OpenBB-finance/OpenBB · warning · EmptyDataError

There was an error with the request and it was returned empt

Error message

There was an error with the request and it was returned empty.

What it means

Raised in FredSeniorLoanOfficerSurveyFetcher.transform_data (openbb_fred/models/senior_loan_officer_survey.py:129) when the wrapped FredSeriesFetcher result contains no data rows (or all rows are NaN and dropped). The survey data arrives as a wide date-by-series DataFrame; if the upstream series request came back without observations (rate limiting, invalid IDs, out-of-range dates) the DataFrame is empty and this EmptyDataError fires.

Source

Thrown at openbb_platform/providers/fred/openbb_fred/models/senior_loan_officer_survey.py:129

        return {
            "metadata": response.metadata,
            "data": [d.model_dump() for d in response.result],
        }

    @staticmethod
    def transform_data(
        query: FredSeniorLoanOfficerSurveyQueryParams,
        data: dict,
        **kwargs: Any,
    ) -> AnnotatedResult[list[FredSeniorLoanOfficerSurveyData]]:
        """Transform data."""
        # pylint: disable=import-outside-toplevel
        from pandas import DataFrame

        metadata = data.get("metadata", {})
        df = DataFrame(data.get("data", [])).dropna()
        if df.empty:
            raise EmptyDataError(
                "There was an error with the request and it was returned empty."
            )
        # Flatten data
        df = df.melt(id_vars="date", var_name="symbol", value_name="value").query(
            "value.notnull()"
        )
        df["title"] = df.symbol.apply(lambda x: metadata[x].get("title", ""))
        df["value"] = df["value"].astype(float) / 100
        df = df.fillna("N/A").replace("N/A", None)
        records = df.sort_values(by="date").to_dict(orient="records")

        return AnnotatedResult(
            result=[FredSeniorLoanOfficerSurveyData.model_validate(d) for d in records],
            metadata=metadata,
        )

View on GitHub (pinned to 3e071fcc2c)

Solutions

Retry after 60 seconds to rule out rate limiting.
Clear or widen start_date/end_date to include published quarters.
Confirm the underlying series (e.g. DRTSCILM) still resolves via fred_series.

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Try / catch

from openbb_core.provider.utils.errors import EmptyDataError
import time

try:
    res = obb.economy.fred.senior_loan_officer_survey(start_date=s, end_date=e)
except EmptyDataError:
    time.sleep(60)  # likely rate limited
    res = obb.economy.fred.senior_loan_officer_survey()  # retry unfiltered

Prevention

Space out multi-endpoint FRED jobs or cache survey output (quarterly data changes slowly).
Align date ranges with the quarterly publication calendar.

When it happens

Trigger: Calling economy/fred senior-loan-officer-survey while the FRED key is rate limited; a date range outside the survey's quarterly publication window; FRED temporarily missing the survey series.

Common situations: Backtesting jobs that call many FRED endpoints in a loop and trip the 50-req/min cap mid-batch; requesting future quarters.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of OpenBB-finance/OpenBB@3e071fcc2c (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9b54c1f577784807. Report an issue: GitHub.