Broken endpoint: https://api.chess.com/pub/club/{url-ID}/members

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Ximoon

This API endpoint returns an error for most of the clubs I've tested:

{"code":0,"message":"An internal error has occurred. Please contact Chess.com Developer's Forum for further help https://www.chess.com/club/chess-com-developer-community ."}

Examples:

Actually so far I only got it working for this very club.

stephen_33

It seems patchy because I found this one that still works...

https://api.chess.com/pub/club/levice/members

but most others look broken?

These look ok...

but many others fail. There's no pattern I can see.

Tricky_Dicky

Still broken.

Tricky_Dicky

7 days now and still not fixed.

TheFasterPanda

it is like for my club to....

TheFasterPanda

https://api.chess.com/pub/club/universal-club-of-all-countries/members

stephen_33

I've been trying to prepare for Round 3 of our U1800 season in TMCL with my usual 'health-check' on all teams and their admins. There're 74 teams taking part and I keep getting this list of reports:-

Club "Beautiful Romania" - no members found!
Club "Chess Dream Team" - no members found!
Club "The Golden Phoenix" - no members found!
Club "Pawn Society" - no members found!
Club "May the chess be with you" - no members found!
Club "The Great Viking Warriors" - no members found!
Club "Los amigos de Chanquete" - no members found!
Club "Team Match Chess" - no members found!
Club "Europe National Team" - no members found!
Club "EGYPT CHESS CLUB" - no members found!
Club "Premium Members" - no members found!
Club "Team USA Southeast" - no members found!
Club "Squadron Commandos" - no members found!
Club "Мрія АН-225 Cossack" - no members found!
Club "Exercitatio Artem Parat" - no members found!
Club "The Pandora's box club." - no members found!
Club "Oracles" - no members found!
Club "France" - no members found!
Club "Obsessive Chess Disorder." - no members found!
Club "FanatikClub" - no members found!
Club "IRAQ" - no members found!
Club "Chess Quarters" - no members found!
Club "icy's gang" - no members found!
Club "Team Morocco" - no members found!
Club "Chess.com Schachmatt" - no members found!
Club "Hawaii Chess Federation" - no members found!
Club "Asia National Team" - no members found!
Club "- King Of The Hill Team -" - no members found!
Club "Team Australia-Adelaide SA" - no members found!
Club "Old Timers" - no members found!
Club "Vedic Warriors" - no members found!
Club "Outback" - no members found!
Club "The Ge-Winner" - no members found!
Club "Chess Champions Legion" - no members found!
Club "Eternals-Superheroes" - no members found!
Club "The Nature Lovers Club" - no members found!
Club "Chess Society of IRAN" - no members found!
Club "Team Australia - Perth W.A." - no members found!
Club "3 CHECK FUN" - no members found!
Club "Chess Bombers" - no members found!
Club "Asian Chess Masters" - no members found!
Club "Franchesco Chess Club" - no members found!
Club "Checkers Draughts Chess" - no members found!
Club "Universal Club Of All Countries" - no members found!
Club "Lucky Group" - no members found!
Club "The Royal Falcon Club" - no members found!
Club "1 day per move club" - no members found!
Club "Friends Uniting Against Mental Illness Chess Club" - no members found!
Club "Team Blunder" - no members found!
Club "Chess House of All Nations and Peoples." - no members found!
Club "Queens and Kings Chess Club" - no members found!
Club "Team Australia-Brisbane QLD" - no members found!
Club "Tactical Minds" - no members found!

"404" errors for all those & I estimate over 90% failures

chess.com staff, will you please fix this and now?!

MasterMatthew52

Still broken. Can we get an update? Clubs have scripts/websites that rely on this information to be present and accurate.

MasterMatthew52

Does this have anything to do with the club's member list being private?

I noticed with the clubs I manage that the ones that have private member lists are the ones with issues... Checked a few others on this list and they also have private members.

MasterMatthew52
MasterMatthew52 wrote:

Does this have anything to do with the club's member list being private?

I noticed with the clubs I manage that the ones that have private member lists are the ones with issues... Checked a few others on this list and they also have private members.

It DOES...

I just changed my club's settings and I can see the members.

Crick3t
MasterMatthew52 wrote:
MasterMatthew52 wrote:

Does this have anything to do with the club's member list being private?

I noticed with the clubs I manage that the ones that have private member lists are the ones with issues... Checked a few others on this list and they also have private members.

It DOES...

I just changed my club's settings and I can see the members.

That sort of makes sense. The API is for public data.

Also explains why it is working for my club.

Tricky_Dicky

Some of the broken API links are for clubs with open member lists.

MasterMatthew52
Tricky_Dicky wrote:

Some of the broken API links are for clubs with open member lists.

I didn't check them all, just enough to establish a pattern. It did fix my club when I tried, but there might be something else going on as well.

Martin_Stahl
Tricky_Dicky wrote:

Some of the broken API links are for clubs with open member lists.

Do you have a list that you're certain are public, short of checking every one in the previous post?

Ximoon

Damn you are right, passing P2K's member list to public makes the endpoint available.

I guess it's not a bug but a feature then, effectively killing the endpoint.

Crick3t

I wonder if it would work with an oauth token.

Tricky_Dicky

I had checked that when the problem was first reported. I can't remember which clubs I checked at the time.

However. I do notice that there is a field in the club profile API now that I hadn't previously noticed. "visibility":

The way you phrased the reply, Martin, suggests to me that you think this is to do with private club setting.

Do we assume now that a private club API member list is no longer available? Another change without any prior notice? And if so, is the endpoint response of "code": 0 "Internal error" an acceptable return?

 
Tricky_Dicky

Just checked in one of my clubs. As soon as you change the setting to private member list the API endpoint returns error.

Seems to be a new feature without any warning of the change.

MasterMatthew52
Ximoon wrote:

Damn you are right, passing P2K's member list to public makes the endpoint available.

I guess it's not a bug but a feature then, effectively killing the endpoint.

This endpoint is quite literally useless now.

Also, if I wanted to view your clubs active members even with them being private, I could just look at the club events tab and see who signs up for events. No point in removing them from this endpoint.

FWIW - 404 is not the correct error code for this and the message should be more specific. 404 not found should never really happen for a valid request.

Ximoon

I can't say I don't see the logic in it, but as you say, there's just other, more agressive ways to endup with a list of active players from another team.

I was using that mostly to manage my own clubs, to assess clubs strength for league pairings and also to make more efficient calls to members for important matches (in order not to send useless messages to players that would be in both clubs).

I was also computing statistics e.g. to know how many potential players such or such leagues were involving, or the sizes of top teams of the leaderboard.

Most of that won't happen anymore I guess.