OpenBB-finance/OpenBB · error · OpenBBError

Invalid date format. Please use '2024-03-08T12:15-0400'.

Error message

Invalid date format. Please use '2024-03-08T12:15-0400'.

What it means

OpenBBError raised during market_snapshots transform_query when the supplied date string cannot be parsed by datetime.fromisoformat after str() coercion. The provider expects an ISO-8601 datetime like '2024-03-08T12:15-0400' and tells you so; any non-ISO format (slashes, month names, missing timezone) triggers this before any request is made.

Source

Thrown at openbb_platform/providers/intrinio/openbb_intrinio/models/market_snapshots.py:124

                dt = transformed_params["date"]  # type: ignore
                if isinstance(dt, dateType):
                    dt = datetime(
                        dt.year,
                        dt.month,
                        dt.day,
                        20,
                        0,
                        0,
                        0,
                        tzinfo=timezone("America/New_York"),
                    )
            if isinstance(transformed_params["date"], str):
                dt = datetime.fromisoformat(transformed_params["date"])
            else:
                try:
                    dt = datetime.fromisoformat(str(transformed_params["date"]))  # type: ignore
                except ValueError as exc:
                    raise OpenBBError(
                        "Invalid date format. Please use '2024-03-08T12:15-0400'."
                    ) from exc

            transformed_params["date"] = (
                dt.strftime("%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%S.%f%z")
                .replace("+", "-")
                .replace("T00:", "T20:")
                if isinstance(dt, datetime)
                else dt
            )
        return IntrinioMarketSnapshotsQueryParams(**transformed_params)

    @staticmethod
    async def aextract_data(
        query: IntrinioMarketSnapshotsQueryParams,
        credentials: dict[str, str] | None,
        **kwargs: Any,
    ) -> list[dict]:

View on GitHub (pinned to 3e071fcc2c)

Solutions

  1. Pass the date as ISO-8601 with timezone offset, e.g. '2024-03-08T12:15-0400'.
  2. Normalize upstream: dt.isoformat() or datetime.strptime(raw, YOUR_FORMAT).isoformat() before the call.
  3. Or omit date to use the fetcher's default (most recent snapshot).

Example fix

# before
obb.equity.market.snapshots(provider='intrinio', date='03/08/2024')

# after
from datetime import datetime
date = datetime.strptime('03/08/2024', '%m/%d/%Y').isoformat()
obb.equity.market.snapshots(provider='intrinio', date=date)
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

from datetime import datetime

def to_intrinio_snapshot_date(raw: str) -> str:
    for fmt in ('%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M%z', '%m/%d/%Y', '%Y-%m-%d'):
        try:
            return datetime.strptime(raw, fmt).isoformat()
        except ValueError:
            continue
    raise ValueError(f"unrecognized date format: {raw!r}; use '2024-03-08T12:15-0400'")

Type guard

from datetime import datetime

def is_iso_datetime(s: str) -> bool:
    try:
        datetime.fromisoformat(str(s))
        return True
    except ValueError:
        return False

Try / catch

from openBB_core.provider.exceptions import OpenBBError  # noqa - correct: openbb_core
try:
    res = obb.equity.market.snapshots(provider='intrinio', date=date_str)
except OpenBBError as e:
    if 'Invalid date format' in str(e):
        date_str = datetime.strptime(date_str, '%m/%d/%Y').isoformat()
        res = obb.equity.market.snapshots(provider='intrinio', date=date_str)
    else:
        raise

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: equity/market/snapshots with provider='intrinio' and date='03/08/2024', 'March 8 2024', '2024-03-08 12:15' (space instead of T), or similar non-ISO strings; the ValueError from fromisoformat is caught and converted to OpenBBError.

Common situations: Dates coming from user input or other systems (US format MM/DD/YYYY), pandas Timestamps serialized with spaces, or date strings accepted by other providers but not ISO here.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of OpenBB-finance/OpenBB@3e071fcc2c (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9e28591a8e041060. Report an issue: GitHub.