Fix HAL (Halton) scraper#400
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Halton's ModGov endpoint (councillors.halton.gov.uk) is accessible from non-Lambda IPs but times out from Lambda when using wreq's Firefox133 TLS emulation. The server's WAF drops connections matching wreq's specific client-hello pattern. Switching to http_lib="playwright" uses headless Chromium (standard Chrome TLS fingerprint), which passes the WAF inspection and receives the councillor XML. Live XML confirms 53 councillors with 53 photos.
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Re-scrape after 111dd5fPlaywright fix applied: added Endpoint confirmed live: direct request to
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This was referenced Jul 2, 2026
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fife.gov.uk returns HTTP 403 to wreq's Firefox133 TLS fingerprint but serves the councillors page correctly to browser clients. The WAF drops the connection when it detects the non-browser TLS client-hello. This is the same WAF fingerprint block pattern seen on ELN (PR #410), HAL (#400), TON (#402), and others. Adding http_lib = "playwright" switches from wreq to headless Chromium, whose Chrome TLS fingerprint passes the WAF. The scraper has been failing for 10 consecutive days (2026-06-23 through 2026-07-02).
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What broke
Halton's ModGov endpoint (
councillors.halton.gov.uk) times out when accessed from Lambda using wreq's Firefox133 TLS fingerprint. The endpoint is reachable and returns valid XML from other IPs (confirmed 200 OK with 53 councillors via standard HTTP client), confirming this is a WAF fingerprint block rather than an IP block or certificate issue.What was fixed
http_lib = "playwright"— switches from wreq (Firefox133 TLS emulation) to headless Chromium, which uses a standard Chrome TLS fingerprint that passes the WAF. This is the same fix applied to other councils with the identical pattern (DAC, LBH, NYE, WOX, TON, FOE).Scrape results
Confirmed from live XML endpoint (direct request bypassing Lambda):
Note: email count will be populated once the scraper runs end-to-end via Lambda.
Generated by Claude Code