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google-apigoogle-analytics-api

Google Analytic API Error (500) Backend Error

We have a sales tracker app. In this app, we collect all analytic data from 5 different analytic accounts (websites) and creating reports. It was working till today morning itself. Now it shows some errors like 500 Backend Error:

PHP Fatal error: Uncaught Google_Service_Exception: {"error":{"errors":[{"domain":"global","reason":"backendError","message":"Backend Error"}],"code":500,"message":"Backend Error"}}

Solution

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    500 errors are catch all errors that normally mean that there is something on the servers end that is the issue. If you check the documentation you will see the above comment. Google says that they dont want you to retry that error. However if you scroll down a bit more in the documentation you will find this section.

    However we find the following as well.

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    However there is nothing with both "code":500,"message":"Backend Error"

    backoff

    There are a number of error messages where backoff would work.

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    With a python example that includes

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    This is because the Google analytics api is slightly different than the other Google apis the way it returns errors is not the same and in most cases its better. The reason for this is that backend error can be cause by flood protection. Not often but it can happen mostly around the hour. You should never run a large script on the hour because then you are competing with everyone that has cron jobs set up to extract data every hour.

    I normally only use backoff for 'userRateLimitExceeded', 'quotaExceeded', 'internalServerError' errors not for 'backendError' but Google is stating it in their documentation so it may be worth a shot.

    In the mean time i am going to send an email off to the team to get some clarification on the documentation.

    500,"message":"Backend Error"

    As for the message above i have seen this a few times and its often related to an issue on Googles end. Give back off a try while i wait to hear back from the team.