Twitter API error 215

Question

Today, we discovered one of my clients Twitter feeds became broken.

I have tried switching to using the new API 1.1, but get the following error:

{"errors":[{"message":"Bad Authentication data","code":215}]}

Even using their own example generates the same response:

https://api.twitter.com/1.1/statuses/user_timeline.json?screen_name=twitterapi&count=2

I am referencing the following documentation.

https://dev.twitter.com/docs/api/1.1/get/statuses/user_timeline

Any idea what's up with this?

Thanks, Mikey

Answer 1

Your example doesn't state whether you are authenticating, so I will assume you are not.

All methods in API 1.1 require authentication via OAuth. https://dev.twitter.com/docs/auth/oauth

Unauthenticated access is discontinued permanently.

Answer 2

So, it seems Twitter's latest API 1.1 does not allow access without authentication - even for data that is seemingly public...like the latest 3 tweets from a timeline.

The best article I have found on this (which gives a great solution) for read-access can be found here:

http://www.webdevdoor.com/php/authenticating-twitter-feed-timeline-oauth/

I have followed the steps in the article above and can confirm it works great.

An interesting point to note, is that now, because you have to use access tokens and secret keys; all requests must be made with a server-side script. Prior to this I was using jQuery to make an AJAX request on Twitters JSON API directly. Now, you must AJAX request a dynamic script on your own website, if you wish to go down a Javascript route.