python - latest video by youtube api

Question

In order to learn this api I am trying to create a bot.

one of the things this bot does is to first comment when a channel uploads a video.

On some channels it works however on some channels it doesn't work.

For example on this channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC295-Dw_tDNtZXFeAPAW6Aw it claims the latest video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZI3Krk59T4 when the real latest video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pceedMMwwcE&t.

self.youtube = build('youtube', 'v3', developerKey=api, credentials=credentials)
self.upload_id = self.youtube.channels().list(id=self.channel_id, part='contentDetails').execute()['items'][0]['contentDetails']['relatedPlaylists']['uploads']


def get_latest_video(self):
    url = f'https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/playlistItems?part=snippet&maxResults=1&playlistId={self.upload_id}&key={self.api}'
    json_url = urllib.request.urlopen(url)
    data = json.loads(json_url.read())
    self.quata_spent += 3
    return data['items'][0]['snippet']['resourceId']['videoId']

which is the same as calling this https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/playlistItems?part=snippet&maxResults=1&playlistId={self.upload_id}&key={self.api} Has anyone else has encountered this inconsistency ?

edit:

I found out that using the search method instead of the playlistItems works fine. Does anyone know why ? I cant afford using the search method as it costs 100 quatas per request.

Answer 1

This is a common pitfall of the API. Please consider carefully the following:

The PlaylistItems endpoint queried for the uploads list of a channel produces an items list which is ordered by videoPublishedAt. But the items themselves contains publishedAt datetime properties attached. (The emphasis below is mine.)

videos#snippet.publishedAt (datetime)

The date and time that the video was published. Note that this time might be different than the time that the video was uploaded. For example, if a video is uploaded as a private video and then made public at a later time, this property will specify the time that the video was made public.

Then the output obtained is fact correct:

$ youtube-data --channel=UC295-Dw_tDNtZXFeAPAW6Aw --uploads --page=+2 --table --relative-date|grep -wEn '^(cZI3Krk59T4|pceedMMwwcE)'
 1:cZI3Krk59T4   2   days  8  hours ago    33 LIFE-SAVING OUTDOOR TRICKS YOU NEED TO TRY YOURSELF
62:pceedMMwwcE   8  hours 19   mins ago    25 CRAZY IDEAS TO HAVE FUN WITH FRIENDS

$ youtube-data --playlist=UU295-Dw_tDNtZXFeAPAW6Aw --videos --page=+2 --table --relative-date|grep -wEn '^(cZI3Krk59T4|pceedMMwwcE)'
 1:cZI3Krk59T4   2   days  8  hours ago    33 LIFE-SAVING OUTDOOR TRICKS YOU NEED TO TRY YOURSELF
62:pceedMMwwcE   8  hours 19   mins ago    25 CRAZY IDEAS TO HAVE FUN WITH FRIENDS