brew search doesn't use HOMEBREW_GITHUB_API_TOKEN when searching casks
Please follow the general troubleshooting steps first:
- [x] Ran
brew updateand retried your prior step? - [x] Ran
brew doctor, fixed as many issues as possible and retried your prior step? - [x] If you're seeing permission errors tried running
sudo chown -R $(whoami) $(brew --prefix)?
Bug reports:
When using brew search something, brew automatically also searches available casks. The problem is the GitHub API rate limit is reached an error occurs when it gets to the searching casks part:
$ brew search something
No formula found for "something".
==> Searching pull requests...
Error: GitHub API Error: API rate limit exceeded for XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX. (But here's the good news: Authenticated requests get a higher rate limit. Check out the documentation for more details.)
Try again in 55 minutes 9 seconds, or create a personal access token:
https://github.com/settings/tokens/new?scopes=&description=Homebrew
and then set the token as: export HOMEBREW_GITHUB_API_TOKEN="your_new_token"
This happens even though the HOMEBREW_GITHUB_API_TOKEN variable is set.
Using brew cask search something has no problem searching through the available casks.
I posted on homebrew-cask issue tracker but was directed here.
ricardojoaoreis
All 9 comments
It does use the token it's just you've hit a rate limit which will refresh in 55 minutes and 9 seconds.
MikeMcQuaid
on 3 Jul 2016
So, why does the initial step of brew search work and if I do a brew cask searchafterwards it also does work?
ricardojoaoreis
on 3 Jul 2016
Further to the previous comment, if the rate limit is one which setting the token does not affect, why does the error message state that setting the token will bypass the limit?
sedm0784
on 4 Jul 2016
This sounds a lot like the environment variable that should contain the token hasn't been properly set up. The quoted error message is coming _after_ “Searching pull requests...” so it has already finished searching the taps and has moved on to the next step (and this is what is hitting the rate limit). I haven't checked yet, but it could be that different limits apply to different GitHub API operations. brew cask search is unaffected because it doesn't check for pull requests that could be related to the search.
By the way, the whole point of searching for related pull requests is that there's a chance the searched-for software is very new, has been submitted as a pull request, but hasn't ended up in Homebrew just yet.
UniqMartin
on 5 Jul 2016
Does searching the taps include searching casks?
Because searching for a cask that exists just now I got the following output:
$ brew search firefox
Caskroom/cask/firefox Caskroom/versions/firefox-beta-uk Caskroom/versions/firefox-esr-zh-cn Caskroom/versions/firefox-nl Caskroom/versions/firefox-zh-tw
Caskroom/cask/multifirefox Caskroom/versions/firefox-beta-zh-cn Caskroom/versions/firefox-esr Caskroom/versions/firefox-pl Caskroom/versions/firefoxdeveloperedition-cn
Caskroom/versions/firefox-beta-de Caskroom/versions/firefox-beta Caskroom/versions/firefox-fr Caskroom/versions/firefox-pt-br Caskroom/versions/firefoxdeveloperedition-ja
Caskroom/versions/firefox-beta-en-gb Caskroom/versions/firefox-de Caskroom/versions/firefox-gl Caskroom/versions/firefox-ru Caskroom/versions/firefoxdeveloperedition
Caskroom/versions/firefox-beta-ja Caskroom/versions/firefox-esr-ru Caskroom/versions/firefox-it Caskroom/versions/firefox-uk Caskroom/versions/firefoxnightly-ja
Caskroom/versions/firefox-beta-ru Caskroom/versions/firefox-esr-uk Caskroom/versions/firefox-ja Caskroom/versions/firefox-zh-cn Caskroom/versions/firefoxnightly
$ brew search firefox
No formula found for "firefox".
==> Searching pull requests...
Error: GitHub API Error: API rate limit exceeded for XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX. (But here's the good news: Authenticated requests get a higher rate limit. Check out the documentation for more details.)
Try again in 26 minutes 39 seconds, or create a personal access token:
https://github.com/settings/tokens/new?scopes=&description=Homebrew
and then set the token as: export HOMEBREW_GITHUB_API_TOKEN="your_new_token"
$ brew cask search firefox
==> Exact match
firefox
==> Partial matches
firefox-beta firefox-beta-ru firefox-esr firefox-fr firefox-nl firefox-uk firefoxdeveloperedition-cn multifirefox
firefox-beta-de firefox-beta-uk firefox-esr-ru firefox-gl firefox-pl firefox-zh-cn firefoxdeveloperedition-ja
firefox-beta-en-gb firefox-beta-zh-cn firefox-esr-uk firefox-it firefox-pt-br firefox-zh-tw firefoxnightly
firefox-beta-ja firefox-de firefox-esr-zh-cn firefox-ja firefox-ru firefoxdeveloperedition firefoxnightly-ja
$ echo $HOMEBREW_GITHUB_API_TOKEN
681xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I've setup the GitHub token with the following permissions:
- [x] repo Full control of private repositories
- [x] repo:status Access commit
- [x] repo_deployment Access deployment status
- [x] public_repo Access public repositories
ricardojoaoreis
on 5 Jul 2016
Does searching the taps include searching casks?
Yes, though only caskroom/cask and caskroom/versions will be inspected. And it will always search for casks via the GitHub API, even if you have the respective Cask repositories installed locally.
Because searching for a cask that exists just now I got the following output:
I have to run brew search firefox four times in a row before I get this message (with no token set). But once I do set a token with
export HOMEBREW_GITHUB_API_TOKEN=my_secret_token
I again get results for brew search firefox which tells me that the token is being used. (The token doesn't require any specific permissions, e.g. mine only has the permission to create Gists.) Are you sure that you not only assigned the variable in your current shell, but also exported it via export?
In any case, I guess one could say the failure behavior is suboptimal. It's not finding any matches when querying the respective GitHub repositories, but because the search is done in the background and in parallel, the GitHub API error messages related to that part of the search are never shown. Instead, and because apparently no matches were found, the search proceeds by checking for pull requests (and that's the point where you see the error message due to rate limiting).
UniqMartin
on 5 Jul 2016
[…], but because the search is done in the background and in parallel, the GitHub API error messages related to that part of the search are never shown.
Just a clarification on this part: The errors are recorded, but to avoid flooding the user's terminal, we only output the last error and only once all other processing has finished. That's why the error message is shown at the very end and it's not immediately clear from the error message what part of the search caused it. (So the error message doesn't necessarily reference the search for pull requests.)
UniqMartin
on 5 Jul 2016
I have to run brew search firefox four times in a row before I get this message (with no token set).
In a corporate environment where everyone has the same IP you would hit it on first try 😉
I again get results for
brew search firefoxwhich tells me that the token is being used. (The token doesn't require any specific permissions, e.g. mine only has the permission to create Gists.) Are you sure that you not only assigned the variable in your current shell, but also exported it viaexport?
Ok, so I'm using the fish shell and I had set my token with -U, for exporting you need -xor -xU, doing it solved my issue 👍.
This behaviour is just strange because searching for something which yields results for both brew search and brew cask search only fails for the results which belong in Caskroom, and running brew cask search immediately after doesn't fail. It's a bit confusing, but maybe that's just GitHub throttling differently for each repository. Example with one successful search and a subsequent failure:
$ brew search docker
boot2docker docker-cloud docker-machine docker-machine-parallels homebrew/completions/docker-completion
docker docker-compose docker-machine-driver-xhyve docker-swarm homebrew/completions/docker-compose-completion
docker-clean docker-gen docker-machine-nfs homebrew/completions/boot2docker-completion homebrew/completions/docker-machine-completion
homebrew/emacs/dockerfile-mode homebrew/versions/docker171 Caskroom/cask/boot2docker Caskroom/cask/docker Caskroom/versions/boot2docker-status-beta
homebrew/versions/docker110 Caskroom/cask/boot2docker-status Caskroom/cask/docker-compose Caskroom/cask/dockertoolbox
$ brew search docker
boot2docker docker-cloud docker-machine docker-machine-parallels homebrew/completions/docker-completion
docker docker-compose docker-machine-driver-xhyve docker-swarm homebrew/completions/docker-compose-completion
docker-clean docker-gen docker-machine-nfs homebrew/completions/boot2docker-completion homebrew/completions/docker-machine-completion
Error: GitHub API Error: API rate limit exceeded for XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX. (But here's the good news: Authenticated requests get a higher rate limit. Check out the documentation for more details.)
Try again in 59 minutes 36 seconds, or create a personal access token:
https://github.com/settings/tokens/new?scopes=&description=Homebrew
and then set the token as: export HOMEBREW_GITHUB_API_TOKEN="your_new_token"
But I guess this is a different issue from the one that I initially raised... Thank you for your help!
ricardojoaoreis
on 5 Jul 2016
Ok, so I'm using the fish shell and I had set my token with
-U, for exporting you need-xor-xU, doing it solved my issue 👍.
I'm glad we were able to solve your issue. Most of our instructions assume bash (the default on macOS, or a compatible shell), so users of other shells usually need to know a bit more about their shell and how to adapt those instructions.
This behaviour is just strange because searching for something which yields results for both
brew searchandbrew cask searchonly fails for the results which belong in Caskroom, and runningbrew casksearch immediately after doesn't fail. It's a bit confusing, […]
I agree that this could be improved and is a bit confusing. Really the main difference and the cause for the issue you've experienced is that brew search and brew cask search are completely independent of each other. The former performs an online search when looking for casks, even if it theoretically could query the local database (this is meant to help users to find stuff if they don't use Cask just yet). The latter directly queries the local database and is thus unaffected by any rate limits the former might have triggered …
UniqMartin
on 6 Jul 2016
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Most helpful comment
Yes, though only
caskroom/caskandcaskroom/versionswill be inspected. And it will always search for casks via the GitHub API, even if you have the respective Cask repositories installed locally.I have to run
brew search firefoxfour times in a row before I get this message (with no token set). But once I do set a token withI again get results for
brew search firefoxwhich tells me that the token is being used. (The token doesn't require any specific permissions, e.g. mine only has the permission to create Gists.) Are you sure that you not only assigned the variable in your current shell, but also exported it viaexport?In any case, I guess one could say the failure behavior is suboptimal. It's not finding any matches when querying the respective GitHub repositories, but because the search is done in the background and in parallel, the GitHub API error messages related to that part of the search are never shown. Instead, and because apparently no matches were found, the search proceeds by checking for pull requests (and that's the point where you see the error message due to rate limiting).