Instagram /metadata returns 404 not-found for public Reels while /transcript succeeds

Hi Supadata team,

I’m seeing consistent failures from the /v1/metadata endpoint for public Instagram Reels, even though /v1/transcript succeeds for the same URLs.

Example URL:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXvEhVWNeKI/

Metadata request:

GET https://api.supadata.ai/v1/metadata?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Freel%2FDXvEhVWNeKI%2F x-api-key: <api_key>

Metadata response:

{ "error": "not-found", "message": "Not Found", "details": "Post not found or is private", "documentationUrl": "https://docs.supadata.ai/errors/not-found" }

Transcript request for the same URL succeeds:

GET https://api.supadata.ai/v1/transcript?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.instagram.com%2Freel%2FDXvEhVWNeKI%2F&text=true x-api-key: <api_key>

That returns a valid transcript.

I also confirmed the Reel appears public:

  • Instagram oEmbed returns 200

  • The public Instagram page loads

  • Supadata transcript succeeds

I tested several URL variants and they all produce the same metadata failure:

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXvEhVWNeKI/ https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXvEhVWNeKI https://instagram.com/reel/DXvEhVWNeKI/ https://m.instagram.com/reel/DXvEhVWNeKI/ https://www.instagram.com/reel/DXvEhVWNeKI/?igsh=...

I also tested 30+ other Instagram Reel/post URLs and saw the same /metadata 404 behavior, while TikTok and YouTube metadata work correctly with the same API key.

Expected behavior:
/v1/metadata should return Instagram metadata, including media.thumbnailUrl when available, for public Reels.

Could you confirm whether Instagram metadata is currently degraded, unsupported for some Reels/accounts, or requires a different request format than the documented /metadata?url=<instagram_url> call?

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Upvoters
Status

Completed

Board
💡

Feature Request

Date

15 days ago

Author

logan.howell

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