YQL Console working inconsistently

Question

I'm trying to make a finance app that, for now, pulls stock quotes. My problem is detailed below:

1. On the developer's console (http://developer.yahoo.com/yql/console/), I will click "show community tables" on the right under "Data Tables"
2. I type in 'select * from yahoo.finance.quotes where symbol="YHOO" ' for my YQL statement
3. I click the JSON radio button
4. I erase "cbfunc" and uncheck the Diagnostic checkbox
5. I click "test" and what I want to appear appears: { "query": { "count": 1, "created": "2012-12-03T09:11:12Z", "lang": "en-US", "results": { "quote": { "symbol": "YHOO", "Ask": null, ... etc
6. Under "The Rest Query", it gives me a link that I can use to access what is displayed. That link, which my program calls, does not work. It shows {"query":{"count":0,"created":"2012-12-03T09:12:44Z","lang":"en-US","results":null}} instead, but not always - sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.

Does anyone know why?

Answer 1

It's possible that you are running into a rate-limit problem.

I would enable the Diagnostics option - that will include in the output details of the calls made by YQL and whether any returned data. Here's a YQL Console link to your sample query, with diagnostics enabled:

select * from yahoo.finance.quotes where symbol="YHOO"