Youtube API video list returns less results than indicated

Question

I am running a query on my own youtube channel to retrieve all the video titles. I have 680 videos but can only get about half of them. What I have done is create a code that iterates all the years since creation of the channel and within a year uses the pageTokens to go through the packs of 50 videos.

So a query would look like this:

https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/search?key={XXXXX}&channelId={XXXXX}&part=snippet,id&order=date&type=video&maxResults=50&publishedAfter=2018-01-01T00:00:00Z&publishedBefore=2019-01-01T00:00:00Z&pageToken=CDIQAA

In the results for these queries, I get the indication that there are the following contents:

array (
'totalResults' => 321,
'resultsPerPage' => 50,
),

Iterating through the pages, I get 2 pages filled with 50 items, then another one where the results show as well 'resultsPerPage' => 50, but contains only 35 videos, the rest for that year have 0 "items" in the JSON data. So the pages in question only give 135 results back instead of the 321. Once I switch to the next year, I get again 2 pages of full results, then one with some missing and then empty ones.

Any idea what could be wrong?

here is an excerpt of the last JSON data set:

array (
  'kind' => 'youtube#searchListResponse',
  'etag' => '"XpPGQXPnxQJhLgs6enD_n8JR4Qk/IsJyhRyDQ6qMmAHldktSRzEN2qs"',
  'nextPageToken' => 'CJYBEAA',
  'prevPageToken' => 'CGQQAQ',
  'regionCode' => 'DE',
  'pageInfo' => 
  array (
    'totalResults' => 321,
    'resultsPerPage' => 50,
  ),
  'items' => 
  array (
    0 => 
    [..contents..]
   35 =>
    [..last content and closing brackets..]

Mudslinger

Might be a duplicate of #22674674 – Mudslinger

Answer 1

If you want to get the entire video list of a given channel without any omissions, I suggest you to use PlaylistItems endpoint instead, queried for the given channel's uploads list by passing a proper value to the endpoint's playlistId parameter.

A given channel's uploads playlistId is obtained upon querying the channel's own endpoint. The needed ID is to be found at .items.contentDetails.relatedPlaylists.uploads. Usually, an channel ID and its corresponding uploads playlist ID are related by s/^UC([0-9a-zA-Z_-]{22})$/UU\1/.

One more remark: your should be aware of the difference between a video's published time and upload time.

Publus

Thanks a lot! Also could find this one here as an alternative explanation: stackoverflow.com/a/36387404 – Mudslinger