Missing Twitter keys error is confusing

I’m having issues in using replies and --recursive, --recursive result is a mismatch argument. Just a sample without using the recursive argument (same with any ID):

twarc replies 833504567644024832 --log test.log

result:

errors
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/twarc", line 4, in <module>
    __import__('pkg_resources').run_script('twarc==1.0.6', 'twarc')
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 738, in run_script
    self.require(requires)[0].run_script(script_name, ns)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/pkg_resources/__init__.py", line 1506, in run_script
    exec(script_code, namespace, namespace)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/twarc-1.0.6-py2.7.egg/EGG-INFO/scripts/twarc", line 4, in <module>
    __import__('pkg_resources').run_script('twarc==1.0.6', 'twarc')
  File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/twarc.py", line 194, in main
    for thing in things:
  File "build/bdist.linux-x86_64/egg/twarc.py", line 795, in replies
    screen_name = tweet['user']['screen_name']
TypeError: string indices must be integers

The test.log lists an “hydrate” then an “archived errors” instead replies:

2017-03-01 16:37:25,261 INFO loading config /root/.twarc
2017-03-01 16:37:25,262 INFO creating http session
2017-03-01 16:37:25,262 INFO hydrating ['833504567644024832']
2017-03-01 16:37:25,406 INFO archived errors

[edsu]

ahah! this is something that has bitten me too. You’re right there should be a much better error message when no keys are found.

[remagio]

Hi @edsu, I did some more tests and I found the source of the issue. Despite the presence of a populated .twarc with working profiles, and previous twarc’s jobs were still running fine, I started some new twarcs with replies getting: “TypeError: string indices must be integers” using <twarc replies ‘833504567644024832’>".

TypeError confused me thinking it was related with “replies” but it’s related with Twitter Keys & config arguments. Despite previous releases -p argument stopped to work and default key profile too. Since last twarc updates (both VMs via pip or via github) it works only if settings ENVs Twitter Key or using –profile instead -p. I missed twarc deprecated -p vs --profile (!?).

So the real issue is "if using <twarc replies ‘833504567644024832’> without

• a valid –profile name (default not works)
• ENVs Twitter api keys

It says “TypeError: string indices must be integers” instead of something like “twitter api key or .twarc missing”.