# Is it expected behavior for the alpaca historical trades api to throw an error if there are no trades? **URL:** \ **Category:** Alpaca Trading\ **Created:** [March 10, 2023, 2:15am UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/is-it-expected-behavior-for-the-alpaca-historical-trades-api-to-throw-an-error-if-there-are-no-trades/11980 "2023-03-10T02:15:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![connorcreate](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.alpaca.markets/connorcreate/32/4415_2.png) [@connorcreate](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/connorcreate)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2023, 2:15am UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/is-it-expected-behavior-for-the-alpaca-historical-trades-api-to-throw-an-error-if-there-are-no-trades/11980/1 "2023-03-10T02:15:32Z")
That doesn’t seem right. ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Whitnable\_Alpaca](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.alpaca.markets/dan_whitnable_alpaca/32/1658_2.png) [@Dan\_Whitnable\_Alpaca](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/Dan_Whitnable_Alpaca)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2023, 2:22am UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/is-it-expected-behavior-for-the-alpaca-historical-trades-api-to-throw-an-error-if-there-are-no-trades/11980/2 "2023-03-10T02:22:33Z")
@connorcreate What specific endpoint and/or method are you using? In general, if there are no trades then a 200 valid response is returned but there is just no JSON data. Here is an example trying to fetch trades on a Saturday (when there are no trades). The response is simply an empty set and no error. ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/alp/original/2X/9/9270cdffbca361b89142cc4f94e560c8facf8f3e.png) ---
**Author:** ![connorcreate](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.alpaca.markets/connorcreate/32/4415_2.png) [@connorcreate](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/connorcreate)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2023, 2:26am UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/is-it-expected-behavior-for-the-alpaca-historical-trades-api-to-throw-an-error-if-there-are-no-trades/11980/3 "2023-03-10T02:26:14Z")
I am using the new alpaca-py library so it actually may just be an issue with that ( I am sorry for not clarifying that). If I call this during a valid trading day it works fine but on days or times when no trades happen I get this exception thrown. ```auto request = StockTradesRequest(symbol_or_symbols='AAPL', start=datetime(2011, 1, 1, 14, 0, 0), end=datetime(2011, 1, 1, 14, 1, 0)) stock_client.get_stock_trades(request) ``` ````plaintext --------------------------------------------------------------------------- AttributeError Traceback (most recent call last) Cell In[32], line 2 1 request = StockTradesRequest(symbol_or_symbols='AAPL', start=datetime(2011, 1, 1, 14, 0, 0), end=datetime(2011, 1, 1, 14, 1, 0)) ----> 2 stock_client.get_stock_trades(request) 3 # trade_client.get_calendar(GetCalendarRequest(start=datetime(2010, 1, 4, 14, 0, 0), end=datetime(2010, 1, 4, 14, 1, 0))) File ~\AppData\Local\Packages\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.10_qbz5n2kfra8p0\LocalCache\local-packages\Python310\site-packages\alpaca\data\historical\stock.py:151, in StockHistoricalDataClient.get_stock_trades(self, request_params) 148 if self._use_raw_data: 149 return raw_trades --> 151 return TradeSet(raw_trades) File ~\AppData\Local\Packages\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.10_qbz5n2kfra8p0\LocalCache\local-packages\Python310\site-packages\alpaca\data\models\trades.py:69, in TradeSet. __init__ (self, raw_data) 66 parsed_trades = {} 68 for symbol, trades in raw_data.items(): ---> 69 parsed_trades[symbol] = [Trade(symbol, trade) for trade in trades] 71 super(). __init__ (data=parsed_trades) File ~\AppData\Local\Packages\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.10_qbz5n2kfra8p0\LocalCache\local-packages\Python310\site-packages\alpaca\data\models\trades.py:69, in (.0) 66 parsed_trades = {} 68 for symbol, trades in raw_data.items(): ---> 69 parsed_trades[symbol] = [Trade(symbol, trade) for trade in trades] 71 super(). __init__ (data=parsed_trades) File ~\AppData\Local\Packages\PythonSoftwareFoundation.Python.3.10_qbz5n2kfra8p0\LocalCache\local-packages\Python310\site-packages\alpaca\data\models\trades.py:44, in Trade. __init__ (self, symbol, raw_data) ... 45 if key in TRADE_MAPPING 46 } 48 super(). __init__ (symbol=symbol, **mapped_trade) AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'items'``` ```` ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Whitnable\_Alpaca](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.alpaca.markets/dan_whitnable_alpaca/32/1658_2.png) [@Dan\_Whitnable\_Alpaca](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/Dan_Whitnable_Alpaca)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2023, 2:53am UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/is-it-expected-behavior-for-the-alpaca-historical-trades-api-to-throw-an-error-if-there-are-no-trades/11980/4 "2023-03-10T02:53:27Z")
@connorcreate I think what the SDK is complaining about is your `symbol_or_symbols`. It wants it to be a list. Like this ```auto request = StockTradesRequest(symbol_or_symbols=['AAPL'], start=datetime.datetime(2018, 1, 1, 14, 0, 0), end=datetime.datetime(2018, 1, 1, 14, 1, 0), ) data_client.get_stock_trades(request) ``` Try that. ---
**Author:** ![connorcreate](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.alpaca.markets/connorcreate/32/4415_2.png) [@connorcreate](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/connorcreate)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2023, 3:02am UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/is-it-expected-behavior-for-the-alpaca-historical-trades-api-to-throw-an-error-if-there-are-no-trades/11980/5 "2023-03-10T03:02:58Z")
The python typing says it does allow strings and when I pass in strings on valid timeframes it returns data. Here is an image showing both of those things 🙂 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/uploads/alp/original/2X/1/11e2769cce32b7c48dacb7ea92c6a1175905e336.png) ---
**Author:** ![Dan\_Whitnable\_Alpaca](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.alpaca.markets/dan_whitnable_alpaca/32/1658_2.png) [@Dan\_Whitnable\_Alpaca](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/Dan_Whitnable_Alpaca)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2023, 3:08am UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/is-it-expected-behavior-for-the-alpaca-historical-trades-api-to-throw-an-error-if-there-are-no-trades/11980/6 "2023-03-10T03:08:00Z")
@connorcreate Agreed, it’s funny that a list doesn’t throw that error. Sort of a bug? @rahul