The quarter-final round in the 20th. Knockout tournament I'm helping to run was due to start late afternoon & as usual, I ran a script I use to check the status & number of boards in each match. Normally I just see matches with status of 'in_progress' or sometimes 'registration', if a team has failed to reach the minimum number of players but suddenly I saw this in the fourth match:-

Team Matches: Current Status:-

Date-Time of run: 7/Apr/2019 22:58:25

Match Name: KNOCKOUT S20 QF: Art Of Chess vs Baker Street Irregulars 
Match Status: in_progress / Number of Boards: 16

Match Name: Knockout S20 QF: Astronomy vs Ab Imo Pectore 
Match Status: in_progress / Number of Boards: 30

Match Name: KNOCKOUT S20 QF: Sacred Pawn Legion vs North America United 
Match Status: in_progress / Number of Boards: 18

Match Name: KNOCKOUT S20 QF: NO PASARAN vs Outback 
Match Status: closed / Number of Boards: 29

What does "closed" mean? I've re-read the documentation for the match endpoint but there's no mention of a closed category.

Help & some explanation much appreciated 

Just to confirm the above, opening the endpoint in a browser window gives the same response:

{"@id":"https://api.chess.com/pub/match/993528","name":"KNOCKOUT S20 QF: NO PASARAN vs Outback","url":"https://www.chess.com/club/matches/993528","start_time":1554652800,"status":"closed","boards":29,"settings": ......
_

However, the web page clearly shows the match as 'in progress'

I don't have an answer for this.

A couple of thoughts:

1. Run and parse the (relative) JSON-LD context for each of the players.
2. Run and parse the (relative) JSON-LD context for each of the (individual) matches.
3. Wait 12-to-24-hours for data to update.

The official published data API specifies that data is updated at interval (3), such that (1) and (2) may update at (3). You may be getting summary contextual data BEFORE publication of specific data. (Maybe; and if so, might need to be fixed for consistency.)

When I search the official published data API for "closed," the only reference I see is for "fair play" violations. When I search the team and match context, I see a comment, or contextual reference saying ... "// User score (adjuested in case of fair play recalculations)"

And, for direct match data, each of "team1" and "team2" has a list, array or field of players excluded for fair-play violations (thus, if things are summarily wrapped-up and being reported in summary data prematurely, before an account shows a "closed" status, and games are wrapped-up automatically, check individual player profiles as provided by the JSON-LD).

Logically, that may wrap-up into the overall team-standing (and might need to be fixed if fair-play violations are handled independently, and don't impact team matches any further).

Or, maybe the data API has been updated, but not the published standard. (In that case, maybe ping or send @BCurtis a message, the author and manager, for an update if things have changed.)

Best guess, but, I can't provide a direct answer since I don't know how things work behind the scenes. It may simply be a matter of changes that have not yet been published, and you should ping the website to update the Published Data API information. (I.e. this forum post, but also notify support, and forum administrators, etc.)

Thanks @stephen_33 , the cached result for that peculiar endpoint https://api.chess.com/pub/match/993528 failed to properly refresh. Status now is on sync with Web. We will investigate further on possible causes.

SJCVChess, thanks for your comments but it's not clear to me why the status of any one player in a match should affect the status of the match itself? Also, even after 6 hours had elapsed since the start of that match, the endpoint still gave "closed" as the match status so I'm not convinced it's due to some kind of latency problem.

And if variants can occur, however infrequently, shouldn't that be specified in the documentation for the endpoint?

Thanks for the explanation. If its an anomaly, I wouldn't expect it to re-occur but if it is going to crop up, however rarely, should it be mentioned in the endpoint documentation perhaps?

Really what I'm asking is this: For those of us involved in processing match data, do we need to make special provision for the standard match status categories of "registration", "in_progress" & "finished" but also any other, or is this going to be so rare that we shouldn't be concerned?