The API /questions/{ids}/timeline path doesn't return several items that occurred after the fromdate parameter

Question

I need to get all the question activity after some particular time. I am using the timeline API, like so:

      /questions/20032212/timeline?fromdate=1384705610&site=stackoverflow.com

But it returns no comments! Even though running the query with a much earlier date, EG:

      /questions/20032212/timeline?fromdate=1384700712&site=stackoverflow.com

shows a comment with a creation_date of 1384705710 -- which obviously is greater than the 1384705610 in my original request.

Can somebody shed some light on this behavior?
What is the best way to get question activity that occurs after a certain time?

Answer 1

This is a bug. The timeline path seems to have several problems. More on these below.

The earlier date query returns the result you expect, but look at it in the document explorer:

Notice that the entry is a comment and that it has an Owning post.

Now if we look at the whole timeline (filtering out some user cruft), we see:

Just two revision entries for that answer, when there should be three!

The revisions are dated: 1384705238 and 1384707944. The "vote_aggregate" is snapped to midnight, Nov 11th.

From the revisions page, we can see that the answer was first posted at 1384702265.

So the key dates look like this:

Unix time   Event
----------  --------------------------------
1384700712  Early query time
1384702265  Answer created
1384705238  First revision
1384705610  Later query time
1384705710  Comment in question
1384707944  Second revision

Now, when we look at your later query in the explorer (1384705610), we see:

1. The later revision should show up (creation time 1384707944), but it doesn't!
2. None of the comments show up! -- Presumably because their parent posts were initially created before the cut-off! This is a bug. At the very least, it should be disclosed in the documentation.

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Summary, Multiple bugs:

1. Answer creation event is not returned!!!
2. Comments (¿and possibly other items?) are not returned when they should be. Apparently because the comment's owner was created before the From date.
3. Results returned in garbled order, make no sense on visual inspection.
4. The documentation says none of this.