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401 accessing no-auth required Twitter user timeline

Answer 1

A:

Accessing http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.json requires authentication because it will return current logged in user's status timeline. So if you are not logged in, there will be no timeline to return.

On the other hand, twitter should return a 404 error instead of a 401.

Now, try adding a screen name: http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.json?screen_name=jack, it'll work.

Ruel 2010-09-30 04:44:00

thats understood. Suppose I login with my account and want to display my own tweets on my javascript test application. (wait, does it account for cookies or sessions? Lets say I logged in to twitter already in another browser window and want to use this fact in my test app.)

egfx 2010-09-30 04:47:48

You need to login through the API. Even if you're logged in to the site, it'll not work. (Cookies)

Ruel 2010-09-30 04:49:30

see above, I edited my comment :)

egfx 2010-09-30 04:50:57

What I'm basically hoping to do is have my application display the users name if they have a Twitter cookie without having to login through my site.

egfx 2010-09-30 04:52:27

Do you mean, logged in to the website? (twitter.com) or to the API?

Ruel 2010-09-30 04:53:35

Twitter doesn't allow that (as far as I know), you might use a better authentication though: http://dev.twitter.com/pages/oauth_faq.

Ruel 2010-09-30 04:55:25

I mean, lets say the user has a Twitter cookie or session from Twitter.com on their computer stored. Can my application take advantage of this fact and display their information on my website? If not, how do I get this information? It says in the documentation that auth is not required for this.

egfx 2010-09-30 04:56:30

Nope, the user must verify your application first, before your application can gather any data from that user. After that, in the future it will work just the way you want to (for that single user). Same goes for the others.

Ruel 2010-09-30 04:59:34

Also, the *no auth* applies for this: `http://api.twitter.com/1/statuses/user_timeline.json?screen_name=jack` only.

Ruel 2010-09-30 05:00:19

hmm interesting. Cool, I think I have a workaround.

egfx 2010-09-30 05:07:41

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401 accessing no-auth required Twitter user timeline

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