Error: "Processing instructions are not allowed within SOAP messages"

[peter.r...@smarter-ecommerce.com]

We hit this issue occasionally, it's, however, getting worse now: 48 occurrences within the last 7 days. It seems that it cannot be boiled down to a single service. I've added two example stacktraces. 

Caused by: org.xml.sax.SAXException: Processing instructions are not allowed within SOAP messages at org.apache.axis.AxisFault.makeFault(AxisFault.java:101) at org.apache.axis.SOAPPart.getAsSOAPEnvelope(SOAPPart.java:701) at org.apache.axis.Message.getSOAPEnvelope(Message.java:435) at org.apache.axis.handlers.soap.MustUnderstandChecker.invoke(MustUnderstandChecker.java:62) at org.apache.axis.client.AxisClient.invoke(AxisClient.java:206) at org.apache.axis.client.Call.invokeEngine(Call.java:2784) at org.apache.axis.client.Call.invoke(Call.java:2767) at org.apache.axis.client.Call.invoke(Call.java:2443) at org.apache.axis.client.Call.invoke(Call.java:2366) at org.apache.axis.client.Call.invoke(Call.java:1812) at com.google.api.ads.adwords.axis.v201409.cm.CampaignServiceSoapBindingStub.get(CampaignServiceSoapBindingStub.java:1350)

Caused by: org.xml.sax.SAXException: Processing instructions are not allowed within SOAP messages at org.apache.axis.AxisFault.makeFault(AxisFault.java:101) at org.apache.axis.SOAPPart.getAsSOAPEnvelope(SOAPPart.java:701) at org.apache.axis.Message.getSOAPEnvelope(Message.java:435) at org.apache.axis.handlers.soap.MustUnderstandChecker.invoke(MustUnderstandChecker.java:62) at org.apache.axis.client.AxisClient.invoke(AxisClient.java:206) at org.apache.axis.client.Call.invokeEngine(Call.java:2784) at org.apache.axis.client.Call.invoke(Call.java:2767) at org.apache.axis.client.Call.invoke(Call.java:2443) at org.apache.axis.client.Call.invoke(Call.java:2366) at org.apache.axis.client.Call.invoke(Call.java:1812) at com.google.api.ads.adwords.axis.v201409.ch.CustomerSyncServiceSoapBindingStub.get(CustomerSyncServiceSoapBindingStub.java:521)

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi,

Are you following the guidelines mentioned in the Thread safety page for the Java client library? In particular, please make sure that you are not reusing instances of AdWordsSession across threads.

Thanks,

Josh, AdWords API Team

[peter.r...@smarter-ecommerce.com]

Hi Josh

We do follow the threading guidelines.

I've just checked that we had 44 occurrences of this error within the last 7 days. 

The error is not account specific.

If the error occurs, then a retry typically succeeds (there is some time between retries on our side - usually up to 20 minutes).

[Josh Radcliff (AdWords API Team)]

Hi,

Do you have any further details from the error, such as the raw SOAP messages that lead to this error? The exception means that parsing of the response failed, which is rather odd.