jackwener/OpenCLI · warning · EmptyResultError

linkedin salesnav-search

Error message

linkedin salesnav-search

What it means

An EmptyResultError raised in clis/linkedin/salesnav-search.js:168 when the pagination loop completed and deduplicated leads but collected zero results. The command treats an empty result set as an exceptional outcome so callers and pipeline steps can detect 'nothing matched' distinctly from malformed responses. The first argument is the command name and the second is the human-readable explanation.

Source

Thrown at clis/linkedin/salesnav-search.js:168

    const leads = [];
    const seen = new Set();
    for (let start = 0; leads.length < limit && start < 2000; start += PAGE_SIZE) {
      const result = unwrapEvaluateResult(await page.evaluate(fetchLeadSearchScript(leadSearchUrl(keywords, start), csrf)));
      const json = requireLeadSearchResult(result);
      const pageLeads = parseLeads(json);
      if (pageLeads.length === 0) break;
      for (const lead of pageLeads) {
        const key = lead.profile_url || lead.name.toLowerCase();
        if (seen.has(key)) continue;
        seen.add(key);
        leads.push(lead);
      }
      await page.wait(1);
    }

    if (leads.length === 0) {
      throw new EmptyResultError('linkedin salesnav-search', 'No Sales Navigator leads were found.');
    }
    return leads.slice(0, limit).map((lead, index) => ({ rank: index + 1, ...lead }));
  },
});

export const __test__ = {
  normalizeWhitespace,
  parseLimit,
  leadSearchUrl,
  profileUrlFromEntityUrn,
  leadUrlFromEntityUrn,
  parseLeads,
  requireLeadSearchResult,
};

View on GitHub (pinned to 49907e53dc)

Solutions

1. Broaden the keywords (fewer, more generic terms) and re-run, e.g. 'quality manager food' instead of an exact long phrase.
2. Confirm the account actually has Sales Navigator access and can see results by running the same search in the Sales Navigator UI.
3. Wrap the call in a try/catch for EmptyResultError when zero results is an acceptable outcome in your pipeline.
4. Try the query with alternate spellings or via LinkedIn people search if the target population is very small.

Example fix

// before (crash pipeline on empty)
const leads = await run('linkedin salesnav-search', ['quality manager food manufacturing']);
// after (tolerate empty)
try {
  const leads = await run('linkedin salesnav-search', ['quality manager food manufacturing']);
} catch (err) {
  if (err.name === 'EmptyResultError') return [];
  throw err;
}

// Sanity-check keywords before the search:
const kw = String(keywords || '').trim();
if (kw.length < 3) throw new Error('keywords too narrow/short for a meaningful Sales Navigator search');

try {
  const leads = await run('linkedin salesnav-search', [keywords, '--limit', '50']);
} catch (err) {
  if (err.name === 'EmptyResultError') {
    console.warn(`No leads for "${keywords}"; broadening query.`);
    return run('linkedin salesnav-search', [keywords.split(/\s+/).slice(0, 2).join(' ')]);
  }
  throw err;
}

When it happens

Trigger: The keyword query matches no Sales Navigator leads; every paginated parseLeads(json) call returned an empty elements array so the loop broke immediately; search results exist but all rows fail entityUrn/name validation and are never pushed (parseLeads would throw first, so practically this is a genuine empty response).

Common situations: Overly narrow keyword strings with typos; searching for people outside the account's Sales Navigator visibility (network/degree filters); region-restricted searches returning zero for the signed-in seat; keywords targeting a company with no Sales Navigator-indexed employees.

Understand the failure class

Background: EmptyResultError / "no results found": when an API or scraper succeeds but returns zero rows — this error's family across 9 libraries.

Related errors

• No LinkedIn Learning results for "${keywords}"
• No Sales Navigator thread matched ${input}
• No messages found for ${threadId}
• No 12306 stations match "${keyword}"
• ${label}

AI-assisted analysis of jackwener/OpenCLI@49907e53dc (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/09f3c3f28087bbd8. Report an issue: GitHub.