jackwener/OpenCLI · warning · EmptyResultError

No Wayback snapshots for "${target}".

Error message

No Wayback snapshots for "${target}".

What it means

The CDX API returned a valid array-of-arrays payload, but it contains fewer than two rows — meaning only a header (or nothing at all), i.e. zero snapshots for the requested URL and time range. Unlike the malformed-payload errors, this is raised as `EmptyResultError` because it is a normal 'no data' outcome, not corruption.

Source

Thrown at clis/archive/snapshots.js:93

        } catch (error) {
            throw new CommandExecutionError(`archive snapshots request failed: ${error?.message || error}`);
        }
        if (!resp.ok) {
            throw new CommandExecutionError(`archive snapshots failed: HTTP ${resp.status}`);
        }
        let data;
        try {
            data = await resp.json();
        } catch (error) {
            throw new CommandExecutionError(`archive snapshots returned malformed JSON: ${error?.message || error}`);
        }

        // CDX returns an array of arrays; the first row is the header.
        if (!Array.isArray(data)) {
            throw new CommandExecutionError('archive snapshots returned malformed CDX payload: top-level payload must be an array');
        }
        if (data.length < 2) {
            throw new EmptyResultError('archive snapshots', `No Wayback snapshots for "${target}".`);
        }
        const [header, ...rows] = data;
        if (!Array.isArray(header)) {
            throw new CommandExecutionError('archive snapshots returned malformed CDX payload: header row must be an array');
        }
        const cols = {};
        header.forEach((name, i) => { cols[name] = i; });
        const timestampCol = requireCdxColumn(cols, 'timestamp');
        const originalCol = requireCdxColumn(cols, 'original');
        const statusCol = requireCdxColumn(cols, 'statuscode');
        const mimetypeCol = requireCdxColumn(cols, 'mimetype');

        return rows.slice(0, limit).map(row => {
            if (!Array.isArray(row)) {
                throw new CommandExecutionError('archive snapshots returned malformed CDX payload: snapshot row must be an array');
            }
            const timestamp = String(row[timestampCol] ?? '');
            const original = String(row[originalCol] ?? '');

View on GitHub (pinned to 49907e53dc)

Solutions

  1. Verify the URL/domain spelling and try a broader form (e.g. `example.com` instead of a deep path).
  2. Widen or drop the `from`/`to` time range to cover the site's full history.
  3. Check the site manually at https://web.archive.org to confirm it has any captures.
  4. Treat the empty result as expected and handle `EmptyResultError` gracefully in your tooling.

Example fix

// before: narrow window predating the site
await exec('opencli archive snapshots example.com --from 1990 --to 1991');
// after: widen the window
await exec('opencli archive snapshots example.com --from 1996 --to 2026');
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

// Check the site has captures before invoking
const r = await fetch('https://archive.org/wayback/available?url=' + encodeURIComponent(target));
const j = await r.json();
if (!j?.archived_snapshots?.closest) console.warn('No Wayback captures for', target);

Try / catch

try {
  await exec('opencli archive snapshots example.com --from 1996 --to 2026');
} catch (e) {
  if (String(e.message).includes('No Wayback snapshots for')) {
    return []; // expected empty result — handle gracefully
  } else throw e;
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Calling `archive snapshots` with a URL that the Wayback Machine has never archived, a misspelled domain, a `from`/`to` window outside the site's archived history, or a URL scheme/query combination CDX cannot match.

Common situations: Querying brand-new or obscure sites never crawled by the Wayback Machine; restricting `--from`/`--to` to years before the site existed; trailing-slash or path-case mismatches versus what was archived; typos in the domain.

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

AI-assisted analysis of jackwener/OpenCLI@49907e53dc (2026-08-29). Data as JSON: /api/errors/dd3c91e00b831694. Report an issue: GitHub.