Cannot post a video to Twitter using Tweetinvi

Question

I am trying to post a video to Twitter using Tweetinvi library:

byte[] video = DownloadBlobFromUrl(parameters.VideoUrl);
IMedia media = Upload.ChunkUploadBinary(new UploadQueryParameters { Binaries = new List<byte[]> { video }, MediaType = "video/mp4", MediaCategory = "tweet_video", MaxChunkSize = VIDEO_MB_CHUNK_SIZE * 1024 * 1024 });
publishParameters.Medias = new List<IMedia> { media };
ITweet tweet = Tweet.PublishTweet(message, publishParameters);

The problem is that publishing fails, unless I add, before publishing, some sort of sleep, like:

await Task.Delay(25000);

With delay it works. Interesting is the fact that IMedia's member HasBeenUploaded is set to true. I also tried using chunk upload, but with the same result. How can I wait until video is fully uploaded to Twitter, assuming this is the issue?

Answer 1

I am the developer of Tweetinvi.

The problem you are encountering is a problem of the Twitter UPLOAD API. The problem is that when an upload completes it takes between few milliseconds up to 1 second for their upload service to process it and make it available to you.

From there you have 2 solutions.

Solution 1 (simplicity)

Don't specify the MediaCategory and use the classical Upload as followed:

var videoBinary = File.ReadAllBytes("file_path");
var videoMedia = Upload.UploadVideo(videoBinary);

Tweet.PublishTweet("test", new PublishTweetOptionalParameters()
{
    Medias = { videoMedia }
});

This video should be available straight away. But I have experienced times when a delay is required. Therefore I usually add a delay of 500ms for Twitter servers to be ready for the incoming Tweet.

Solution 2 (amplify_video)

amplify_video is a more robust solution as it is the solution provided by Twitter to solve the delay problem.

var videoBinary = File.ReadAllBytes(@"C:\Users\linvi\Pictures\mov_bbb.mp4");
var videoMedia = Upload.UploadVideo(videoBinary, "video/mp4", "amplify_video");

var isProcessed = videoMedia.UploadedMediaInfo.ProcessingInfo.State == "succeeded";
var timeToWait = videoMedia.UploadedMediaInfo.ProcessingInfo.CheckAfterInMilliseconds;

while (!isProcessed)
{
    Thread.Sleep(timeToWait);

    // The second parameter (false) informs Tweetinvi that you are manually awaiting the media to be ready
    var mediaStatus = Upload.GetMediaStatus(videoMedia, false);
    isProcessed = mediaStatus.ProcessingInfo.State == "succeeded";
    timeToWait = mediaStatus.ProcessingInfo.CheckAfterInMilliseconds;
}

I realize that this is complicated but few people uses amplify_video. In the next release I will add a new method that will do all this logic automatically for you.

If you want to be informed when this feature is released you can find the work item here : https://github.com/linvi/tweetinvi/issues/347.

I will also provide a new enum for ProcessingInfo.State (https://github.com/linvi/tweetinvi/issues/348).

I hope this answer helps you. Have a great day.