Uploading Videos to Twitter using API

Question

I'm using the library tmhOAuth to post to Twitter in an app and I've already implemented uploading pictures but am having trouble implementing video upload.

This is the call I use to upload pictures and works perfectly with images.

$temp = '@upload/'.$name.';type='.$_FILES['img']['type'].';filename='.$name;
$media = $tmhOAuth->request('POST', 'https://upload.twitter.com/1.1/media/upload.json', array('media' => $temp), true, true);

So I thought it might be the same for videos but I got the error

stdClass Object ( [request] => /1.1/media/upload.json [error] => media type unrecognized. )

I believe I have to make 3 separate calls, as per the Twitter API, so I tried this

$media = $tmhOAuth->request('POST', 'https://upload.twitter.com/1.1/media/upload.json?command=INIT&media_type=video/mp4&total_bytes='.$_FILES['img']['size'], array('media' => $temp), true, true);
$media_id = json_decode($tmhOAuth->response['response'])->media_id_string;
$media = $tmhOAuth->request('POST', 'https://upload.twitter.com/1.1/media/upload.json?command=APPEND&media_id='.$media_id.'&segment_index=0', array('media' => $temp), true, true);
$media = $tmhOAuth->request('POST', 'https://upload.twitter.com/1.1/media/upload.json?command=FINALIZE&media_id='.$media_id, array('media' => $temp), true, true);

but I kept getting the same error for all 3 calls

stdClass Object ( [request] => /1.1/media/upload.json [error] => media type unrecognized. )

Can anyone provide an example as to how to upload videos to twitter? I could find no examples online and it might just not be possible.

Answer 1

I've only been able to get video uploading working with CodeBird - a different PHP library.

The Twitter API calls for video are quite different from uploading images, as you've discovered.

Uploading videos to Twitter (≤ 15MB, MP4) requires you to send them in chunks. You need to perform at least 3 calls to obtain your media_id for the video:

• Send an INIT event to get a media_id draft.

• Upload your chunks with APPEND events, each one up to 5MB in size.

• Send a FINALIZE event to convert the draft to a ready-to-tweet media_id.
• Post your tweet with video attached.

Remember, each APPEND must be 5MB or under.

If you are consistently getting "Media Type Unrecognised" errors, it might be that the video you are using is incompatible with Twitter. Can you test uploading the video via another service?

Answer 2

I had the same problem. Here's how I managed to solve it. First you set up a var containing the filesystem full path to the media you want to upload.

$media_path = '/PATH/TO/THE/file.mp4';

Then instantiate $tmhOAuth and do the 3 steps :

$tmhOAuthUpload = new tmhOAuth();

INIT:

$code = $tmhOAuthUpload->request(
      'POST',
      $tmhOAuthUpload->url('/1.1/media/upload.json'),
      array(
          "command" => "INIT",
          "total_bytes" => (int)filesize($media_path),
          'media_type' => 'video/mp4',
      )
);

Retrieve media id returned by Twitter

$results = json_decode($tmhOAuthUpload->response['response']);
$media_id = $results->media_id_string;

APPEND: Handle video/media upload with the Append loop

$fp = fopen($media_path, 'r');
$segment_id = 0;
while (! feof($fp)) {
    $chunk = fread($fp, 1048576); // 1MB per chunk for this sample

    $tmhOAuthUpload->request(
        'POST',
        $tmhOAuthUpload->url('/1.1/media/upload.json'),
        array(
            "command" => "APPEND",
            "media_id" => $media_id,
            'media_data' => base64_encode($chunk),
            "segment_index" => $segment_id
        )
    );
    $segment_id++;
}

FINALIZE:

$tmhOAuthUpload->request(
     'POST',
     $tmhOAuthUpload->url('/1.1/media/upload.json'),
     array(
          "command" => "FINALIZE",
          "media_id" => $media_id,
     )
);

By then I was able to to send my tweet:

$code = $tmhOAuth->request(
      'POST',
      $tmhOAuthUpload->url('1.1/statuses/update'),
      array(
            'media_ids'  => $media_id,
            'status'   => $text,
      ),
      true // use auth
);

Hope that helps

Answer 3

Thank you very much for that answer Pierre! I was however getting a “Not valid video” error if I tried to create the tweet too soon. The video wasn't done being processed by Twitter. In addition to Pierre's code, I needed something like this to check STATUS, after FINALIZE:

$videoCount = 0;
do
{
    $tmhOAuth->request(
        'GET',
        $tmhOAuth->url('/1.1/media/upload.json'),
        array(
            "command" => "STATUS",
            "media_id" => $mediaID,
        )
    );
    $twitterResult = json_decode($tmhOAuth->response['response']);
    if ($twitterResult->processing_info->state != 'succeeded')
    { sleep(5); }
    $videoCount++;
}
while ($twitterResult->processing_info->state != 'succeeded' && $videoCount < 5);

Note: my variable names are different