FindItemsByProduct no longer working?

I've been using the Finding API for several months now, specifically FindItemsByProduct.

Today, none of my requests have turned up any information, whether it be searching by ISBN or ReferenceID (ePID). As in, my request is successful, but there are no results given. I've done with with dozens of different ISBNs and ePIDs, and the result is the same.

I've tried other API calls such as FindItemsByKeywords, and that worked just fine.

All of this was tried again in the API Explorer with the results being the same.

Has anyone else experienced this recently? Is the FindItemsByProduct endpoint malfunctioning?

Thanks in advance.

danta729

Posted 3 years ago·Last reply 2 years ago

21 comments

microtech2020

·2 years ago

272 View listings

For anyone else struggling, I have resorted to using FindItemsAdvanced call in the Finding API using the UPC as a keyword. This seems to work, but that FindProducts API needs to work sooner than later. Is is too much to ask to get a response sometime this year?

My Url using a formatted string in Python, passed into requests.get():

f"{ENDPOINT}?Operation-Name=findItemsAdvanced&Service-Version=1.13.0&Security-AppName={apiKey}&Response-Data-Format=JSON&paginationInput.entriesPerPage=10&REST-Payload&keywords={upc}"

developer_support@ebay

3 years ago

0 View listings

Hello danta729,

The issue has been fixed for Finding API (FindItemsByProduct). Please try again and let us know if you face any issue.

microtech2020

·2 years ago

272 View listings

I have read this thread a couple times. I'm having the same issue as OP.
I am using URL-formatted requests to perform findItemsByProduct using UPC. Here is my formatted string I'm passing into my function.

f"{ENDPOINT}?Operation-Name=findItemsByProduct&Service-Version=1.13.0&Security-AppName={apiKey}&Response-Data-Format=JSON&REST-Payload&productId.@type=UPC&productId={upc}"

I have used several different UPCs.

I am using a valid api key in production application environment.

I am 100% sure my enpoint is correct:

"https://svcs.ebay.com/services/search/FindingService/v1"

Note how I am using the URL formatted headers instead of JSON or XML.

All of my API calls are successful, but the product count is always 0.
I'm not sure why people are saying this is fixed. For me it is not fixed.

Would someone mind lending a hand?
Thank you

shipscript

·2 years ago

111 View listings

@developer_support@ebay

I'm not sure what is going on with the call failures, but am documenting here:

Two similar calls, one for UPC and one for ePID for the same item both return no items:

https://svcs.ebay.com/services/search/FindingService/v1?Operation-Name=findItemsByProduct&Service-Version=1.13.0&Security-AppName={appid}&Response-Data-Format=JSON&paginationInput.entriesPerPage=10&productId.@type=ReferenceID&productId=5032174279

https://svcs.ebay.com/services/search/FindingService/v1?Operation-Name=findItemsByProduct&Service-Version=1.13.0&Security-AppName={appid}&Response-Data-Format=JSON&paginationInput.entriesPerPage=10&productId.@type=UPC&productId=890792002302

but returns this search URL which returns a handful of items:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_ddo=1&_ipg=10&_pgn=1&_productid=5032174279

Similarly this two calls for UPC and ReferenceID return no items:

https://svcs.ebay.com/services/search/FindingService/v1?Operation-Name=findItemsByProduct&Service-Version=1.13.0&Security-AppName={appid}&Response-Data-Format=JSON&paginationInput.entriesPerPage=10&productId.@type=UPC&productId=0840046045357

https://svcs.ebay.com/services/search/FindingService/v1?Operation-Name=findItemsByProduct&Service-Version=1.13.0&Security-AppName={appid}&Response-Data-Format=JSON&paginationInput.entriesPerPage=10&productId.@type=ReferenceID&productId=13054477410

but return a search URL that can find a handful of items:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/?_ddo=1&_ipg=10&_pgn=1&_productid=13054477410

Whereas this call using a different UPC returns at least 10 items

https://svcs.ebay.com/services/search/FindingService/v1?Operation-Name=findItemsByProduct&Service-Version=1.13.0&Security-AppName={appid}&Response-Data-Format=JSON&paginationInput.entriesPerPage=10&productId.@type=UPC&productId=890792002302

along with this search URL:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/?_ddo=1&_ipg=10&_pgn=1&_productid=28046036153

This ISBN call returns 2 items

https://svcs.ebay.com/services/search/FindingService/v1?Operation-Name=findItemsByProduct&Service-Version=1.13.0&Security-AppName={appid}&Response-Data-Format=JSON&paginationInput.entriesPerPage=10&productId.@type=ISBN&productId=9780133805765

And this search URL also displays 2 items:

https://www.ebay.com/sch/?_ddo=1&_ipg=10&_pgn=1&_productid=9038745602

microtech2020

·2 years ago

272 View listings

Thank you for the experimentation. I have confirmed your results. The UPC you had success with gave me results as well.

It is possible that developer_support@ebay thinks this is solved because it worked on one or two UPCs. The biggest clue here is that it works on some UPCs but not others (most others from my testing).

Hopefully this gets resolved soon. I'm not sure what to try next. My application heavily relies on UPC searching. I might be able to get MSKUs through other calls, but being able to search via UPC would be the way to go.

If I have to I will open a ticket, I just didn't want to get charged for something that is clearly not my fault.

floodzone

·3 years ago

12839 View listings

Has anyone received any additional updates from support?

chadbst

·2 years ago

As noted below by Ebay support the issue is resolved. I can confirm that it is working for me.

captianeric

·2 years ago

Yea, not working for me. I'm using findItemsAdvanced to get a list of items by seller (my customer) and then immediately call findItemsByProduct using the itemId returned by the first call. I get no results.

shipscript

·2 years ago

111 View listings

@captianeric

FindItemsByProduct can not use the ItemId returned by the first call. The call requires a product identifier like ePID, ISBN, UPC, or EAN. You can collect the ProductID from findItemsAdvanced call, but I'm not sure what you are trying to accomplish by feeding the value back into the findItemsByProduct call.

https://developer.ebay.com/devzone/finding/CallRef/findItemsByProduct.html

floodzone

·3 years ago

12839 View listings

Well, here the response I received from support this morning:

"Thank you for your patience. We checked and verified with the engineering team that we only support MSKU items. We haven't had any code updates in over a decade. This API is functioning as intended. We would recommend you to move to the new rest browse API. Best Regards, eBay Developer Support"

This is not true because I've been using this call for 10+ years and it returns everything. Why would a call only return MSKUs? They represent a tiny percentage of overall listings.

If anyone else has opened a ticket, please update it with API documentation screenshots and/or any older code examples, output, etc... showing this is not the case.

danta729

OP3 years ago

Much to my chagrin, I received the exact same answer. I wonder how many folks will need to submit a ticket before they understand that it's real.

floodzone

·3 years ago

12839 View listings

They may not have made direct changes to that particular call, but another update of some kind incidentally impacted it.

I replied to them and asked if they may have updated a database of some kind, specifically the fields of SKU, MSKU, UPC, etc....

I will also add that just prior to this call, the Ebay general search when using a UPC was acting a bit wonky. It was returning extraneous items that did not bear the UPC being searched. I'm wondering if maybe they fixed that issue but in doing so impacted FindItemsByProduct.

cosru63

·3 years ago

I have the same issue - I opened a ticket yesterday and I received a "we'll look into it soon" update. Hope they fix it because I cannot find a straight forward alternative yet besides the `findItemsByKeywords` which might not give the best results.

floodzone

·3 years ago

12839 View listings

OK, well we've now hit the 3+ week mark, still down.

Do I start looking into alternatives (if there are any) at this point?

chadbst

·3 years ago

I too had the same issue. I opened a case with support and they responded with the following:

We have reviewed the request and filed a ticket that describes the issue with the appropriate engineering team. The team evaluates, prioritizes, and addresses an issue based on the impact it has on the API operations and other business logic. Your important issue will be handled accordingly, but may take time to triage and resolve. The ticket will be kept open and in a "Waiting-BugFix" state and we will notify you when the status changes.

danta729

OP3 years ago

Update from Ebay devs yesterday:

We have updates from the engineering team, and they confirmed that the findItemsByProduct API call only supports MSKU items. The non MSKU items will not be returned in the response. Please let us know if you have any questions. Best Regards, eBay Developer Support

^^^^

This response doesn't really make sense to me, considering I was finding non-MSKUs previously and the api docs don't mention this at all. I'm following up for more information, hoping to actually chat with a dev soon and ask what's up.

floodzone

·3 years ago

12839 View listings

Yes I don't really even understand what that means, what do MSKUs have to do with this? It was working 3 weeks ago and then just stopped.

I would take a couple screenshots of the API docs and circle what you're trying to do and send it to them in your case, then it's fully documented.

floodzone

·3 years ago

12839 View listings

OK, I just ran some tests and yes it seems the issue is that only MSKU data is being returned, but that is not correct per the API and per my years of using it!

If you do a search with UPC 890792002302, you will see 25 active listings. Now, if you plug that UPC into FindItemsByProduct, I'm only getting 1 listing returned, which is the 1 listing out of those 25 that was set up as MSKU.

Again, this is not correct. Whatever changes they made about 15 days ago they need to reverse.

floodzone

·3 years ago

12839 View listings

I'm not understanding how they can just wipe out a function overnight.

Typically I receive months worth of emails alerting me to all upcoming API changes, meaning Ebay seems pretty calculated regarding all API updates.

So it's crazy to me that they just "flip a switch" and the whole thing goes out. And it's been down for 2 weeks.

Also, doesn't anyone else use this? I thought it was a pretty common function. If yes, please create a case if this is impacting you so we can get it fixed!

danta729

OP3 years ago

Update: I've submitted this as a bug seven days ago. I've yet to hear back from the devs. Please, if you're having the same issue and use this in your workflow please do the same thing and submit this as a bug. The more reports they get the more aware of the issue they'll become and get this fixed sooner rather than later 🙏

floodzone

·3 years ago

12839 View listings

Having the same issue when searching by UPC. Will probably need to create a support case to get it addressed. You have to pay to create one, but I don't think they end up charging you if it's a legitimate issue.