Nokogiri scraping with Ruby On Rails not working as expected - ruby-on-rails

Question

I'm completely new to Ruby on Rails but I think I might be missing something obvious. I'm currently working on a webapp that scrapes auction websites. The bones of the app was created by someone else. I'm currently trying to add new website scrapes but they don't seem to be working.
I have read through some of the Nokogiri documentation, checked that the scraped information is indeed not being written to the database (the seeded URLs that are being targeted have been when I check via the rails console) and used the chrome extension CSS Selector Tester to check that I am targeting the correct CSS selectors. The record ids are correct when I check via the rails console.
I have put what I think are the important sections of code below, but I might be missing something that I don't realise is important.
The websites I'm having issues with are Lot-art.com & Lot-Tissimo.com
Any help will be much appreciated.
Seeded URLs
Source.create(name: "Auction.fr", query_template: "https://www.auction.fr/_en/lot/search/?contexte=futures&tri=date_debut%20ASC&query={query}&page={page}")
Source.create(name: "Invaluable.co.uk", query_template: "https://www.invaluable.co.uk/search/api/search-results?keyword={query}&size=1000")
Source.create(name: "Interencheres.com", query_template: "http://www.interencheres.com/en/recherche/lot?search%5Bkeyword%5D={query}&page={page}")
Source.create(name: "Gazette-drouot.com", query_template: "http://catalogue.gazette-drouot.com/html/g/recherche.jsp?numPage={page}&filterDate=1&query={query}&npp=100")
Source.create(name: "Lot-art.com", query_template: "http://www.lot-art.com/auction-search/?form_id=lot_search_form&page=1&mq=&q={query}&ord=recent")
Source.create(name: "Lot-tissimo.com", query_template: "https://lot-tissimo.com/en/cmd=s&lwr=&ww={query}&xw=&srt=SN&wg=EUR&page={page}")
Scheduler code
require 'rufus-scheduler'
require 'nokogiri'
require 'mechanize'
require 'open-uri'
require "net/https"
s = Rufus::Scheduler.singleton
s.interval '1m' do
setting = Setting.find(1)
agent = Mechanize.new
agent.user_agent_alias = 'Windows Chrome'
agent.cookie_jar.load(File.join(Rails.root, 'tmp/cookies.yaml'))
List.all.each do |list|
number_of_new_items = 0
list.actions.each do |action|
url = action.source.query_template.gsub('{query}', action.list.query)
case action.source.id
when 1 # Auction.fr
20.downto(1) do |page|
doc = Nokogiri::HTML(open(url.gsub('{page}', page.to_s)))
doc.css("div.list-products > ul > li").reverse.each do |item_data|
price = 0
if item_data.at_css("h3.h4.adjucation.ft-blue") && /Selling price : ([\d\s]+) €/.match(item_data.at_css("h3.h4.adjucation.ft-blue").text)
price = /Selling price : ([\d\s]+) €/.match(item_data.at_css("h3.h4.adjucation.ft-blue").text)[1].gsub(" ", "")
end
item = action.items.new(
title: item_data.at_css("h2").text.strip,
url: item_data.at_css("h2 a")["href"],
picture: item_data.at_css("div.image-wrap.lazy div.image img")["src"],
price: price,
currency: "€"
)
ActiveRecord::Base.logger.silence do # This disable writing logs
if item.save
number_of_new_items = number_of_new_items + 1
end
end
end
end
when 97 # Lot-Tissimo.com
5.downto(1) do |page|
doc = Nokogiri::HTML(open(url.gsub('{page}', page.to_s)))
doc.css("#inhalt > .objektliste").reverse.each do |item_data|
# price = 0
# if item_data.at_css("h3.h4.adjucation.ft-blue") && /Selling price : ([\d\s]+) €/.match(item_data.at_css("h3.h4.adjucation.ft-blue").text)
# price = /Selling price : ([\d\s]+) €/.match(item_data.at_css("h3.h4.adjucation.ft-blue").text)[1].gsub(" ", "")
# end
item = action.items.new(
title: item_data.at_css("div.objli-desc").text.strip,
url: item_data.at_css("td.objektliste-foto a")["href"],
picture: item_data.at_css("td.objektliste-foto a#lot_link img")["src"],
price: price,
currency: "€"
)
ActiveRecord::Base.logger.silence do # This disable writing logs
if item.save
number_of_new_items = number_of_new_items + 1
end
end
end
end
when 2 # Invaluable.co.uk
doc = JSON.parse(open(url).read)
doc["itemViewList"].reverse.each do |item_data|
puts item_data["itemView"]["photos"]
item = action.items.new(
title: item_data["itemView"]["title"],
url: "https://www.invaluable.co.uk/buy-now/" + item_data["itemView"]["title"].parameterize + "-" + item_data["itemView"]["ref"],
picture: item_data["itemView"]["photos"] != nil ? item_data["itemView"]["photos"].first["_links"]["medium"]["href"] : nil,
price: item_data["itemView"]["price"],
currency: item_data["itemView"]["currencySymbol"]
)
ActiveRecord::Base.logger.silence do # This disable writing logs
if item.save
number_of_new_items = number_of_new_items + 1
end
end
end
when 3 # Interencheres.com
# doc = Nokogiri::HTML(open(url))
5.downto(1) do |page|
doc = Nokogiri::HTML(open(url.gsub('{page}', page.to_s)))
doc.css("div#lots_0 div.ligne_vente").reverse.each do |item_data|
price = 0
item = action.items.new(
title: item_data.at_css("div.ph_vente div.des_vente p a").text.strip,
url: "http://www.interencheres.com" + item_data.at_css("div.ph_vente div.des_vente p a")["href"],
picture: item_data.at_css("div.ph_vente div.gd_ph_vente img")["src"],
price: price,
currency: "€"
)
ActiveRecord::Base.logger.silence do # This disable writing logs
if item.save
number_of_new_items = number_of_new_items + 1
end
end
end
end
when 4 # Gazette-drouot.com
5.downto(1) do |page|
# doc = Nokogiri::HTML(open(url.gsub('{page}', page.to_s)))
doc = agent.get(url.gsub('{page}', page.to_s))
# doc = agent.get(url)
doc.css("div#recherche_resultats div.lot_recherche").reverse.each do |item_data|
price = 0
picture = item_data.at_css("img.image_thumb_recherche") ? item_data.at_css("img.image_thumb_recherche")["src"] : nil
item = action.items.new(
title: item_data.at_css("#des_recherche").text.strip.truncate(140),
url: "http://catalogue.gazette-drouot.com/html/g/" + item_data.at_css("a.lien_under")["href"],
picture: picture,
price: price,
currency: "€"
)
ActiveRecord::Base.logger.silence do # This disable writing logs
if item.save
number_of_new_items = number_of_new_items + 1
end
end
end
end
when 69 # Lot-art.com
doc = agent.get(url)
doc.css("div.lot_list_holder").reverse.each do |item_data|
price = 0
item = action.items.new(
title: item_data.at_css("div.lot_list_body a")[0].text.strip.truncate(140),
url: item_data.at_css("div.lot_list_body")["href"],
picture: item_data.at_css("a.lot_list_thumb img") ["src"],
price: price,
currency: "€"
)
ActiveRecord::Base.logger.silence do # This disable writing logs
if item.save
number_of_new_items = number_of_new_items + 1
end
end
end
end
end
if number_of_new_items > 0 && setting.notifications_per_hour > setting.notifications_this_hour && setting.pushover_app_token.present? && setting.pushover_user_key.present?
url = URI.parse("https://api.pushover.net/1/messages.json")
req = Net::HTTP::Post.new(url.path)
req.set_form_data({
:token => setting.pushover_app_token,
:user => setting.pushover_user_key,
:message => "#{number_of_new_items} new items on #{list.name}!",
:url_title => "Check the list",
:url => "http://spottheauction.com/lists/#{list.id}"
})
res = Net::HTTP.new(url.host, url.port)
res.use_ssl = true
res.verify_mode = OpenSSL::SSL::VERIFY_PEER
res.start {|http| http.request(req) }
end
end
agent.cookie_jar.save(File.join(Rails.root, 'tmp/cookies.yaml'))
end
s.cron '0 * * * *' do
setting = Setting.find(1)
setting.notifications_this_hour = 0
setting.save
end

Answer 1

new just initializes an instance but doesn't save the instance. Do you actually call save somewhere?
You have two options:
Call save on the item:
item = action.items.new(
# ...
)
item.save
Or use create instead of new:
item = action.items.create(
# ...
)

Answer 2

In case someone else comes across this. I got the scraping of lot-art.com to work. It seemed that I was lacking specificity in the css selector for nokogiri to pull the correct data.
I am still having continuing issues with lot-tissimo although that appears to be from something else as other scrapers have issues such as scraping-hub's portia spiders.