Immoscout crawler doesn't work

[jann-klaas]

Hi there,

I won't get the immoscout bot to work. WG-Gesucht works fine.

Here's the error depending if I use python3 or 2. I assume the crawler is broken as the href file never get's any data. Any ideas how to fix it?

Janns-MBP:immobot jann$ python immo.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "immo.py", line 8, in
from json import JSONDecodeError
ImportError: cannot import name JSONDecodeError

Janns-MBP:immobot jann$ python3 immo.py
There was a problem with reading a json formatted object
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "immo.py", line 17, in
data = json.load(data_file)
File "/usr/local/Cellar/python@3.8/3.8.4/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.8/lib/python3.8/json/init.py", line 293, in load
return loads(fp.read(),
File "/usr/local/Cellar/python@3.8/3.8.4/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.8/lib/python3.8/json/init.py", line 357, in loads
return _default_decoder.decode(s)
File "/usr/local/Cellar/python@3.8/3.8.4/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.8/lib/python3.8/json/decoder.py", line 337, in decode
obj, end = self.raw_decode(s, idx=_w(s, 0).end())
File "/usr/local/Cellar/python@3.8/3.8.4/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.8/lib/python3.8/json/decoder.py", line 355, in raw_decode
raise JSONDecodeError("Expecting value", s, err.value) from None
json.decoder.JSONDecodeError: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)

Time: 2020-08-17 22:43:03.966169
^CTraceback (most recent call last):
File "immo.py", line 74, in
time.sleep(60)

[nickirk]

With python2, one should

from simplejson import  JSONDecodeError

Let's focus on python3.

Could you paste the content of the file href.json here?

[rodrigodealer]

Hi @nickirk I got the same error.

The content of href.json is empty:

cat href.json | wc -l
0

I tried checking if the url you provide as an example worked (maybe mine was broken), but it fails the same way.

[nickirk]

Looks like immobilienscout24.de has put a restriction on spiders, when I use scrapy to fetch the content, I got a 405 error, meaning method not allowed. I am looking for a way to evade this using scrapy. If you guys have found a way, please comment here.

[rodrigodealer]

Maybe change the user agent when doing the request?

On Thu 20. Aug 2020 at 21:07, Ke ***@***.***> wrote: Looks like immobilienscout24.de has put a restriction on spiders, when I use scrapy to fetch the content, I got a 405 error, meaning method not allowed. I am looking for a way to evade this using scrapy. If you guys have found a way, please comment here. — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#10 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AABDGWAESYCNYOHRIDXUYZTSBVYATANCNFSM4QCGESQA> . --

Rodrigo Oliveira

[nickirk]

I tried simply replace the user agent to a value I found online and it didn't work

[krassle]

@nickirk Have you found a working solution for this issue yet? Thanks.

[francisjo]

@krassle @nickirk , Did you find a solution?
Thanks.

[nickirk]

Sorry guys, I have been busy with my thesis and have no time to look into this issue. I encourage you to follow the discussions here and try something by yourselves. I personally recommend using the script on wg-gesucht.de (there is also a minor issue regarding applying the filters on wg-gesucht.de, but other than that, the script should work).

[Alnik89]

anyone found a solution for this issue?
guess if not, then this entire bot is useless and waste of time for someone who is not a programmer.

[Alnik89]

Tried to fix this issue by proxy rotation.
Still not working

[jjanczur]

Hi,
I have the same issue.
Instead of submitting an offer, I extended your scripts and added functionality to send myself a message on telegram so I could manually check if the apartment is ok.

In the case of your scripts you just need to change submit.py to the following -> instead of submitting send telegram message.

import requests

def submit_app(bot_message):
    bot_token = '<bot token>'
    bot_chatID = '<chat ID>' 
    link = 'https://www.immobilienscout24.de' + \
        bot_message + '%23/basicContact/email'


    send_text = 'https://api.telegram.org/bot' + bot_token + \
        '/sendMessage?chat_id=' + bot_chatID + \
        '&parse_mode=Markdown&text=' + link
    response = requests.get(send_text)
    return response.json()

Unfortunately crawler doesn't work anymore :/

[jjanczur]

Immoscout uses some kind of bot protection and redirect to ReCaptcha :/
I guess that's the end of the automatic apartment finding :p

[xabirizar9]

Is this still not working? Thought about giving it a try but reading this comments it doesn't look too promising

[jjanczur]

Nope, unfortunately now there is no way to go around it. They heavily protect themselves against webscraping

[xabirizar9]

Well that's unfortunate, thanks for the quick reply tho

[enthusiasmus]

They are using a certain service for recaptcha against bots, all the used puzzles can be solved with a certain propability programmatically with a lot of effort. The question imo are if the anti captcha logic can be good enough and if there is somebody who wants to invest that time.