What causes "No papers found for: ${data.name || author}" in jackwener/OpenCLI?

Increase page load time / retry — if the table just hadn't rendered, a re-run usually finds rows.

jackwener/OpenCLI · error · CommandExecutionError

No papers found for

Error message

No papers found for: ${data.name || author}

What it means

The profile page loaded and the author name was scraped successfully (`data.name` present), but the publications table (`#gsc_a_b .gsc_a_tr` rows) yielded zero papers. The command requires at least one paper row to produce output, so it throws for authors with empty publication lists or unrendered tables.

Solutions

Increase page load time / retry — if the table just hadn't rendered, a re-run usually finds rows.
Verify in a browser whether the author truly has zero publications listed on their Scholar profile.
If the profile is legitimately empty, the error is expected; pick a different author or accept the empty result.
Report the issue if a known non-empty profile consistently fails (possible DOM selector change).

Example fix

// before
opencli run google-scholar profile "JicYPdAAAAAJ" --limit 10  // zero rows scraped
// after
opencli run google-scholar profile "JicYPdAAAAAJ" --limit 10  # retry once after a delay

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Try / catch

try {
  const rows = await run('google-scholar profile', author);
} catch (e) {
  if (e instanceof CommandExecutionError && /No papers found/.test(e.message)) {
    return { author, papers: [] }; // treat as legitimately empty
  }
  throw e;
}

Prevention

Check the author's profile in a browser for zero-publication profiles before scripting.
Retry once for slow-render false positives.
Report persistent failures on known non-empty profiles as possible selector changes.

When it happens

Trigger: Calling `google-scholar profile <author>` for an author whose Scholar profile has no publications, whose papers table is hidden behind 'Show more' lazy loading, or whose table rows failed to render in time before the 3-second `page.wait(3)` elapsed.

Common situations: New/early-career authors with zero listed papers; profiles where all papers were removed; slow page loads on poor network so the papers table hasn't painted; Scholar DOM changes renaming `.gsc_a_tr`.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of jackwener/OpenCLI@49907e53dc (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/51a488b9f67f4020. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at clis/google-scholar/profile.js:80

                });
            }

            return {
                name: name.trim(),
                affiliation: affiliation.trim(),
                citations: citations,
                hIndex: hIndex,
                i10Index: i10Index,
                papers: papers,
            };
        })()`);

        if (!data?.name) {
            throw new CommandExecutionError(`Could not load Google Scholar profile for: ${author}`);
        }

        if (!data.papers || data.papers.length === 0) {
            throw new CommandExecutionError(`No papers found for: ${data.name || author}`);
        }

        const summary = {
            rank: 0,
            title: data.name + (data.affiliation ? ' (' + data.affiliation + ')' : ''),
            cited: 'h=' + data.hIndex + ' i10=' + data.i10Index + ' total=' + data.citations,
            year: '-',
        };

        return [summary, ...data.papers];
    },
});

View on GitHub (pinned to 49907e53dc)