[Bug] JS Apify Client not updating tasks correctly

OOmar Abdelkader

I am using the Apify JS client to update a task's inputs and options and am finding that it is not correctly honoring the API documentation

https://docs.apify.com/api/v2#/reference/actor-tasks/task-collection/update-task

In this doc, it says "If the object does not define a specific property, its value is not updated." However, in my testing, I have found that this is not the case. Rather, it will fail if any required variables are missing from the update patch. Even worse, options that aren't specified are removed entirely.

Take this example with the website content crawler actor. I can get the task information by its ID, but when I try to update just the "crawlerType", I get an error that "startUrls" is missing even though it clearly already exists on the task. Even more interestingly, the operation succeeds when I use the updateInput endpoint. Why is the behavior correctly following the documentation for updateInput but not update ?

https://gist.github.com/omikader/efe8c75eff27c36a4edeb782ddf59006

4 comments

OOmar Abdelkader

[Bug] JS Apify Client not updating tasks correctly

oondro_k

Hi, update and updateInput operate on different objects:

update updates task object (properties input, name, actId etc)
updateInput updates input object (properties startUrls, maxResults etc)

If you call await client.task("abc123").update({ input: { "crawlerType": "playwright:firefox" } }), it will replace task's input property (whole object) with { input: { "crawlerType": "playwright:firefox" } and won't update other properties.

So to update only a part of the task's input, you need to use updateInput.

OOmar Abdelkader

Thanks for clarifying ! I think the documentation should be updated accordingly to reflect this as the current information is not accurate

If the object does not define a specific property, its value is not updated.

oondro_k

Thanks for the feedback. I'll let our docs guys know to make the descriptions clearer.

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[Bug] JS Apify Client not updating tasks correctly