tt_search_api returns 0 results

[junio-AC]

Hi all,

I’m using traktok (Research API wrapper) on macOS and I’m running into an issue that started yesterday (2026-03-09): tt_user_videos_api() (profile download) still works, but tt_search_api() for keyword queries returns an empty result for every day in the time window, with no error.

This workflow was working up to last week with the same setup and script structure.

The idea of my script is that I run a weekly window (last 7–8 complete days,), but to reduce load I segment it by day and call tt_search_api() once per day:
• define start_date and end_date for the weekly span
• build date_seq <- seq(start_date, end_date, by="day")
• for each day d, run tt_search_api(query, start_date=d, end_date=d, ...)
• bind rows across days

Console output shows the usual “Making initial request” / “Parsing data” for each day, but results are always empty and nothing accumulates.

[ref_keyword] START giorno: 2026-03-01
✔ Making initial request [256ms]
✔ Parsing data [8ms]
[ref_keyword] START giorno: 2026-03-02
✔ Making initial request [275ms]
✔ Parsing data [8ms]
[ref_keyword] START giorno: 2026-03-03
✔ Making initial request [348ms]
✔ Parsing data [9ms]

Minimal reproducible example

library(traktok)
auth_research(client_key = "<redacted>", client_secret = "<redacted>")

q <- query() |>
  query_and(field_name = "keyword", operation = "EQ", field_values = "referendum")

res <- tt_search_api(
  query      = q,
  start_date = as.Date("2026-03-01"),
  end_date   = as.Date("2026-03-01"),
  fields     = "all",
  max_pages  = 95,
  verbose    = TRUE,
  cache      = FALSE
)

print(dim(res))
print(names(res))

• I’ve tried multiple keywords (not just “referendum”), different date spans, and longer sleep between requests.
• Profile downloads via tt_user_videos_api() still work, so auth seems OK.
• I’m on the dev version traktok_0.1.1.9000.

Package session info
• R: 4.5.2 (2025-10-31)
• Platform: aarch64-apple-darwin20
• macOS: Tahoe 26.3.1
• Time zone: Europe/Rome
• traktok: 0.1.1.9000
• httr2: 1.2.2
• curl: 7.0.0
• jsonlite: 2.0.0
• dplyr: 1.2.0
• purrr: 1.2.1

Has anyone seen tt_search_api() suddenly returning empty results for keyword queries while other endpoints still work? Is there a known change in the search endpoint behavior or any recommended adjustment to query construction for keyword search?

Thanks a lot for maintaining traktok, it has been extremely useful for my project!

Best

[JBGruber]

I have the not so insignificant issue that I lost access to the TikTok Research API when the project I requested my access for ended. So I can't check this at the moment.

One thing I found surprising is that you have start_date and end_date set at the same date. I'm not sure if I ever tried it, but my expectation would be that this also returns 0 results. Have you tried end_date = as.Date("2026-03-01") - 1?

[junio-AC]

Thank you so much, @JBGruber, for your reply!
For no apparent reason, the script started working again—even with the same start_date and end_date. I assume it might have been some kind of temporary issue on the API side.

I also wanted to ask if anyone knows how to check API usage or rate consumption. I’d like to understand how to check when I hit my daily rate limit.
I’m adding this here rather than opening a separate thread, but I’m happy to create one if that’s more appropriate.

Thank you again