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Library completely broken - All searches return None due to HLTB API changes

Summary

The HowLongToBeat Python API library is completely non-functional as of November 2024. All search operations return None regardless of game name, similarity settings, or search parameters. The issue affects both synchronous and asynchronous search methods.

Environment

• Library version: 1.0.18 (latest from PyPI and master branch)
• Python version: 3.13.0 (also tested on 3.11)
• Operating System: Windows 10/11 (likely affects all platforms)
• Installation method: Both pip install howlongtobeatpy and from source
• fake_useragent version: 2.2.0

Problem Description

Observed Behavior

from howlongtobeatpy import HowLongToBeat

# ALL of these return None
results = HowLongToBeat().search("Celeste")  # None
results = HowLongToBeat(0.0).search("Celeste")  # None (no similarity filter)
results = HowLongToBeat().search("The Witcher 3")  # None
results = HowLongToBeat().search("Halo Combat Evolved")  # None

Expected Behavior

Should return a list of HowLongToBeatEntry objects with game data.

Root Cause Analysis

After extensive debugging, we've identified two critical issues:

Issue 1: Empty API Key Extraction

The library attempts to extract an API key from HLTB's JavaScript files, but the extraction now returns an empty string instead of None or a valid key.

Evidence:

from howlongtobeatpy.HTMLRequests import HTMLRequests

search_info = HTMLRequests.send_website_request_getcode(False)
print(f"API Key: '{search_info.api_key}'")  # Prints: API Key: ''
print(f"Search URL: {search_info.search_url}")  # Prints: Search URL: None

The regex patterns in __extract_api_from_script() no longer match HLTB's current JavaScript structure.

Issue 2: Bot Protection / Firewall Blocking

HLTB has implemented anti-bot measures (likely Cloudflare or similar) that block programmatic API requests with 403 Forbidden errors.

Direct API Test:

import requests
from fake_useragent import UserAgent

ua = UserAgent()
headers = {
    'content-type': 'application/json',
    'accept': '*/*',
    'User-Agent': ua.random.strip(),
    'referer': 'https://howlongtobeat.com/'
}

payload = {
    'searchType': "games",
    'searchTerms': ["Celeste"],
    'searchPage': 1,
    'size': 20,
    'searchOptions': {
        'games': {
            'userId': 0,
            'platform': "",
            'sortCategory': "popular",
            'rangeCategory': "main",
            'rangeTime': {'min': 0, 'max': 0},
            'gameplay': {'perspective': "", 'flow': "", 'genre': ""},
            'rangeYear': {'max': "", 'min': ""},
            'modifier': ""
        },
        'users': {'sortCategory': "postcount"},
        'lists': {'sortCategory': "follows"},
        'filter': "",
        'sort': 0,
        'randomizer': 0
    },
    'useCache': True
}

resp = requests.post('https://howlongtobeat.com/api/search', 
                     headers=headers, 
                     json=payload, 
                     timeout=10)
print(resp.status_code)  # 403
print(resp.text)  # {"error":"Session expired"}

Different header combinations all result in 403:

• Minimal headers: 403 with HTML firewall page
• With Referer/Origin: 403 with HTML firewall page
• Full browser-like headers: 403 with JSON {"error":"Session expired"}

Investigation Details

JavaScript Analysis

We analyzed HLTB's current JavaScript bundles and found:

• The search endpoint is now simply /api/search (previously /api/s/)
• No API key suffix is required in the URL path
• The API key extraction patterns no longer match the JavaScript structure

Current JavaScript patterns found:

/api/search
/api/user
/api/logout
/api/search/init
/api/user/game_detail/
/api/game/
/api/error

Comparison with Other Libraries

We checked the Swift implementation (https://github.com/holgerkrupp/HowLongToBeat-PythonAPI) which was updated November 1, 2025:

• Uses the same API key extraction approach
• Likely has the same issues
• Their .httprequest test file shows outdated endpoint patterns

Test Results

All official library tests fail:

$ pytest howlongtobeatpy/tests/test_normal_request.py::TestNormalRequest::test_simple_game_name -v
FAILED - AssertionError: None == None : Search Results are None

Attempted Fixes

We attempted several fixes:

1. ✅ Updated SEARCH_URL from /api/s/ to /api/search
2. ✅ Removed API key dependency - made requests without API key suffix
3. ❌ Comprehensive browser headers - still blocked by firewall
4. ❌ Static user agents - still blocked
5. ❌ Session management - cookies not helping
6. ❌ Authorization headers - still blocked

Modified code (still fails due to bot protection):

# In HTMLRequests.py
SEARCH_URL = BASE_URL + "api/search"  # Changed from "api/s/"

@staticmethod
def send_web_request(game_name: str, search_modifiers: SearchModifiers = SearchModifiers.NONE,
                     page: int = 1):
    headers = HTMLRequests.get_search_request_headers()
    search_url = HTMLRequests.SEARCH_URL  # No API key suffix needed
    payload = HTMLRequests.get_search_request_data(game_name, search_modifiers, page, None)
    resp = requests.post(search_url, headers=headers, data=payload, timeout=60)
    if resp.status_code == 200:
        return resp.text
    return None

Additional Context

Network/IP Considerations

The bot protection may be:

• IP-based (certain regions/IPs blocked)
• Rate-limit based
• Fingerprint-based (detecting automation)

Timeline

• Library worked fine until approximately October/November 2024
• HLTB website structure changed (new JavaScript bundles)
• Bot protection appears to have been added/strengthened

Reproduction Steps

1. Install the library: pip install howlongtobeatpy
2. Run any search:

   from howlongtobeatpy import HowLongToBeat
   results = HowLongToBeat().search("Celeste")
   print(results)  # None

3. Observe that None is returned instead of game results

System Information

Python: 3.13.0
howlongtobeatpy: 1.0.18
fake-useragent: 2.2.0
requests: 2.32.3
aiohttp: 3.13.2
beautifulsoup4: 4.14.2