API Errors

Understanding WebScrapingAPI's HTTP response codes helps you identify the root cause of the errors you may encounter.

We have come across some instances of custom captchas that are being marked with a status code of 200, indicating a successful request. To ensure accurate billing and prevent any charges for these requests, it is necessary for us to mark them as 422. We kindly ask for your cooperation in reporting any encounters with custom captchas where the status code is 200. Your continued support is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Below is a list of all the HTTP error codes you may encounter using the WebScrapingAPI:

Code
Description

400

Bad Request – Your request is invalid or has invalid parameters. This error code along the error message is also sent when the url could not be properly scraped.

401

Unauthorized – Your API key is wrong or invalid or your credit quota is exceeded.

403

Forbidden – You do not have sufficient rights to a resource such as JavaScript rendering or country specific geolocation. Please upgrade your subscription plan accordingly.

406

Not Acceptable – You requested a format that is not supported.

422

Unprocessable Entity - Your request was correct but the API failed to fulfill it. You can receive this code in one of the following situations:

  • the target website returned a CAPTCHA challenge under status 200 OK

  • the target website returned a CAPTCHA challenge after a request with render_js disabled

  • the response HTML does not contain a valid <body> tag

  • the target website is an Instagram profile and the response is the Instagram login page

  • you used the wait_for_css parameter and the selector does not exist/appear on the website

429

Too Many Requests – You’re making too many requests in short succession or too many parallel requests. This error code is also thrown by Google when the API is detected.

500

Internal Server Error – We had a problem with our server. Please try again later!

503

Service Unavailable – We’re temporarily offline for maintenance. Please try again later!

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