Response 403 - Can't access member images #310

asebold · 2025-01-22T19:19:55Z

I'm unable to access member images using the Python Requests library.

Description of Problem

When accessing member data using the member endpoint, a url to an image of the member is sometimes provided via the imageUrl property.

Example:
Url: https://api.congress.gov/v3/member/m001226/?api_key=DEMO_KEY&format=json
Response:

{
  "member": {
      "addressInformation": {
        "city": "Washington",
        "district": "DC",
        "officeAddress": "2453 Rayburn House Office Building",
        "phoneNumber": "(202) 225-7919",
        "zipCode": 20515
     },
    "bioguideId": "M001226",
    "birthYear": "1985",
    "cosponsoredLegislation": {
      "count": 285,
      "url": "https://api.congress.gov/v3/member/m001226/cosponsored-legislation"
     },
    "currentMember": true,
    "depiction": {
      "attribution": "Image courtesy of the Member",
      "imageUrl": "https://www.congress.gov/img/member/m001226_200.jpg"
    },
//...
  }
}

// Using the example above, the image url could be accessed at `response['member']['depiction']['imageUrl']`.

When I visit the image url (ex: https://www.congress.gov/img/member/m001226_200.jpg) in my browser, I see the image of the member. When I try to obtain the image via the Python Requests library, I get a 403 response that appears to be generated by Cloudflare.

Example:

# Python

response = requests.get("https://www.congress.gov/img/member/m001226_200.jpg")

print('Response status:', response.status_code, '\n')
print('Response content:\n', response.content)

Response:

Response status: 403 

Response content:
 b'<!DOCTYPE html><html lang="en-US"><head><title>Just a moment...</title><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"><meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=Edge"><meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow"><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width,initial-scale=1"><style>*{box-sizing:border-box;margin:0;padding:0}html{line-height:1.15;-webkit-text-size-adjust:100%;color:#313131;font-family:system-ui,-apple-system,BlinkMacSystemFont,Segoe UI,Roboto,Helvetica Neue,Arial,Noto Sans,sans-serif,Apple Color Emoji,Segoe UI Emoji,Segoe UI Symbol,Noto Color Emoji}body{display:flex;flex-direction:column;height:100vh;min-height:100vh}.main-content{margin:8rem auto;max-width:60rem;padding-left:1.5rem}@media (width <= 720px){.main-content{margin-top:4rem}}.h2{font-size:1.5rem;font-weight:500;line-height:2.25rem}@media (width <= 720px){.h2{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.5rem}}#challenge-error-text{background-image:url(data:image/svg+xml;base64,PHN2ZyB4bWxucz0iaHR0cDovL3d3dy53My5vcmcvMjAwMC9zdmciIHdpZHRoPSIzMiIgaGVpZ2h0PSIzMiIgZmlsbD0ibm9uZSI+PHBhdGggZmlsbD0iI0IyMEYwMyIgZD0iTTE2IDNhMTMgMTMgMCAxIDAgMTMgMTNBMTMuMDE1IDEzLjAxNSAwIDAgMCAxNiAzbTAgMjRhMTEgMTEgMCAxIDEgMTEtMTEgMTEuMDEgMTEuMDEgMCAwIDEtMTEgMTEiLz48cGF0aCBmaWxsPSIjQjIwRjAzIiBkPSJNMTcuMDM4IDE4LjYxNUgxNC44N0wxNC41NjMgOS41aDIuNzgzem0tMS4wODQgMS40MjdxLjY2IDAgMS4wNTcuMzg4LjQwNy4zODkuNDA3Ljk5NCAwIC41OTYtLjQwNy45ODQtLjM5Ny4zOS0xLjA1Ny4zODktLjY1IDAtMS4wNTYtLjM4OS0uMzk4LS4zODktLjM5OC0uOTg0IDAtLjU5Ny4zOTgtLjk4NS40MDYtLjM5NyAxLjA1Ni0uMzk3Ii8+PC9zdmc+);background-repeat:no-repeat;background-size:contain;padding-left:34px}@media (prefers-color-scheme:dark){body{background-color:#222;color:#d9d9d9}}</style><meta http-equiv="refresh" content="390"></head><body class="no-js"><div class="main-wrapper" role="main"><div class="main-content"><noscript><div class="h2"><span 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Questions

Is there a work around for accessing these images? A similar issue was brought up in #192, which was closed without providing a solution or work around.
Could the Cloudflare challenge be removed for these images?
Could these images be made available through https://api.congress.gov as opposed to https://congress.gov? This way api keys and rate limiting would still be enforced, perhaps relieving the need for the Cloudflare challenge.

The text was updated successfully, but these errors were encountered:

rbram · 2025-01-22T19:27:17Z

Hello. Sure, we will take a look at this.

Gmanicus · 2025-01-22T23:12:34Z

Funny, just yesterday I was attempting to do the same. Simply providing a User Agent and Sec-Ch-Ua header in the request should be enough to make it work in the meantime.

asebold · 2025-01-23T18:25:18Z

@Gmanicus This didn't work for me.

"User-Agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/131.0.0.0 Safari/537.36",
"Sec-Ch-Ua": '"Google Chrome";v="131", "Chromium";v="131", ";Not A Brand";v="99"',

What did you use for those headers?
I tried adding other headers as well and am still getting a 403 response.

Gmanicus · 2025-01-23T23:33:34Z

🤔 Odd.

'User-Agent': 'Fetch',
'Sec-Ch-Ua': '"Brave";v="131", "Chromium";v="131", "Not_A Brand";v="24"'

Appears to be the magic combination.

asebold · 2025-01-24T19:41:54Z

@Gmanicus Hm, I tried this on my linux desktop and my mac and still got a 403 response. I used different networks too. Can you share more of your code and perhaps the versions of Python and Requests you are using?

Gmanicus · 2025-01-25T03:14:50Z

@asebold Ah, I would be happy to, but unfortunately it looks like this is just inconsistency from Cloudflare. I'm starting to see mostly 403 Forbidden as well now. Odd thing is, making the request through Postman never sees a 403 response. Sorry about that.

Edit: Got it working again by making requests over HTTP/2. Looks like you can do that in Python using the HTTPX package.

apreiter18 · 2025-01-27T14:14:18Z

Hello - we are actively looking into this. Stay tuned for updates. Thanks!

apreiter18 · 2025-02-03T15:29:15Z

@asebold, @Gmanicus -

We made a change that should resolve this issue. Can you please confirm (or correct) if things are working for you?

Thanks!

asebold · 2025-02-03T21:47:32Z

@apreiter18

I'm still getting the same 403 response. Are there certain headers or parameters I should include in the request?

Gmanicus · 2025-02-04T01:59:30Z

Looks like the same behavior from my end as well (In a script. Notably, requests via Postman work fine).

Raw GET request: 403
GET request with user-agent: 403
GET request with user-agent and Sec-Ch-Ua: 403

apreiter18 added the bug Something isn't working label Jan 27, 2025

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Response 403 - Can't access member images #310

Response 403 - Can't access member images #310

asebold commented Jan 22, 2025 •

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rbram commented Jan 22, 2025

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asebold commented Jan 23, 2025

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asebold commented Feb 3, 2025

Gmanicus commented Feb 4, 2025 •

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Response 403 - Can't access member images #310

Response 403 - Can't access member images #310

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asebold commented Jan 22, 2025 • edited Loading

Description of Problem

Questions

rbram commented Jan 22, 2025

Gmanicus commented Jan 22, 2025 • edited Loading

asebold commented Jan 23, 2025

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asebold commented Jan 24, 2025

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asebold commented Feb 3, 2025

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Gmanicus commented Feb 4, 2025 •

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