diff --git a/api/src/stampy_chat/callbacks.py b/api/src/stampy_chat/callbacks.py
index c2951ca..e64d993 100644
--- a/api/src/stampy_chat/callbacks.py
+++ b/api/src/stampy_chat/callbacks.py
@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 import threading
+import traceback
 from queue import Queue
 from typing import Any, Dict, List, Callable, Iterator
-from flask import stream_with_context
 
 from langchain.callbacks.base import BaseCallbackHandler
 from langchain.schema import BaseMessage
@@ -151,6 +151,7 @@ def error_handler(function, callback):
         try:
             function(callback)
         except Exception as e:
+            logger.error(traceback.format_exc())
             callback(e)
 
         callback(None)
diff --git a/api/src/stampy_chat/followups.py b/api/src/stampy_chat/followups.py
index 3dbe5d1..931a2e3 100644
--- a/api/src/stampy_chat/followups.py
+++ b/api/src/stampy_chat/followups.py
@@ -31,9 +31,11 @@ def get_followups(query):
     if not query.strip():
         return []
 
-    url = 'https://nlp.stampy.ai/api/search?query=' + quote(query)
-    response = requests.get(url).json()
-    return [Followup(entry['title'], entry['pageid'], entry['score']) for entry in response]
+    url = 'https://nlp.stampy.ai/api/search?query=' + quote(query[:4093]) # make sure there aren't too many characters
+    response = requests.get(url)
+    if response.status_code == 200:
+        return [Followup(entry['title'], entry['pageid'], entry['score']) for entry in response.json()]
+    return []
 
 
 # search with multiple queries, combine results
diff --git a/api/tests/stampy_chat/test_followups.py b/api/tests/stampy_chat/test_followups.py
index 2f7c54b..af6e60d 100644
--- a/api/tests/stampy_chat/test_followups.py
+++ b/api/tests/stampy_chat/test_followups.py
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 import pytest
 from unittest.mock import patch, Mock
 
+
 from stampy_chat.followups import Followup, search_authored, multisearch_authored
 
 
@@ -8,7 +9,7 @@
     ("what is agi", [Followup("agi title", "agi", 0.5)],),
     ("what is ai", [Followup("ai title", "ai", 0.5)],)])
 def test_search_authored(query, expected_result):
-    response = Mock(json=lambda: [
+    response = Mock(status_code=200, json=lambda: [
         {'title': r.text, 'pageid': r.pageid, 'score': r.score}
         for r in expected_result
     ])
@@ -27,7 +28,7 @@ def test_multisearch_authored(_logger):
         {'pageid': '5', 'title': f'result 5', 'score': 0.543},
     ]
 
-    response = Mock(json=lambda: results)
+    response = Mock(json=lambda: results, status_code=200)
     with patch('requests.get', return_value=response):
         assert multisearch_authored(["what is this?", "how about this?"]) == [
             Followup('result 2', '2', 0.623),
@@ -57,7 +58,7 @@ def test_multisearch_authored_duplicates(_logger):
     }
     def getter(url):
         query = url.split('query=')[-1]
-        return Mock(json=lambda: results[query])
+        return Mock(json=lambda: results[query], status_code=200)
 
     with patch('requests.get', getter):
         assert multisearch_authored(["query1", "query2", "query3"]) == [