelf - you might want to reflect that in the documentation for the call also.

Thanks for the quick turnaround on this.