No Data is Returned After Crawling (formats-JSON)

TL;DR

Contributor ftonato investigated with the reporter's real URLs and prompts: no API bug. The key factor was the reporter's maxDepth: 1 configuration differing from working setups, plus overly long/detailed extraction prompts confusing the LLM - break big extractions into smaller focused prompts.

The error

Crawl status shows 'completed' but returns an empty data array with formats ['json'] + jsonOptions prompt, where the same code worked the day before.

Fix

1. Contributor ftonato investigated with the reporter's real URLs and prompts: no API bug.
2. The key factor was the reporter's maxDepth: 1 configuration differing from working setups, plus overly long/detailed extraction prompts confusing the LLM - break big extractions into smaller focused prompts.
3. Lesson: empty structured-extraction results are usually a config/prompt problem (check maxDepth and prompt size), not an outage.

Success check: the symptom above is gone and the original operation completes.

When to use

• You hit this exact symptom in firecrawl.
• You want the verified fix without digging through the thread.

When not to use

• A different error in firecrawl, even a similar-looking one.
• General firecrawl setup or credential questions.

Compatibility

• Firecrawl (firecrawl/firecrawl)

Variant phrasings

• How to fix "no Data is Returned After Crawling (formats-JSON)" in firecrawl
• firecrawl: no Data is Returned After Crawling (formats-JSON)

Source

• https://github.com/firecrawl/firecrawl/issues/1309

In gh:firecrawl/firecrawl#1309 (https://github.com/firecrawl/firecrawl/issues/1309), the question was: Crawl status shows 'completed' but returns an empty data array with formats ['json'] + jsonOptions prompt, where the same code worked the day before. The verified resolution: Contributor ftonato investigated with the reporter's real URLs and prompts: no API bug. The key factor was the reporter's maxDepth: 1 configuration differing from working setups, plus overly long/detailed extraction prompts confusing the LLM - break big extractions into smaller focused prompts.