Fix HNS (Hounslow) scraper#405
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…t block democraticservices.hounslow.gov.uk times out when accessed from Lambda using wreq's Firefox133 TLS fingerprint. The ModGov endpoint serves valid XML to curl (62 councillors confirmed) but the WAF drops connections from wreq's specific ClientHello. Switching to headless Chromium bypasses the WAF fingerprint check, same fix as HAL, TON, MON, and others. verify_requests = False is retained as it was set by a previous maintainer for a certificate issue on this host.
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Re-scrape after 94fb053Added Cannot run the scraper end-to-end from this environment — Email and photo counts require a full Lambda run (detail pages are fetched per-councillor during the scrape).
Generated by Claude Code |
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committeeadmin.lancaster.gov.uk times out from Lambda with wreq's Firefox133 TLS fingerprint — the server's WAF drops the connection during the TLS handshake. The existing verify_requests = False addresses the cert issue on this host but does not bypass the WAF fingerprint check. Adding http_lib = "playwright" switches to headless Chromium whose Chrome TLS fingerprint passes the WAF. verify_requests = False is retained as the certificate issue is independent. Same pattern as DAC (PR #416) and HNS (PR #405). The scraper has been failing for 10 consecutive days (2026-06-23 through 2026-07-02). Previous fix attempt PR #381 was closed without merging; this corrects the approach by keeping verify_requests.
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…gerprint block\n\nThe ModGov endpoint at cyfarfodyddpwyllgor.siryfflint.gov.uk returns 503 or\ntimes out when accessed from Lambda using wreq's Firefox TLS fingerprint. The\nendpoint serves valid XML (62 councillors, 61 with photos) to non-Lambda clients,\nconfirming this is a WAF fingerprint block rather than a server outage.\n\nAdding http_lib = \"playwright\" switches to headless Chromium's Chrome TLS\nfingerprint, which the WAF allows through. The existing verify_requests = False\nis retained as the certificate issue on this host is independent of the WAF block.\nSame pattern as DAC (#416), LAC (#420), HNS (#405), and others."
This was referenced Jul 7, 2026
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democracy.medway.gov.uk times out from Lambda with wreq's Firefox133 TLS fingerprint. The existing verify_requests=False addresses a certificate issue but does not bypass the WAF's TLS fingerprint check, which drops the connection before any HTTP response is returned. Adding http_lib="playwright" switches to headless Chromium's Chrome TLS fingerprint, which passes the WAF and allows the ModGov XML endpoint to be reached. Same fix pattern as HNS (#405), LAC (#420), DAC (#416), and other recently fixed ModGov instances.
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What broke
democraticservices.hounslow.gov.ukhas been timing out from Lambda for 10 consecutive days (June 19–28). The ModGov endpoint returns valid XML with 62 councillors when accessed via curl (confirmed), but Lambda's wreq client using its Firefox133 TLS fingerprint triggers a WAF block that drops the connection after 30 seconds. The existingverify_requests = Falseaddresses a certificate issue on this host but does not bypass the WAF fingerprint check.This is the same pattern as HAL, TON, MON, and other councils recently fixed with
http_lib = "playwright".What was fixed
http_lib = "playwright"— switches from wreq (Firefox133 TLS emulation) to headless Chromium, whose Chrome TLS fingerprint passes the WAF.verify_requests = Falseis retained as it was set by a previous maintainer for a certificate issue on this host.Scrape results
Councillor count confirmed via direct XML fetch (62
<councillor>elements inGetCouncillorsByWardresponse). Email and photo counts require a full Lambda run to verify, as individual councillor detail pages are fetched during the scrape.Generated by Claude Code