Twitter bot deployed with Heroku shuts down

Question

I'm quite new to the Heroku platform, I don't understand why my Twitter bot deployed gets shut down after some time. I don't know if it's the dyno or something else.

bot.py

import time
import json
import requests
import tweepy
from os import environ

consumer_key = environ['api_key'] #API key
consumer_secret = environ['api_key_secret'] #API key scret
key = environ['access_token'] #Access token
secret = environ['access_token_secret'] #Access token secret

auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler(consumer_key, consumer_secret) # Authentication
auth.set_access_token(key, secret) # Grant access to API

api = tweepy.API(auth) # Connect to API

def get_quote():
    url = 'https://programming-quotes-api.herokuapp.com/Quotes/random' 
    response = requests.get(url)
    data = json.loads(response.text)
    data = data['en']+'\n--'+data['author']
    return data

def tweet_quote():
    interval = 60 * 20 # 20 minutes

    while True:
        quote = get_quote()
        api.update_status(quote)
        time.sleep(interval)

if __name__ == "__main__":
    tweet_quote()

Procfile

web: python server.py
worker: python bot.py

dyno info here

Answer 1

Your Procfile shows that you have a web process and a worker process.

Assuming you are using free dynos, this behaviour is expected (bold added):

If an app has a free web dyno, and that dyno receives no web traffic in a 30-minute period, it will sleep. In addition to the web dyno sleeping, the worker dyno (if present) will also sleep.

Free worker dynos on apps that do not have a web dyno do not sleep, but of course they'll consume roughly 720 free dyno hours every month (24 hours per day × 30 days in the month).

You have a few options:

• Run your worker regularly (but not constantly) via the Heroku Scheduler
  • E.g. maybe run it once an hour for a limited amount of time / tweets
• Upgrade to paid dynos
• Move your free worker dyno to another app that has no web dynos to prevent it from sleeping...
  • ...though that might not make a lot of sense for your application
• Keep your web dyno alive by pinging it at least once every 30 minutes...
  • ...but then you'll run out of free dyno hours roughly 20 days into each month (or sooner, if your account is not verified)