Mailing List Archive: api error

If I access

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=visualeditor&mobileformat=html&format=json&paction=parse&page=Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic_in_Canada

I get back

Error
Our servers are currently under maintenance or experiencing a technical
problem. Please try again in a few minutes.

See the error message at the bottom of this page for more information.

If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please
include the details below.

Request ID: 11569b5b-b74f-4cff-8e28-836d18914c30
Allowed memory size of 1468006400 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 20480
bytes)

However
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic_in_Canada
does return a page

If I access

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=visualeditor&mobileformat=html&format=json&paction=parse&page=Gout

I get legitimate json. So the api does seem to be working.

And https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gout returns a page

I'm not sure how to proceed. After a number of hours it has not yet
resolved.

On Wed, 13 Mar 2024 at 13:16, Tim Moody <tim@timmoody.com> wrote:
>
> If I access
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=visualeditor&…

Hi Tim,

If you go to
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=help&modules=visualeditor you'll
see that this API is labelled as an internal, do-not-call API.

The page you're requesting is too big for the timeout, and you get an
error. In particular, you're calling an expensive API on a very expensive
page.

[Snip]

> I'm not sure how to proceed. After a number of hours it has not yet
resolved.

Please don't repeatedly call an API that's telling you your call has caused
too much server load, especially an internal one.

By the URL you've given, you probably want
https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Timeline_of_the_COVID-19_pandemic_in_Canada
instead; sadly, that is an experimental API, but it is at least designed to
be used by the public.

You can read about this API, and a bunch of others, at
https://api.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page, and the direct API-generated
documentation at
https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/#/Page%20content/getContent-mobile-html

Hope this helps!

Yours,
--
James D. Forrester (he/him or they/themself)
Wikimedia Foundation