Common errors

These are the most common errors:

The following is a list of errors in alphabetical order.

auth/account_access_denied

User cannot access account <account_number>
SummaryIssued a request targeting an account to which the authenticated user doesn't have access.
Common causesError in the target merchant ID or forgot to register the user in the Merchant Center.
Recommended handling tipsCheck that you're targeting the right account or register yourself as a user of the account in Merchant Center (Settings > Users).
Prevention tipsNA
User is not an administrator of account <account_number>
SummaryIssued a request to modify an account for which the authenticated user has no admin rights.
Common causesNA
Recommended handling tipsSet admin rights for the authenticated user.
Prevention tipsNA

conflict

[productId] Product ID <product id> is already modified by another entry in the same request for merchant <merchant> and store code <store code>
SummaryAttempted multiple conflicting operations at the same time.
Common causesA single batch request contains multiple conflicting operations for the same product, or multiple conflicting operations to the same product were submitted to the Content API at the same time.
Recommended handling tipsSee prevention tips.
Prevention tipsContain all changes for a given product to a single operation in a batched set of requests. Try to avoid multiple concurrent calls to the Content API for the same merchant and store code, or ensure those calls do not contain overlapping products.

internalError

Internal error
SummaryThere is a problem with the Google backend.
Common causesNA
Recommended handling tipsRetry the request. Contact us if it consistently fails.
Prevention tipsNA

invalid

Invalid channel: '<channel>'
SummaryInvalid channel provided as part of a product ID. For instance: not_a_channel:en:US:sku123.
Common causesNA
Recommended handling tipsNA
Prevention tipsMake sure your product ID is of the form channel:languageCode:countryCode:offerId, for example: online:en:US:sku123. For more information, refer to the reference documentation for Products.insert.
[countrycode] Invalid country code: '<country_code>'
SummaryInvalid country code provided as part of a product ID. For instance: online:en:not_a_country_code:sku123.
Common causesNA
Recommended handling tipsNA
Prevention tipsMake sure your product ID is of the form channel:languageCode:countryCode:offerId and that the country code is a valid ISO 3166 country code.
[item id] Invalid item id: '<id>'
SummaryInvalid item ID, e.g., sku123 instead of online:en:US:sku123.
Common causesSpecifying an offer ID instead of a product ID in a GET or DELETE request.
Recommended handling tipsNA
Prevention tipsMake sure your product ID is of the form channel:languageCode:countryCode:offerId.
[name] The term '<term>' is not allowed
SummaryName contains a forbidden word.
Common causesNA
Recommended handling tipsUse an allowed name. Refer to the Feed Specification Help Center article for more information.
Prevention tipsNA
[price.currency] Please use a currency that is supported in the target country
SummarySpecified a currency that is not available in the target country.
Common causesNA
Recommended handling tipsMake sure currency and country are correctly specified. Refer to the section on price in the Feed Specification Help Center article for more information.
Prevention tipsNA
[storeCode] storeCode must be 'online'
SummaryTried to update the price and availability of an online product via the inventory feed but specified something else than the special value online as the store ID in the URL.
Common causesNA
Recommended handling tipsChange the store ID to online in the request URL.
Prevention tipsMake sure you specify online for online products and the store ID for local products in all your inventory queries.
[<attribute>]
SummaryThe item specified in the square brackets is not valid.
Common causesNA
Recommended handling tipsFix the specification of the problem item, refer to the Feed Specification Help Center article for more information.
Prevention tipsNA

notFound

Item not found
SummaryThe item you tried to get, update or delete doesn't exist.
Common causesAttempting to delete a product that doesn't exist, or not specifying the product ID correctly in the URL for deletion.
Recommended handling tipsGet a list of products using Products.list and only attempt to get, update, or delete items appearing there. Make sure you specify the product ID in the form channel:languageCode:countryCode:offerId, for example: online:ru:RU:277104-ekb rather than the offer ID, which looks like this: 277104-ekb.
Prevention tipsNA

not_inserted

The item could not be inserted.
SummaryDue to other errors, the product could not be inserted as it would overwrite an existing good entry.
Common causesNA
Recommended handling tipsCheck the other errors for the same call and address them before attempting to reinsert the new product information.
Prevention tipsNA

quota

too_many_items: Merchant quota exceeded
SummaryToo many items uploaded to Google Shopping.
Common causesProducts that fail to validate may still be inserted, if they do not replace an existing valid product. Consider using the includeInvalidInsertedItems flag to Productstatuses.list to make sure your account does not have an excessive number of invalid products.
Recommended handling tips

Check for, and remove, excessive numbers of invalid products as mentioned above. In addition, specify expiration dates when uploading products. When the expiry date is reached, the product is then deleted automatically. Keep in mind the default, and maximum, expiry date is 30 days after product insertion or update.

Note: The item quota for a multi-client account is checked against the total number of products in all sub-accounts. If you get this error with a sub-account, make sure that both the sub-account and your MCA has enough product quota.

If you have attempted these solutions and are still running out of space for new products in your Merchant Center account, you can request the ability to submit more items in your account.

Prevention tipsSee Recommended handling tips.
too_many_subaccounts: Maximum number of subaccounts reached
SummaryYou have the maximum number of sub-accounts allowed for your multi-client account.
Common causesNA
Recommended handling tips

Delete obsolete sub-accounts.

If all your accounts are active, you can request the ability to create additional sub-accounts in your MCA.

Prevention tipsNA
request_rate_too_high: Request rate too high. Please reduce your throughput
SummaryRequests are being made too quickly; reduce request frequency.
Common causesRefer to the per-minute quotas listed in the published limits. If you exceed these thresholds, you'll receive this error. Sometimes there is a spike in traffic that causes this, or your server expands to a larger number of threads.
Recommended handling tipsReduce total requests sent per minute.
Prevention tipsWhen you receive this error, use programmatic back-off strategies to reduce your request rate to a suitable sustainable level.
daily_limit_exceeded: merchant quota exceeded
SummaryYou are making more than the allowed number of requests per day for the given service method.
Common causesRefer to the per-day quotas listed in the published limits. If you exceed these thresholds, you'll receive this error.
Recommended handling tips

Reduce total requests sent per day by combining multiple changes into a single request when possible. Consider batching changes to products over an appropriate time period to avoid rapidly changing a product multiple times. For item updates that can be represented as microdata on your website, consider using that approach to limit the number of calls to the Products or Inventory services.

If you still need more daily calls to a given method, please contact us and let us know your Merchant Center ID, which methods you are hitting quota limits on, an estimation of how many calls per day you will need for those methods and why, and we will work with you to get your quota raised.

Prevention tipsSee Recommended handling tips.
too_many_failed_auths: Too many failed authentications.
SummaryYou are making too many batch requests for accounts to which you do not have access.
Common causesMaking requests in batches for sub-accounts that have been deleted or for newly created sub-accounts before they are available.
Recommended handling tipsAvoid making calls that affect a deleted sub-account.
Prevention tipsSee Recommended handling tips.
request_too_large
SummaryYou're sending too many entries per batch request, or exceeding the custombatch request size limit.
Common causesYou can include a maximum of 10,000 entries per custombatch request, and the compressed transfer size limit is 32Mb.
Recommended handling tipsSplit the batch into multiple batches that are below the limits, then try again.
Prevention tipsWe recommend sending no more than 1,000 entries per batch.

required

[price.value] Required parameter: price.value
SummarySpecified a price without value. For example: { "currency": "USD" } instead of { "value": 123, "currency": "USD" }.
Common causesNA
Recommended handling tipsMake sure the parameter, here price, is well-formed. For example, price has two mandatory fields: value and currency.
Prevention tipsNA
[product] INSERT request must specify product
SummarySubmitted a custom batch request to the API containing an entry with "method": "insert" but no product.
Common causesForgetting to change method to get or delete.
Recommended handling tipsSpecify a product to insert via the product field.
Prevention tipsMake sure batch entries with method insert specify a product, and batch entries with method get or delete specify a product ID.
[productId] DELETE request must specify productId
SummarySubmitted a custom batch request to the API containing an entry with "method": "delete" but no product ID.
Common causesForgetting to change method to insert.
Recommended handling tipsSpecify a product to delete via the productID field.
Prevention tipsMake sure batch entries with method insert specify a product, and batch entries with method get or delete specify a product ID.

userRateLimitExceeded

User Rate Limit Exceeded
SummaryRequests are being made too quickly; reduce request frequency.
Common causesRefer to the HTTP request limits listed in the published limits. If you exceed these thresholds, you'll receive this error. Sometimes there is a spike in traffic that causes this, or your server expands to a larger number of threads.
Recommended handling tipsReduce total requests sent per minute. Batching multiple method calls to the same service into a single custombatch request will lower the number of HTTP requests being made.
Prevention tipsWhen you receive this error, use batching and programmatic back-off strategies to reduce your request rate to a suitable sustainable level.

validation

[adwords_redirect]
SummarySubmitted a product whose adwords_redirect field is not a valid URL.
Common causesNA
Recommended handling tipsMake sure the value of the adwords_redirect field is a valid URL.
Prevention tipsNA
[item] auth/frontend/not_claimed
SummaryThe merchant's website URL has not been claimed in the Merchant Center.
Common causesNA
Recommended handling tipsClaim the URL in the Merchant Center. The detailed procedure for doing that is available in the Help Center.
Prevention tipsNA
[energy_efficiency_class] validation/feed
SummarySpecified both energyEfficiencyClass and unit pricing for the same product.
Common causesNA
Recommended handling tipsSpecify only the energy efficiency class or unit pricing, not both.
Prevention tipsNA
[item] internal
SummaryAn internal error.
Common causesNA
Recommended handling tipsRetry the request. Contact us if it consistently fails.
Prevention tipsNA
[item_group_id] invalid_attribute
SummarySubmitted an item with both itemGroupId and many values for a variant attribute (color, size, pattern or material).
Common causesSpecifying more than one size for a product while specifying an item group ID.
Recommended handling tipsSubmit a different product for each value of a given variant attribute, such as size.
Prevention tipsNA
[additional_image_link] invalid_attribute
SummarySubmitted more than 10 additional image links.
Common causesNA
Recommended handling tipsLimit the number of additional image links to 10.
Prevention tipsNA
[<attribute>] invalid_character
SummarySubmitted a brand, description or other attribute as a string that doesn't parse using the specified request encoding.
Common causesNA
Recommended handling tipsCheck the message to find out which attribute is causing the problem, then validate the text encoding of the corresponding value before re-submitting. The API only accepts valid UTF-8 characters.
Prevention tipsNA
[<attribute>] invalid_value
SummarySubmitted a color, description or other attribute that isn't valid.
Common causesNA
Recommended handling tipsMakes sure all attributes adhere to the feed specification, refer to the Feed Specification Help Center article for more information. For GTIN or MPN problems refer to the Unique product identifiers Help Center article.
Prevention tipsNA
[<attribute>] missing_recommended / missing_required
SummarySubmitted a product without a required/recommended attribute.
Common causesNA
Recommended handling tipsMake sure you include all recommended / required attribute for your product. Refer to the Feed Specification Help Center article for more information.
Prevention tipsNA
[link] validation/invalid_value for <destinations>: URLs do not belong to your website
SummarySubmitted a product with a base URL that differs from the URL claimed by the Merchant Center account.
Common causesNA
Recommended handling tipsMake sure the URLs for submitted products match the website claimed by Merchant Center.
Prevention tipsNA