Issue with Deleting Custom Combination User Lists via Google Ads API

[Amit Tomar]

Hello Team,

I am facing an issue when trying to delete user lists using the Google Ads API.

When I delete user lists of other segment types (for example, Website Visitors), the deletion works successfully. However, when I attempt to delete a user list of type Custom Combination, the API call fails with the following error.

Business Logic:

operation = client.get_type("UserListOperation")

operation.remove = google_resource

user_list_service.mutate_user_lists(customer_id=customer_id, operations=[operation] )

Request:

Method: /google.ads.googleads.v20.services.UserListService/MutateUserLists
Request: customer_id: "<customer_id>"
operations {
  remove: "customers/<customer_id>/userLists/<user_list_id>"
}

Response:

Fault: errors {
  error_code {
    field_error: REQUIRED
  }
  message: "The required field was not present."
  location {
    field_path_elements {
      field_name: "operations"
      index: 0
    }
    field_path_elements {
      field_name: "remove"
    }
  }
}
request_id: "#########"

In the Google Ads dashboard, I am able to delete Custom Combination user lists without issues. Could you please clarify:

1. Is deletion of Custom Combination user lists supported via the API?

Thank you for your guidance.

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor]

Hi,

Thank you for reaching out to the Google Ads API support team.

Based on the provided information, I understand that you are encountering an REQUIRED field error when trying to remove the user list of type Custom Combination. To assist you further, please provide the complete API logs (request and response with request-id and request header) generated at your end. 

If you are using a client library and haven't enabled the logging yet, I would request you to enable logging for the specific client library that you are using. You can refer to the guides Java, .Net, PHP, Python, Ruby or Perl to enable logging at your end. For REST interface requests, you can enable logging via the curl command by using the -i flag.

You can send the details via Reply privately to the author option, or direct private reply to this email.

 

Thanks,
 

Google Ads API Team

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[2025-09-29 14:15:27Z GMT] This message is in relation to case "ref:!00D1U01174p.!500Ht01u7kav:ref" (ADR-00334160)