UNEXPECTED_INTERNAL_API_ERROR When Removing And Adding Deleted Youtube Channel Criterion

[Dorian Kind]

Hi,

we've encountered a peculiar case where removing and adding the same criterion in a batch job reproducibly causes an UNEXPECTED_INTERNAL_API_ERROR to occur.

For some background, we have a housekeeping script in use that reads a rather large list of Youtube Channels from a spreadsheet and configures these channels as account level negatives in all of our Ads accounts. This is using the Adwords API.

When one of these channels get removed from Youtube, the following happens:

• Our syncing logic checks the account's existing YT Channel exclusion criteria
• The removed channel is still existing, but has its channel ID and channel name set to null
• As we know that this criterion refers to a removed YT channel, we mark it for removal
• But at the same time, the YT Channel is still present in the source spreadsheet, so we mark the channel as needing to be added to the account
• Both entries actually refer to the same YT channel, but we cannot check for that because the channel ID has been removed from the existing criterion
  
• We set up a batch job that contains two operations, one to remove the existing criterion and one to create a new one
• That batch job fails with an UNEXPECTED_INTERNAL_API_ERROR

I'm wondering how we can better handle this. The crux really lies in the fact that once a YT channel is deleted, the corresponding criterion on the Ads side no longer is identifiable because its channelId and channelName fields are both null. Any thoughts?

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor]

Hi Dorian,

Thanks for reaching out to us.

For us to provide the specific recommendations on the InternalApiError.UNEXPECTED_INTERNAL_API_ERROR, could you please provide with us the complete SOAP request and response logs, along with its requestId, generated when the error occurred? Also, could you send us the batch job IDs that failed, so that our team can further check better? You may check this guide on how to check batch job results.

You may then send the requested information via the Reply privately to author option. If this option is not available, you may send the details directly to our googleadsa...@google.com alias instead.

Regards,

Yasar Google Ads API Team

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[Dorian Kind]

Hi Yasar,

I *think* I have answered privately, but as there doesn't seem to a way to copy oneself when replying in the new Google Groups interface, I'm not completely sure. Could you confirm that you have received the SOAP logs? Thank you very much!

Best,

Dorian

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor]

Hi Dorian,

I brought your internal error with your comments up with my team. We will get back to you as soon as possible.

Regards,

Aryeh Baker Google Ads API Team

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[Dorian Kind]

Hi Aryeh,

it's been a couple weeks, and this issue is still hitting us every now and then. Do you already have any feedback which you would be able to share?

Thanks,

Dorian

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor]

Hi Dorian,

I'm a Developer Relations Engineer jumping in to help with this issue. I've routed this through to the team that works on Batch Jobs, but they're still in the process of investigating the root cause. I'll follow up here as soon as I have more information. 

Thanks,
Ben, Google Ads API Team

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[Dorian Kind]

Hi Ben,

seeing as it's been a while, are there any updates on this issue?

Thanks & best regards,

Dorian

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor]

Hi Dorian,

Unfortunately not yet. I'm following up with the batch jobs team to see if they can increase the priority of the investigation.

In the meantime, have you considered migrating your application to the new Google Ads API? I'd be curious to know if you have the same issues there.

Best,

[Dorian Kind]

Hi Ben,

thanks for the update. We have not yet tackled the migration of that specific code as we're focussing on moving the reporting use cases to the new API in order to first gain some experience. I will let you know what we find once we start working on migrating the batch modification code.

Best regards,

Dorian

[Google Ads API Forum Advisor]

Hi Dorian,

Thank you for the update. I will keep you posted as soon as I'm able to get more information here.

Thanks,