can1357/oh-my-pi · error

Failed to fetch top stories

Error message

Failed to fetch top stories

What it means

Thrown by handleHackerNews when `loadPage` returns `ok: false` for the Firebase `topstories.json` endpoint while handling the HN front page (`/` or `/news`). loadPage reports ok:false on transport errors, non-2xx status, or when the response has no readable body after trying its user-agent rotation (curl, TextBot, Chrome UA).

Source

Thrown at packages/coding-agent/src/web/scrapers/hackernews.ts:155

	const parsed = new URL(url);
	if (!parsed.hostname.includes("news.ycombinator.com")) return null;

	const notes: string[] = [];
	let content = "";
	const fetchedAt = new Date().toISOString();

	try {
		const itemId = parsed.searchParams.get("id");

		if (itemId) {
			const item = await fetchItem(parseInt(itemId, 10), timeout, signal);
			if (!item) throw new Error(`Failed to fetch item ${itemId}`);

			content = await renderStory(item, timeout, 0, signal);
			notes.push(`Fetched HN item ${itemId} with top-level comments (depth 2)`);
		} else if (parsed.pathname === "/" || parsed.pathname === "/news") {
			const { content: raw, ok } = await loadPage(`${API_BASE}/topstories.json`, { timeout, signal });
			if (!ok) throw new Error("Failed to fetch top stories");
			const ids = tryParseJson<number[]>(raw);
			if (!ids) throw new Error("Failed to parse top stories");
			content = await renderListing(ids, timeout, "Hacker News - Top Stories", signal);
			notes.push("Fetched top 20 stories from HN front page");
		} else if (parsed.pathname === "/newest") {
			const { content: raw, ok } = await loadPage(`${API_BASE}/newstories.json`, { timeout, signal });
			if (!ok) throw new Error("Failed to fetch new stories");
			const ids = tryParseJson<number[]>(raw);
			if (!ids) throw new Error("Failed to parse new stories");
			content = await renderListing(ids, timeout, "Hacker News - New Stories", signal);
			notes.push("Fetched top 20 new stories");
		} else if (parsed.pathname === "/best") {
			const { content: raw, ok } = await loadPage(`${API_BASE}/beststories.json`, { timeout, signal });
			if (!ok) throw new Error("Failed to fetch best stories");
			const ids = tryParseJson<number[]>(raw);
			if (!ids) throw new Error("Failed to parse best stories");
			content = await renderListing(ids, timeout, "Hacker News - Best Stories", signal);
			notes.push("Fetched top 20 best stories");

View on GitHub (pinned to 9690622007)

Solutions

1. Confirm the machine can reach hacker-news.firebaseio.com (curl -I https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json) and retry.
2. Check the result block's notes/error for the loadPage transport error detail to identify DNS vs HTTP vs timeout.
3. If Firebase is unavailable, fall back to the Algolia HN API (https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?tags=front_page).
4. Increase the tool timeout if requests were timing out.
5. Check for proxy/firewall rules blocking requests to Google Firebase hosting domains.

Example fix

// before: blind retry loop
for (let i = 0; i < 5; i++) await webFetch("https://news.ycombinator.com/");
// after: probe the upstream API first, then degrade gracefully
const probe = await fetch("https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json");
if (!probe.ok) {
  const alt = await fetch("https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?tags=front_page");
  // use Algolia results instead
}

const probe = await fetch("https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json", { method: "HEAD" });
if (!probe.ok) throw new Error(`HN Firebase unreachable: ${probe.status}`);

try {
  const res = await webFetch("https://news.ycombinator.com/");
} catch (err) {
  if (err instanceof ToolAbortError) throw err;
  const alt = await fetch("https://hn.algolia.com/api/v1/search?tags=front_page");
  // degrade to Algolia listing
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling web-fetch on https://news.ycombinator.com/ or /news when the GET to https://hacker-news.firebaseio.com/v0/topstories.json fails: network outage, DNS failure, Firebase 4xx/5xx, or all three user-agent attempts blocked.

Common situations: HN Firebase API outage or maintenance; sandboxed/air-gapped environment without internet; DNS resolution failure for hacker-news.firebaseio.com; rate limiting by Google's Firebase hosting; IPv6-only breakage.

Related errors

• Failed to fetch new stories
• Failed to fetch best stories
• Failed to fetch item ${itemId}
• V2 remote compaction failed (${response.status} ${response.s
• sso-role

AI-assisted analysis of can1357/oh-my-pi@9690622007 (2026-08-31). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a724dcbb4f12ba3d. Report an issue: GitHub.