CustomerSyncService not showing changes

[sebastia...@despegar.com]

Hello,
I want to use the CustomerSyncService to recover deleted AdGroupAd's. I am basically using a similar implementation as this one.

In a few lines, the program does the following:
- gets the AdwordsSession for a specific target account
- gets all campaign ids through CampaignService
- gets CustomerChangeData through CustomerSyncService
- gets CampaignChangeData
- gets AdGroupChangeData
- calls AdGroupChangeData#getChangedAds()

However, the AdGroupChangeData is not showing anything. I am using a DateTimeRange with my local timezone, and the dates are within the last couple of weeks.

I need to do this for several accounts and campaigns, because I had an accident and thousands of AdGroupAds were wrongly removed.

I also want to clarify that I tried downloading the change history of each account from the UI but it was all to no avail. Every time I tried to download the change history report, the downloaded CSV was truncated. This is why I opted out of that possibility and decided to use CustomerSyncService.

Is there any way I can download reports which let me recover the wrongly removed AdGroupAds?
Thanks,

seb.

[sebastia...@despegar.com]

After reading several similar questions from this forum, I think I understand the problem.

1) The documentation of CustomerSyncService is dreadful. It is specially difficult to instantiate a DateTimeRange which will not return an INVALID_TIMEZONE error. It is also specially difficult to understand that changes are grouped into the highest possible granularity level. If n > 1 AdGroups were modified, CustomerSyncService can only tell that the Campaign was modified but it cannot say which AdGroups were modified.
2) I cannot use the CustomerSyncService to recover the wrongly removed AdGroupAds because many AdGroup's were modified in unison (removing several Ads from each AdGroup).

If the "Change History" service from the UI worked propertly I would still have a chance to recover the deleted Ads
I'll be waiting for a reply on this issue if possible,
Thanks

[Umesh Dengale]

Hi Sebastian,

In the AdWords API, Ads which are removed can't be re-enabled. Here's what you can do to recover your ads:

• Check out the example in our Java client library on getting account changes. This will get you the details of the items removed.
• You can then use the AdGroupAdService to retrieve the Ads. 
• NOTE: Make sure that in your Selector that you say explicitly that the status is DISABLED; otherwise, the ad will not come back. 
• You will need to create and submit new ads based on the information you retrieved as removed ads cannot be re-enabled. 

Thanks,

Umesh Dengale, AdWords API Team.

[sebastia...@despegar.com]

Hello Umesh,
I appreciate your answer.
Is there any way I can distinguish rightly removed ads from wrongly removed ads?
If I understand correctly, the AdGroupAdService does not let you do this. If and Ad was removed on February 2nd, there is no way to know that on Febryary 1st it was enabled.
Thanks,
seb.

[Umesh Dengale]

Hi Sebastian,

AdGroupAdService does not distinguish the way Ads were removed. The AdGroupAdService can be used to get the status of Ads (ENABLED, PAUSED, DISABLED) within a date range (selector.forDateRange(startDateTime, endDateTime)). Check out our client library GetTextAds example. 

Thanks,

Umesh, AdWords API Team.

[sebastia...@despegar.com]

Hello Umesh,

The AdGroupAdService can be used to get the status of Ads (ENABLED, PAUSED, DISABLED) within a date range

Are you positive about this? Does this work in version 201409? I tried in this one and I could not get the AdGroupAdService to distinguish states depending on a date range.

[Umesh Dengale]

Hi Sebastian,

The date range is not supported while selecting data from any services, so the AdGroupAdService will ignore the date range provided. I was unaware previously that services ignore the date range.  

Please use Change History in the AdWords product side to get removed Ads' information. In Change History, select the date range and select the Filter as Ad Changes.

[sebastia...@despegar.com]

Hi Umesh,

As I mentioned in the first post of this discussion:

I also want to clarify that I tried downloading the change history of each account from the UI but it was all to no avail. Every time I tried to download the change history report, the downloaded CSV was truncated.

I guess there is no other alternative (both the 'Change History' from the UI and the CustomerSyncService seem to be insufficient for the task I am dealing with). I am a little bit hopeless now about this issue. We are planning on backing up AdWords data from now on. I think this is the lesson we learned from all this.

[Daniel Altman]

Hello Umesh, isn't it possible for you and your team to fix the UI reports to retrieve the complete CSV?

He has what he needs there, it is just that reports are coming back truncated...

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi Daniel, Sebastian,

Could you send me the following information?

1. The customer ID of the account (xxx-xxx-xxxx)
2. The dates of the changes
3. If you have them, the campaign and ad group IDs of the deleted ads

If you'd prefer, you can send that information only to me by clicking Reply privately to Author on this message.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[sebastia...@despegar.com]

Hi Josh,
I've just replied to you privately.
Let me know if you have any news on the issue,
Thanks