Yahoo data sometimes fails to get -- "query.results.channel is null or not an object"

[samuelatlarge]

First: I love your library! It's been an incredibly smooth addition to our company intranet. Thank you.

My issue: Occasionally my SimpleWeather widget fails to load on Internet Explorer 8. It happens maybe once out of every 10 page loads. When it does fail, the DOM element is rendered and the browser looks like it's waiting on data. A few seconds go by, then IE8 reports the error "query.results.channel is null or not an object"

I'm in an enterprise environment where some domains are blocked, and though it's possible that's the issue, we've added query.yahooapis.com to the company whitelist. Does this sound like a potential issue with the script, IE 8 compatibility or Yahoo's weather service?

JSFiddle of the widget as implemented here: http://jsfiddle.net/cK3nZ/1/

[fleeting]

I haven't really tested it with IE8 however since it seems to work some of the times it's most likely an issue with getting the data from Yahoo? However, it should show a friendly error vs a js error when it fails, it's a known bug that I'll be fixing soon.

[samuelatlarge]

I've now experienced this in Chrome as well using SimpleWeather 3.0.2 and Chrome 36.0.1985.125 m on Windows 7. The same thing happens where the DOM element is rendered but never appended to.

Here's the Chrome console message:
Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'channel' of null jquery.simpleWeather.min.js:2

[fleeting]

It's just a case of either the Yahoo API being down or they just didn't return any data. I need to push out a fix that should have it show a friendly error in place of the weather data instead of nothing and a console error. Not much I can do about Yahoo not returning data or being down but I can fix the bug causing the error message not to show.

[samuelatlarge]

Ah. I was just thinking about a way to make it cache the last data GET and display that if it seems the request is taking too long. Hmmm.

[fleeting]

Yep, caching has long been on the list but not something I've had time to really address.

[johnstew]

This is happening to me to on Chrome 37.0.2062.94. I am going to try and figure out a way to stop the request. The weird part is though that it seems to be getting data just fine. I have no idea why my page keeps acting like it's loading something. All signs point to simple weather.

Obviously this is the Yahoo! API issue but data is being returned so I am a bit confused as to why it is still trying to fetch more data. If you have any tips on this then I'd greatly appreciate it.

Thanks

[fleeting]

@johnstew Do you have a link I can check out where this is happening?

[johnstew]

@fleeting I do have one but I can't give it to you until Thursday. However, I believe the problem has been solved now. However, there has to be a way to prevent it from getting hung up on querying for Yahoo data. I don't understand how it was actually getting the data or at least some data but was still trying to make more calls to Yahoo. Very weird. Once the site is live I will share the link.

Thanks

[bendulum]

Hello, any news on this error?
I'm getting Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'channel' of null in line error: data.query.results.channel.item.title. The yahoo request returned:

{"query":{"count":0,"created":"2014-09-14T11:31:58Z","lang":"en-US","diagnostics":{"publiclyCallable":"true","url":{"execution-start-time":"1","execution-stop-time":"9","execution-time":"8","content":"http://gws2.maps.yahoo.com/findlocation?pf=1&locale=en_US&flags=&offset=15&q=null&gflags=R&start=0&count=100"},"user-time":"9","service-time":"8","build-version":"0.2.2666"},"results":null}}

Looks like a simple null check is missing?
I'm using Chrome Version 37.0.2062.120 m on Windows 7.
Thanks for this nice plugin!

[hallmatt]

Has this fix been implemented?

[oasif]

to fix edit jquery.simpleWeather.js
remove
and gflags="R" limit 1
from line 26

or remove the above string from jquery.simpleWeather.min.js

[chimit]

@oasif thank you very much! It works!

[JWiersema]

Oasif solution doesn't work for me, or am I doing it wrong?
I changed
(select woeid from geo.placefinder where text="'+i.location+'" and gflags="R" limit 1)
to
(select woeid from geo.placefinder where text="'+i.location+'")
There is no issue with yahoo connectivity because when i use the request url the script compiles i get the correct data back. Please investigate further and let us know a solution.

[oasif]

The following line 26 should work with zip code:
weatherUrl += 'select * from weather.forecast where woeid in (select woeid from geo.places(1) where text="'+options.location+'") and u="'+options.unit+'"';

[ejanus]

Oasif's solution worked for me. But, I hope there is a better solutions soon.