I am trying to download hourly pm2.5 data from all sensors in Texas, but I keep encountering the same issue within the Data Download Tool. It appears that sensors with a 6 digit sensor index keep reporting ‘No data found within the time range’, but sensors with a 4 digit index have no trouble retrieving the data. I had included the ‘modified_since’ parameter when collecting the sensor indices to ensure I was gathering sensors in Texas that have reported data since 1/1/2024, so I am not sure why the majority of these sensors with long indices are reporting no data within my time range. Is this a privacy issue, and if so, how am I able to retrieve sensor read keys for large amounts of private registered sensors?
Progress Logs
Sensors With Data in Time Range: 7
Sensors Without Data in Time Range: 8
Sensors Not Found: 0
Invalid Sensor Indexes: 0
Sensor Indexes Encountering Other Errors: 0
Sensor Indexes Not Processed: 0
Start Timestamp: 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z
End Timestamp: 2024-03-31T00:00:00Z
Average: 60
Fields: humidity_a,humidity_b,temperature_a,temperature_b,pressure_a,pressure_b,voc_a,voc_b,pm2.5_atm_a,pm2.5_atm_b,pm2.5_cf_1_a,pm2.5_cf_1_b
Total Data Rows Downloaded: 14973
Number of Sensors: 15
Number of Read Keys: 0
Download Started at: 2026-06-10T14:22:57-05:00
Download Ended at: 2026-06-10T14:23:29-05:00
Download Took: 32 seconds
Sensor Indexes Not Found:
Invalid Sensor Indexes:
Sensors Without Any Data For Specified Time Period:
262427
262701
262710
262751
263923
263935
263949
263973
Sensors Where No Download Was Attempted Yet Due to Process Being Aborted:
Aborted on Sensors:
Sensors With Number of Downloaded Data Rows:
2301 : 2145 data rows
2386 : 2160 data rows
2768 : 2158 data rows
2796 : 2139 data rows
2806 : 2160 data rows
2862 : 2051 data rows
3033 : 2160 data rows
Starting requests for sensor 262427.
Making request 1 from 2024-01-01 to 2024-03-31
No data was found for sensor 262427 between 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z and 2024-03-31T00:00:00Z.
Starting requests for sensor 262701.
Making request 2 from 2024-01-01 to 2024-03-31
No data was found for sensor 262701 between 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z and 2024-03-31T00:00:00Z.
Starting requests for sensor 262710.
Making request 3 from 2024-01-01 to 2024-03-31
No data was found for sensor 262710 between 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z and 2024-03-31T00:00:00Z.
Starting requests for sensor 262751.
Making request 4 from 2024-01-01 to 2024-03-31
No data was found for sensor 262751 between 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z and 2024-03-31T00:00:00Z.
Starting requests for sensor 263923.
Making request 5 from 2024-01-01 to 2024-03-31
No data was found for sensor 263923 between 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z and 2024-03-31T00:00:00Z.
Starting requests for sensor 263935.
Making request 6 from 2024-01-01 to 2024-03-31
No data was found for sensor 263935 between 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z and 2024-03-31T00:00:00Z.
Starting requests for sensor 263949.
Making request 7 from 2024-01-01 to 2024-03-31
No data was found for sensor 263949 between 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z and 2024-03-31T00:00:00Z.
Starting requests for sensor 263973.
Making request 8 from 2024-01-01 to 2024-03-31
No data was found for sensor 263973 between 2024-01-01T00:00:00Z and 2024-03-31T00:00:00Z.
Starting requests for sensor 2301.
Making request 9 from 2024-01-01 to 2024-03-31
Data download completed for sensor 2301. Downloaded 2145 rows of data.
Starting requests for sensor 2386.
Making request 10 from 2024-01-01 to 2024-03-31
Data download completed for sensor 2386. Downloaded 2160 rows of data.
Starting requests for sensor 2768.
Making request 11 from 2024-01-01 to 2024-03-31
Data download completed for sensor 2768. Downloaded 2158 rows of data.
Starting requests for sensor 2796.
Making request 12 from 2024-01-01 to 2024-03-31
Data download completed for sensor 2796. Downloaded 2139 rows of data.
Starting requests for sensor 2806.
Making request 13 from 2024-01-01 to 2024-03-31
Data download completed for sensor 2806. Downloaded 2160 rows of data.
Starting requests for sensor 2862.
Making request 14 from 2024-01-01 to 2024-03-31
Data download completed for sensor 2862. Downloaded 2051 rows of data.
Starting requests for sensor 3033.
Making request 15 from 2024-01-01 to 2024-03-31
Data download completed for sensor 3033. Downloaded 2160 rows of data.
Download request has been completed. Scroll down for a summary:
Hi Reyna, and welcome to the PurpleAir community!
The Issue with Your 6-digit Sensors
The 6-digit sensors you listed each have a date_created on or after January 29, 2025, which means they will have no data from before that date.
Date Created
modified_since is used to identify data recency—the sensor’s latest data upload (or registration modification)—but it doesn’t tell you anything about the first point of data from the sensor. date_created will be more helpful with estimating this, but it’s not perfect, since the date of creation isn’t the same as the date when the sensor was set up and started reporting data.
See a Sensor’s Lifetime on the Map
An alternative way to quickly see a sensor’s lifetime when working with a small number of sensors is to select them on the map with a long averaging period. A 1-week average will give you up to 5 years on the graph; a 1-month will give you up to 20 years, which is longer than any sensor’s lifetime. It’s just a simple way to see the actual data availability generally for a sensor, though there may still be gaps. For example, if you use a 1-week average, the sensor could have a gap of a few days during a certain week but still have a weekly average for that week.
Example Graph Image
See sensor 262427 from your list in the screenshot of the map graph below. This is a public sensor, so it is visible on the map, and when selecting it with a 1-week average, we can quickly get a view of the sensor’s ~1.5-year lifespan. You’ll see that its earliest data is from the beginning of February, 2025.
Hope this information is helpful, and again, welcome! Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you run into any other issues!