Issues with link checker v3.1 timing out

[Luuk]

Hi,

We are having issues with the v3.1 version of the link checker timing out. We are using this version: https://developers.google.com/google-ads/scripts/docs/solutions/manager-link-checker. I have made some small adjustments, which you can find by comparing the template version with our version in a code editor. I will explain the additions below, so you have a better understanding of why we made the additions.

In the old v2.2 version, everything still works fine. With the new v3.1 version we switched to the new scripts experience and now we're experiencing time out issues. The additions we made to the script are ported directly from the v2.2. version to the relevant parts in the v3.1 version and seem to work just fine. The CID is 279-294-7672. The v3.1 script name is "Happy Link Checker (v3.1)" and the v2.2. name is "Happy Link Checker (v2.2)". Both 3.1 and 2.2 version use the same spreadsheet. I have now disabled the 3.1 version (removed the frequency) so we can continue to use the 2.2 version. If you want to do any testing, please feel free to temporary disable the 2.2 version (remove frequency) and enable the 3.1 version.

The v3.1 shows "Timed out" but I'm unable to find why that happens. It's even that bad, that because the script runs on an hourly basis, sometimes 2 scripts are running at the same time because the time-out limit seems to be 95 minutes. Would you be able to find out why the scripts times out?

The additions basically come down to this:

1. We check whether each account has at least 1 label before running the link checker. If an account doesn't have a label, we label the account with "SkipLinkChecker". When getting accounts for the link checker, we have a condition that excludes accounts with this label. In our MCC, an active client account should have at least 1 label (of the person managing the account). Therefore, if an account doesn't have a label, it's probably a new lead and we don't want to check the links in their account since it shows changes in the change history (adding and removing labels).

2. In the spreadsheet with the results, we want to have a separate sheet per team member. Therefore we have a function that exports the account ID + labels to the spreadsheet.

3. The issue we had when setting up the script a few years ago was that when we received the email of a finished analysis, we aren't always able to act on it in directly. Sometimes we are only able to act on it in 2 of 3 hours after the analysis finished. To make it easier for all team members to process their accounts, we have labelled the accounts with the relevant team member, and then we split up the link checker results based on the account label. Each team member has their own sheet, showing only the link checker issues for the accounts that have their label on them. The issue we had is that when you open the spreadsheet 2 or 3 hours after the analysis was finished, the Results sheet doesn't contain all results of the past analysis, it only contains the results of the new analysis so far. The data from the Results sheet is written to the Archive sheet, but only once a new analysis starts. This was problematic for us, since we want to have a sheet per team member showing only their relevant link checker issues (based on account labels) and therefore we want to look at 1 sheet where we could always find the most recent data of a completed analysis. So what we do, is write the data from Results to Archive directly after finishing the analysis (not only when starting a new analysis). Now the queries in the sheet per team member can always look at the Archive sheet for the most recent results of a full analysis.

[Google Ads Scripts Forum]

Reposting the last inquiry (https://groups.google.com/g/adwords-scripts/c/olzVV6A5cbM) from the forum as it wasn't routed to our support queue. 

Cheers, 

James

Google Ads Scripts Team

[Luuk]

Hi,

I'd be grateful if you could send me an update on this question.

Best,

Luuk

Op woensdag 16 november 2022 om 10:52:50 UTC+1 schreef Google Ads Scripts Forum:

[Google Ads Scripts Forum Advisor]

Hi Luuk,

 

This is Yasmin from the Google Ads scripts team. Please excuse us for only getting back now as your message failed to be routed to our support queue.

 

Upon checking, it appears that the script had exceeded the maximum execution time due to the number of entities the script is checking. I would recommend to reduce the number of entities the script would check in order to prevent this. You may also increase the timeout_buffer variable to a value greater than 120, such as 1000.

 

That being said, I've tested the script and encountered no timeout issue on my end. However, the script was not able to output any results. There appears to be an issue with version 3.1 of the link checker solution script wherein it outputs no results but finishes its analysis. Allow me to pass along the details of your concern to our internal team in order to be further investigated. Rest assured that we'll get back to you the soonest we get a response from them.

 

Best regards,

 

Yasmin Gabrielle Google Ads Scripts Team

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[Luuk]

Hi,

Thanks for getting back. I have changed the timeout_buffer to 600 so it has 5 minutes at the end of each script run. I haven't tried running it again because of the issue you mentioned later on. 

Op vrijdag 16 december 2022 om 04:59:40 UTC+1 schreef adsscripts:

[Google Ads Scripts Forum Advisor]

Hi Luuk,

 

Thank you for getting back. We do appreciate your patience and kind understanding on this. We'll be updating this thread the soonest we receive an update from our internal team.

[Maryanne Vongpradith]

Hi Yasmin and Google Script team,

I had no success in Sep/Oct in getting the link checker script to finish its analysis and now upon reading this thread, Mike mentioned that the script has been updated. I have tried the new script and I am currently experiencing timeout issues despite reducing the entities to review and extending the timeout buffer to 1000. It may be the same issues as above. Can you please help? CID: 294-683-7435 and script name is Link Checker_04.01.23.

Many thanks,

Maryanne

[Google Ads Scripts Forum Advisor]

Hi Maryanne,

 

This is Yasmin from the Google Ads Scripts Team. Thanks for reaching out.

 

Upon my initial investigation of the script, it appears that the script exceeded the maximum execution time. For instances which does involve the link checker script to timeout, I would recommend to reduce the number of entities that the script would check as it is likely timing out due to that.

 

Additionally, according to our documentation on Quotas for Google services, to get around the "Exceeded maximum execution time" error, you can reschedule your script under multiple user accounts to extend the script's quota.

 

Let us know how it goes on your end.

[Maryanne Vongpradith]

Hi Yasmine,

Thank you for quickly getting back to me. I have tried reducing the entities as well as using other accounts to run the script and unfortunately I am getting the same issue "Stopped due to timeout". Is there anything else I can do here to solve the problem?

Thanks,
Maryanne

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[Luuk]

@Maryanne, did you copy over your settings from the previous link checker version to the new one? In the old script the timeout_buffer was in milliseconds (1000 = 1 second) but in the new script the timeout_buffer_seconds is in seconds, so a value of gives it a timeout buffer of about 17 minutes. You might instead want to decrease that to something like 5 minutes ( timeout_buffer_seconds = 300) or 10 minutes?

First, I didn't notice they changed it from milliseconds to seconds, but lateron I noticed it.

Op donderdag 5 januari 2023 om 04:50:38 UTC+1 schreef mary...@yoghurtdigital.com.au:

[Google Ads Scripts Forum Advisor]

Hi Maryanne,

 

Thanks for getting back and providing further context to this. I was able to further investigate your concern and reproduce the issue. With this, allow me to raise this to the team in order to be further investigated. Rest assured that we'll get back to you the soonest we do receive a response with relevant feedback.

[Maryanne Vongpradith]

Hi Luuk,

Thank you for your suggestion. I have reduced the timeout_buffer and I am still getting the same error unfortunately. Hopefully Yasmine will be able to help.

Thanks,
Maryanne

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/adwords-scripts/1f711bb3-dc8a-4320-b300-8119f0c1fd10n%40googlegroups.com.

[Google Ads Scripts Forum Advisor]

Hello Maryanne,

James here, also a member of the Google Ads script support team.  I’m afraid that I cannot share any information yet regarding your issue as the team is still working with this. However, rest assured that we will keep this thread posted for any updates.

Regards,

James Howell Google Ads Scripts Team

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[Pascal Meijerink]

Hi there,

I stumbled across this thread because I'm facing the same issue with the LinkChecker script, where it doesn't have time to output its findings, no matter how high we put the timeout buffer. I saw that the most recent message was over a month ago. Any update on the progress?

Kind regards,

Pascal

Op vrijdag 6 januari 2023 om 06:06:32 UTC+1 schreef adsscripts:

[Google Ads Scripts Forum]

Reposting the last inquiry (https://groups.google.com/g/adwords-scripts/c/olzVV6A5cbM) from the forum as it wasn't routed to our support queue.

Regards,
Yasmin
Google Ads Scripts Team

[Google Ads Scripts Forum Advisor]

Hi Pascal,

 

Please excuse us for only getting back now as your message failed to be routed to our support queue.

 

Could you please provide the following information so we're able to confirm the behaviour on our end?:

• Google Ads account ID or CID
• Name of the script
• Screenshot of the error you've encountered
• Shareable link (guide under Share a file publicly) of your spreadsheet

 

You may send them privately via the Reply privately to author option. Note that you may need to join the Google Group for you to use this option. If this option is not available on your end still, you may send it through our email (googleadsscr...@google.com) instead.

 

Best regards,

 

Yasmin Gabrielle Google Ads Scripts Team

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[Google Ads Scripts Forum Advisor]

Hi Pascal,

 

Thanks for providing the requested information.

 

Please do note that it is normal behavior for the link checker script to experience timeouts. Even if the execution would hit the execution limit, it will continue the next time it runs. So, you may notice that the script would log messages like 'Resuming work from a previous execution' or 'Stopped checking URLs early because of x'. 

 

Upon checking the provided screenshot, it appears that you've encountered the error 'Exceeded maximum execution time'. According to our documentation on Quotas for Google services, the underlying Google Apps Script services impose daily quotas and hard limits on some features. For a list of these quotas and accompanying exception messages, refer to this page. To get around the error, you can reschedule your script under multiple user accounts to extend the script's quota.

 

Let us know how it goes on your end.

 

Best regards,

[Google Ads Scripts Forum]

Reposting the last inquiry (https://groups.google.com/g/adwords-scripts/c/olzVV6A5cbM) from the forum as it wasn't routed to our support queue.

Regards,
Yasmin
Google Ads Scripts Team

On Tuesday, February 14, 2023 at 8:41:24 PM UTC+8 pascalm...@spiru.nl wrote:

Hi Yasmin,

Thanks for the quick response. I know that it's not unusual for the LinkChecker to time-out, but the problem is that the script doesn't have time to output its findings. Even when changing the timeout_buffer in the script from the default 120 seconds to 1000 seconds isn't enough: still no output. Previous versions of the script used to work fine for our account, even when the timeout_buffer was just 120 seconds.

Kind regards,

Pascal

Op di 14 feb. 2023 om 11:17 schreef Google Ads Scripts Forum on behalf of adsscripts <adwords...@googlegroups.com>:

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[Google Ads Scripts Forum]

Hi Pascal,

Thanks for your insights on this. I'll communicate this as well as your details to our internal team for further investigation. We'll get back soon as we hear relevant feedback from them.

Best regards,

Yasmin
Google Ads Scripts Team

[George Lambrou]

Hello! 

We have the same issues for the last year. Exactly what Pascal said the script doesn't have time to output its findings. 

Probably is not a priority for the Google Team but a solution will help us a lot. I keep coming back to this forum to check for a solution during the last months but still nothing.

Thank you,

George

[Maryanne Vongpradith]

Hi James and team,

Any updates on this?

Thanks,
Mayranne

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[Google Ads Scripts Forum Advisor]

Hi Maryanne,

 

I'm afraid we do not have any information to share yet, however, rest assured that this issue is being investigated. I'll be following up and we'll get back the soonest we do receive relevant feedback.

 

Best regards,

 

Google Ads Scripts Team

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