API Tags endpoint error - min_id is not a valid cursor for this tag

Question

Since a few days ago we've been getting an error response from Instagram API - it complains that we are using an invalid cursor 'min_id' when accessing the Tags endpoint.

Thing is we don't use 'min_id'. We use 'min_tag_id', which according to the documentation (deprecated & current) is a valid cursor for this endpoint.

Doing some research I see that some people have been getting unexpected errors too (though different ones) around this week.

Example API request (plug an access token and paste in a browser to see for yourselves):

https://api.instagram.com/v1/tags/nofilter/media/recent?access_token=<ACCESS_TOKEN>&min_tag_id=AQCvuinNA31T_hoSa-RaCsQigBknfYaBv2_VcCn1kp4MX5whyr7v7AfpOzio8E4lcQ9TZIKZbN_ZAqEmuzmslq8qMmFTQF-1ocNntqDIjlN4va4GxocNeBxmo29nXEOjKIRVvce5PuvoXk3MY9nuNd6hbxFj7TW_FEWTWpdx9FNzEQ

And the response:

{"meta":{"error_type":"APIInvalidParametersError","code":400,"error_message":"min_id is not a valid cursor for this tag."}}

Any idea?

Answer 1

I got this response from Instagram when enquiring about invalid pagination tokens

"Thanks for the report. We are aware of this issue and it happens when pictures are un-tagged (e.g. The comment with the tag is deleted). We are working on a fix but I don’t have an eta to share at the moment."

Answer 2

OK, so this is how I solved it - after waiting for a few days and seeing that nothing happens then I have deleted all min_tag_id values that I have in store. I also altered my app logic to deal with the situation (in my case when there's no min_tag_id then I load some historical posts, which I commented out for this fix).

I ran the import process and this repopulated the min_tag_id field. The new values have no problems. Either they fixed the issue or the un-tagging thing didn't happen to me again yet.

So far so good. Will post updates if any.