API endpoints return a 40x code with error "no method found with this name" when reading the name of Staging Ground's badges

Question

Goal

Use the SE API in order to get the lists of the badges for every website in the network. The /badges endpoint provide this data.

Expected result

According to the paging documentation, we can request up to 100 items:

pagesize can be any value between 0 and 100 and defaults to 30

Source: https://api.stackexchange.com/docs/paging:

So the API should allow us to request up to 100 badges, in order to reduce the number of requests.

In fact, it worked for 11 years (according to my git history) with 100 items per page , before it broke in late August 2024.

Actual result

(see the last update below)

No pagesize

Example:

https://api.stackexchange.com/docs/badges#order=desc&sort=rank&filter=default&site=eosio&run=true

Output:

With 43 <= pagesize <= 100

Example:

https://api.stackexchange.com/docs/badges#pagesize=100&order=desc&sort=rank&filter=default&site=eosio&run=true

For some reason, the API returns an error when pagesize is equal or greater than 43.

Output:

Output as text:

{
  "error_id": 404,
  "error_message": "no method found with this name",
  "error_name": "no_method"
}

So pagesize must be removed from the request, and we have to perform more calls to retrieve all the tags.

Update after tests from Makyen

Actually the error doesn't come from pagesize, since we can request the page 2 with pagesize = 95:

https://api.stackexchange.com/docs/badges#page=2&pagesize=95&order=desc&sort=rank&filter=default&site=eosio&run=true

Cause of the error

The root issue is a problem with the Guide badge, as shown in this answer from Jeremy.

Minor update after more tests in /badges/{ids} (2024-10-10)

On serverfault

We can see the badge with 542 for serverfault here (name has been removed to avoid the error):

https://api.stackexchange.com/docs/badges#page=135&pagesize=1&order=desc&sort=rank&filter=!-*xW3Xj7tCc7&site=serverfault&run=true

And we can see its name Guide here on /badges/{ids}:

https://api.stackexchange.com/docs/badges-by-ids#order=desc&sort=rank&ids=542&filter=default&site=serverfault&run=true

So this tag has a name indeed, but this tag crashes /badges.

We can see a link in the response, but it returns a 404 page: https://serverfault.com/help/badges/542/guide

On Stack Overflow

About this badge: https://stackoverflow.com/badges/12166/

We can look at it by its id: https://api.stackexchange.com/docs/badges-by-ids#order=desc&sort=rank&ids=12166&filter=!-*xW3Xj7tCc7&site=stackoverflow&run=true

If we add name to the filters, it crashes.

It also lack a description.

So it's very likely that the badges about the Staging Ground feature broke several API endpoints related to badges.

Answer 1

For the instance of this error in the original post, this error is occurring for the Guide badge, which is a badge for Staging Ground participation. That badge should only exist on Stack Overflow (and if you follow the link provided by the API on other sites, you get a 404 result), but the API is returning it on other sites as well. That bad badge data is probably the root bug, but the cases where the does or does not occur are very weird.

The error only occurs if you use a filter that includes the name field.

/2.3/badges?page=43&pagesize=1&order=desc&sort=rank&site=eosio

{
  "error_id": 404,
  "error_message": "no method found with this name",
  "error_name": "no_method"
}

If you use a filter to exclude it, the query can complete successfully.

/2.3/badges?page=43&pagesize=1&order=desc&sort=rank&site=eosio&filter=2LTN6ox_Y64-p(fo

{
  "items": [
    {
      "badge_type": "named",
      "award_count": 0,
      "rank": "bronze",
      "badge_id": 113,
      "link": "https://eosio.stackexchange.com/badges/113/",
      "description": "Review 10 posts in Staging Ground"
    }
  ]
}

But you can include it without error if you specify the name as a query parameter.

/2.3/badges?order=desc&sort=rank&inname=Guide&site=eosio&filter=qbpQSZryYlXMZRun

{
  "items": [
    {
      "badge_type": "named",
      "award_count": 0,
      "rank": "bronze",
      "badge_id": 113,
      "link": "https://eosio.stackexchange.com/badges/113/guide",
      "description": "Review 10 posts in Staging Ground",
      "name": "Guide"
    }
  ]
}

You can also include it without error on the route that looks up badges by ID.

/2.3/badges/113?order=desc&sort=rank&site=eosio&filter=qbpQSZryYlXMZ

{
  "items": [
    {
      "badge_type": "named",
      "award_count": 0,
      "rank": "bronze",
      "badge_id": 113,
      "link": "https://eosio.stackexchange.com/badges/113/guide",
      "description": "Review 10 posts in Staging Ground",
      "name": "Guide"
    }
  ]
}

The error does not occur for the Instructor badge, even though it's also a Staging Ground badge which doesn't exist on those sites.

/2.3/badges?page=46&pagesize=1&order=desc&sort=rank&site=eosio&filter=qbpQSZryYlXMZ

{
  "items": [
    {
      "badge_type": "named",
      "award_count": 0,
      "rank": "silver",
      "badge_id": 114,
      "link": "https://eosio.stackexchange.com/badges/114/instructor",
      "description": "Review 250 posts in Staging Ground",
      "name": "Instructor"
    }
  ]
}

---

The other instance pointed out by Makyen is even more weird. That badge doesn't even have a description:

/2.3/badges?page=44&pagesize=1&order=desc&sort=rank&site=eosio&filter=!-*xW3Xj7tCc7

{
  "items": [
    {
      "badge_type": "named",
      "award_count": 0,
      "rank": "bronze",
      "badge_id": 115,
      "link": "https://eosio.stackexchange.com/badges/115/",
      "description": ""
    }
  ]
}

Attempting to access its name fails even if you're looking it up by ID:

/2.3/badges/115?order=desc&sort=rank&site=eosio

{
  "error_id": 404,
  "error_message": "no method found with this name",
  "error_name": "no_method"
}

The badge ID is right after the staging ground badges. On Stack Overflow, there's no special badge in that location, it's just a random tag badge, but the API response we can see here indicates that this is not a tag badge, it's a normal "named" badge. But the fact that it occurs right after that staging ground badges certainly seems suggestive... maybe of some bug in whatever code was seeding those new badges in the database?