But my galleries are public.
You might be confusing the “API” with an “API Key”. Regardless of authentication, any external application can only retrieve photos via an API – this is the mechanism by which a platform provides its data. An “API Key” is needed if you want to do authentication, and that is applied within the API itself.
Right now, the problem that I am seeing is, within SmugMug itself, certain parts of the API are not working. The link I have provided above is on SmugMug’s own site and has nothing to do with Photonic. When I click on “User” on the left, it takes me to https://api.smugmug.com/api/v2/doc/reference/user.html, where there is a demo user with the API URL https://api.smugmug.com/api/v2/user/cmac. If you click there, and subsequently click on the link for “UserAlbums”, you will be taken to https://api.smugmug.com/api/v2/user/cmac!albums, where you will not see any albums. This normally would have listed all of the albums for the cmac user – so, this part of the API is currently down. Instead, if you go to the node for the user (https://api.smugmug.com/api/v2/node/zx4Fx), and subsequently the child nodes (https://api.smugmug.com/api/v2/node/zx4Fx!children), you will see the listing there. So, this part of the API is working.
Different parts of Photonic use different parts of the API, depending on what you want to show. The listing of albums in the helper uses the “Nodes” API, which you are able to see. Other parts use other APIs, which you are unable to see.
I have sent an email to the folks at SmugMug alerting them to the problem.
