Question: How do I use Scrape LinkedIn Profile block correctly?

MindStudio IDE How-To Guides
1

I get an Execution Error every time. I’m testing it on my own LI profile. My Mindstudio account is connected to my LinkedIn account. And the URL to my profile is correct in the debugger run log. But every time, in the run for this block, on the line after the URL, I get the Execution Error of “Error: Error: request_failed”

2

I get an Execution Error every time I run it. I’m testing it on my own LI profile. My Mindstudio account is connected to my LinkedIn account. And the URL to my profile is correct in the debugger run log. But every time, in the run for this block, on the line after the URL, I get the Execution Error of “Error: Error: request_failed”. What am I missing?

3

Hi @JoeN,

Thanks for the post.

LinkedIn is pretty strict about scraping and often restricts guest access to certain profiles, which can cause that “request_failed” error when the scraper can’t read the page.

We’re looking into how to make this work more consistently.

4

Hey Alex,

Thank you so much for your email.

OK, that makes sense. Now I understand the error.

I have tried a workaround that seems to be working for what I need, now.

I copied the LinkedIn Connection Crafter agent and found that it uses
the {{pageContent}} variable and that pulls info off of a LinkedIn
profile even though scraping returns nothing.

I’m now using {{fullText}} in a Chrome extension agent I’m building, and
it, too, pulls enough info off of a LinkedIn profile to do what I need
for now.

I’m not exactly sure why these work and scraping doesn’t, but I’m
guessing that scraping activates some sort of block from LinkedIn, while
just reading {{pageContent}} or {{fullText}} doesn’t?

While I’ve got you here, I have another question:

How can I limit a web search instigated by an agent to gather
information only from the last 30 days? Today I tried saying, “only
information dated after September 15, 2025,” but even Gemini 2.5 Pro
(the model in my Generate Text block) told me that this date was “in the
future” so my request was impossible to fulfill.

Any suggestions? Is there another model I could use to search only very
recent information on the web? Or is there another solution for this?

Thank you very much!

Joe

5

Hi @JoeN,

That’s right, when you launch an Agent using the Chrome Extension, it gets direct access to the HTML and content of the page, so no scraping is required.

For your second question, there are a few ways to handle that:

  1. Use a Google Search block, which lets you specify a date range
  2. Use a Perplexity model in a Generate Text block, which has internet access and can search for data online

Hope this helps!

6

Hey Alex,

Thanks for pointing out that in the Chrome extension the agent gets direct access to the HTML. That makes sense.

Can you tell me briefly in layman’s terms what’s happening when an agent scrapes that is different from this?

And yes, your suggestions help a lot. I’ll try a Google search block or a Perplexity model.

Thanks for your prompt answers!

Joe

7

Hi @JoeN,

Glad that helped!

When you use the Chrome Extension, it reads the page content and passes it to the Agent from the extension itself.

With Scrape URL and LinkedIn blocks, the request comes from a scraper, which LinkedIn can now detect and block. You can mimic this by logging out of LinkedIn, clearing your cache and cookies, and trying to open some profiles.

8

Hey Alex,

Got it. Thanks!

Joe