Fix DAC (Dacorum) scraper#416
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democracy.dacorum.gov.uk's WAF drops the TLS handshake from Lambda when using wreq's Firefox133 fingerprint — the connection stalls and times out before any response is received. verify_requests=False (PR #346) addressed the self-signed cert but does not bypass the WAF fingerprint block. Adding http_lib="playwright" uses Chrome's TLS fingerprint which passes the WAF. verify_requests=False is retained as the cert issue is still present on this host.
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Re-scrape after 5dbb2f5Added Based on the last successful run (PR #346, before the WAF fingerprint block began): 50 councillors, 0 emails (Dacorum does not publish emails via ModGov XML), 50 photos.
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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
democracy.dacorum.gov.uktimes out from Lambda. The existingverify_requests = False(from PR #346) fixed a certificate validation issue but does not bypass the WAF fingerprint block: the WAF drops the TLS handshake when it detects wreq's Firefox133 client-hello, hanging the connection until timeout. The endpoint responds correctly from non-Lambda IPs (confirmed IIS/302 via proxy).What was fixed
http_lib = "playwright"alongsideverify_requests = False— Playwright's Chrome TLS fingerprint passes the WAF.verify_requests = Falseis retained as the certificate issue on this host is independent of the WAF block.Scrape results
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