NanmiCoder/MediaCrawler · warning

Unable to parse creator info from URL: {url}

Error message

Unable to parse creator info from URL: {url}

What it means

ValueError raised by parse_creator_url_from... in xhs/help.py when a URL does not match the /user/profile/{user_id} pattern. The parser only accepts creator profile URLs of that exact shape, extracting user_id plus optional xsec_token/xsec_source query params.

Source

Thrown at media_platform/xhs/help.py:347

        CreatorUrlInfo: Object containing user_id, xsec_token, xsec_source
    """
    # If it's a pure ID format (24 hexadecimal characters), return directly
    if len(url) == 24 and all(c in "0123456789abcdef" for c in url):
        return CreatorUrlInfo(user_id=url, xsec_token="", xsec_source="")

    # Extract user_id from URL: /user/profile/xxx
    import re
    user_pattern = r'/user/profile/([^/?]+)'
    match = re.search(user_pattern, url)
    if match:
        user_id = match.group(1)
        # Extract xsec_token and xsec_source parameters
        params = extract_url_params_to_dict(url)
        xsec_token = params.get("xsec_token", "")
        xsec_source = params.get("xsec_source", "")
        return CreatorUrlInfo(user_id=user_id, xsec_token=xsec_token, xsec_source=xsec_source)

    raise ValueError(f"Unable to parse creator info from URL: {url}")


if __name__ == '__main__':
    _img_url = "https://sns-img-bd.xhscdn.com/7a3abfaf-90c1-a828-5de7-022c80b92aa3"
    # Get image URL addresses under multiple CDNs for a single image
    # final_img_urls = get_img_urls_by_trace_id(get_trace_id(_img_url))
    final_img_url = get_img_url_by_trace_id(get_trace_id(_img_url))
    print(final_img_url)

    # Test creator URL parsing
    print("\n=== Creator URL Parsing Test ===")
    test_creator_urls = [
        "https://www.xiaohongshu.com/user/profile/5eb8e1d400000000010075ae?xsec_token=AB1nWBKCo1vE2HEkfoJUOi5B6BE5n7wVrbdpHoWIj5xHw=&xsec_source=pc_feed",
        "5eb8e1d400000000010075ae",
    ]
    for url in test_creator_urls:
        try:
            result = parse_creator_info_from_url(url)

View on GitHub (pinned to d6f7c5bb90)

Solutions

  1. Use a full creator profile URL like https://www.xiaohongshu.com/user/profile/5ff0e6410000000001008400?xsec_token=...&xsec_source=pc_search.
  2. If you only have the numeric ID, pass the ID directly (the config accepts IDs) instead of fabricating a URL of the wrong shape.
  3. Validate/normalize URLs in config before the crawl starts.

Example fix

# before
url = "https://www.xiaohongshu.com/explore/65c1e9b3000000000c03a0e1"
info = parse_creator_url(url)  # ValueError
# after
url = "https://www.xiaohongshu.com/user/profile/65c1e9b3000000000c03a0e1"
info = parse_creator_url(url)
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

import re
def is_creator_profile_url(url: str) -> bool:
    return bool(re.search(r'/user/profile/([^/?]+)', url))

Type guard

import re
def is_creator_url(url: str) -> bool:
    return isinstance(url, str) and bool(re.search(r'xiaohongshu\.com/user/profile/[^/?]+', url))

Try / catch

try:
    info = parse_creator_url(url)
except ValueError:
    raise ValueError(f"expected xiaohongshu.com/user/profile/<id> URL, got: {url!r}") from None

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Feeding an xhs note URL ( /explore/... or /discovery/item/...), a bare user ID instead of a URL, a domain-less path, or a profile URL with an unexpected path structure into the creator-URL parser.

Common situations: User pastes a note link into XHS_CREATOR_ID_LIST configured for URLs; config mixes numeric IDs and URLs; URL copied from the mobile share sheet with a different host/path format.

Understand the failure class

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of NanmiCoder/MediaCrawler@d6f7c5bb90 (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/48dd52fad5d00c2e. Report an issue: GitHub.