Wrong results for fetch timeline from offset

Question

To get the timeline for a question I am sending this request:

https://api.stackexchange.com/2.2/questions/63299112/timeline?site=stackoverflow&fromdate=1597649222

I am getting empty results:

{"items":[],"has_more":false,"quota_max":300,"quota_remaining":270}

However the query to fetch complete results without timestamp filter has all the records: https://api.stackexchange.com/2.2/questions/63299112/timeline?site=stackoverflow

{
    "items": [
        {
            "owner": {
                "reputation": 73,
                "user_id": 13884195,
                "user_type": "registered",
                "profile_image": "https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/b858a4e20694a8c3a0a0107abd8b75ac?s=128&d=identicon&r=PG&f=1",
                "display_name": "VaraPrasad-MSFT",
                "link": "https://stackoverflow.com/users/13884195/varaprasad-msft"
            },
            "creation_date": 1600594289,
            "comment_id": 113131777,
            "post_id": 63299112,
            "question_id": 63299112,
            "timeline_type": "comment"
        },
        {
            "owner": {
                "reputation": 1,
                "user_id": 13115292,
                "user_type": "registered",
                "profile_image": "https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/df109663257492e9c542a37efe61c866?s=128&d=identicon&r=PG&f=1",
                "display_name": "TheseusDev",
                "link": "https://stackoverflow.com/users/13115292/theseusdev"
            },
            "creation_date": 1597649223,
            "comment_id": 112190716,
            "post_id": 63299112,
            "question_id": 63299112,
            "timeline_type": "comment"
        },
        {
            "owner": {
                "reputation": 1129,
                "user_id": 12318748,
                "user_type": "registered",
                "profile_image": "https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/8ba99e03314cdf154460e11a52ab04dd?s=128&d=identicon&r=PG&f=1",
                "display_name": "Subhasish",
                "link": "https://stackoverflow.com/users/12318748/subhasish"
            },
            "creation_date": 1597157350,
            "comment_id": 112038848,
            "post_id": 63299112,
            "question_id": 63299112,
            "timeline_type": "comment"
        },
        {
            "owner": {
                "reputation": 1,
                "user_id": 13115292,
                "user_type": "registered",
                "profile_image": "https://www.gravatar.com/avatar/df109663257492e9c542a37efe61c866?s=128&d=identicon&r=PG&f=1",
                "display_name": "TheseusDev",
                "link": "https://stackoverflow.com/users/13115292/theseusdev"
            },
            "creation_date": 1596793060,
            "question_id": 63299112,
            "timeline_type": "question"
        }
    ],
    "has_more": false,
    "quota_max": 10000,
    "quota_remaining": 9996
}

Please let me know if I am doing something wrong, or if there is any workaround.

Answer 1

It looks like a bug in the API. It looks like it filters on the creation date of the question, not the timeline events themselves. The question has a timestamp of 1596793060, and using a fromdate of 10 seconds earlier produces the full timeline: https://api.stackexchange.com/docs/questions-timeline#fromdate=1596793050&ids=63299112&filter=default&site=stackoverflow&run=true while using one of 10 seconds after produces no results: https://api.stackexchange.com/docs/questions-timeline#fromdate=1596793070&ids=63299112&filter=default&site=stackoverflow&run=true.

Unfortunately, the API doesn't really have priority with the development team (which is understandable if you compare how often it's used vs. the regular website) so it may take a while for this to be fixed. As a workaround, you can use pagination.