https://prices.azure.com:443/api/retail/prices return empty items occasionally

Question

https://prices.azure.com:443/api/retail/prices return empty items occasionally

Yu Le Yi 25

Hi and greetings,

I'm using https://prices.azure.com:443/api/retail/prices this api to get prices programlly recent days and it worked well until today.

Today I found the api occasionally return empty results:

###################################################################

lionyu@SHA-LAP-AC803:/tmp$ curl 'https://prices.azure.com:443/api/retail/prices?$filter=serviceName%20eq%20%27Virtual%20Machines%27%20and%20priceType%20eq%20%27Consumption%27%20and%20indexof%28meterName%2C%20%27Spot%27%29%20eq%20-1%20and%20indexof%28meterName%2C%20%27Low%20Priority%27%29%20eq%20-1%20and%20indexof%28productName%2C%20%27Dedicated%20Host%27%29%20eq%20-1%20and%20indexof%28productName%2C%20%27Cloud%20Services%27%29%20eq%20-1&currencyCode=EUR&$skip=9000'

{"BillingCurrency":"EUR","CustomerEntityId":"Default","CustomerEntityType":"Retail","Items":[],"NextPageLink":null,"Count":0}

###################################################################

This url should return some items because it's received from previous(skip=8000) page result's 'NextPageLink' field.

This happened about once over every ten requests, occasionally but definitely reproduceable. Any suggestion?

PRADEEPCHEEKATLA 90,661 Reputation points Moderator

2023-09-07T06:02:41.45+00:00

@Yu Le Yi - Thanks for the question and using MS Q&A platform.

Could you please help us which Azure service are you using to retrieve the the above API?

When I tried to open the API which return the data as shown below:

Yu Le Yi 25

Hello @PRADEEPCHEEKATLA ,

Thanks for your response.

To help understand and reproduce this problem, I wrote a couple of python codes (basically refer to codes in https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/cost-management/retail-prices/azure-retail-prices#programmatic-example):

import requests
import json

def fetch_price_items():
    api_url = "https://prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices"
    # filter params
    conditions = [
        "serviceName eq 'Virtual Machines'",
        "priceType eq 'Consumption'",
        "indexof(meterName, 'Spot') eq -1",
        "indexof(meterName, 'Low Priority') eq -1",
        "indexof(productName, 'Dedicated Host') eq -1",
        "indexof(productName, 'Cloud Services') eq -1"
    ]
    query = " and ".join(conditions)
    response = requests.get(api_url, params={'$filter': query})
    json_data = json.loads(response.text)
    res = json_data['Items']
    nextPage = json_data['NextPageLink']   
    while nextPage:
        response = requests.get(nextPage)
        json_data = json.loads(response.text)
        if not json_data['Items']:
            raise Exception(f"Oops, empty items got! response is: {response.text}")
        res += json_data['Items']
        print(f"fetch prices items from azure {nextPage}, total {len(res)} collected")
        nextPage = json_data['NextPageLink']
    return res


if __name__ == "__main__":
    fetch_price_items()

You can check my detail request filter params from these codes. And also you can run these codes by python3.x and see if it will crash at the Exception('Oops, empty items got...').

In my machine, it crashed every time but with different pagination loop times.

SwathiDhanwada-MSFT 18,996 Reputation points Moderator

2023-09-07T10:52:42.4133333+00:00

Yu Le Yi Thanks for reporting this. I am checking with product team and will provide an update soon.

Accepted answer

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PRADEEPCHEEKATLA 90,661 Reputation points Moderator

2023-09-07T06:02:41.45+00:00

@Yu Le Yi - Thanks for the question and using MS Q&A platform.

Could you please help us which Azure service are you using to retrieve the the above API?

When I tried to open the API which return the data as shown below:
Yu Le Yi 25 Reputation points

2023-09-07T06:24:46.5966667+00:00

Hello @PRADEEPCHEEKATLA ,

Thanks for your response.

To help understand and reproduce this problem, I wrote a couple of python codes (basically refer to codes in https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/cost-management/retail-prices/azure-retail-prices#programmatic-example):

import requests import json def fetch_price_items(): api_url = "https://prices.azure.com/api/retail/prices" # filter params conditions = [ "serviceName eq 'Virtual Machines'", "priceType eq 'Consumption'", "indexof(meterName, 'Spot') eq -1", "indexof(meterName, 'Low Priority') eq -1", "indexof(productName, 'Dedicated Host') eq -1", "indexof(productName, 'Cloud Services') eq -1" ] query = " and ".join(conditions) response = requests.get(api_url, params={'$filter': query}) json_data = json.loads(response.text) res = json_data['Items'] nextPage = json_data['NextPageLink'] while nextPage: response = requests.get(nextPage) json_data = json.loads(response.text) if not json_data['Items']: raise Exception(f"Oops, empty items got! response is: {response.text}") res += json_data['Items'] print(f"fetch prices items from azure {nextPage}, total {len(res)} collected") nextPage = json_data['NextPageLink'] return res if __name__ == "__main__": fetch_price_items()

You can check my detail request filter params from these codes. And also you can run these codes by python3.x and see if it will crash at the Exception('Oops, empty items got...').

In my machine, it crashed every time but with different pagination loop times.
SwathiDhanwada-MSFT 18,996 Reputation points Moderator

2023-09-07T10:52:42.4133333+00:00

Yu Le Yi Thanks for reporting this. I am checking with product team and will provide an update soon.

Answer 1

SwathiDhanwada-MSFT 18,996 Moderator

Yu Le Yi There was some changes introduced to the Azure Retail API recently to increase the number of items returned per page. We observed some throttling causing this issue - occasionally API returns empty items when the throttling happening. We have taken the counter steps to overcome the throttling and it should not be an issue anymore.

If in case the throttling happens, you will be notified 429 status with a re-try time instead of giving empty response in future.

Yu Le Yi 25 Reputation points

2023-09-08T01:06:52.5533333+00:00

Hello Swathidhanwada，

Thank you for your response.

Is this issue still existing or already resolved? I just tried again and still got empty result with http-200 status like yesterday.

Btw, it's a little odd about the throttling because I often got the empty result just after 3 or 4 success requests. According to my understanding, this number of requests should unlikely trigger throttling . Could you please share throttling rule (eg. the max allowed requests in one minute) of this API for me?
Yu Le Yi 25 Reputation points

2023-09-08T01:07:45.3433333+00:00

Some logs here, hope to be helpful:

send: b'CONNECT prices.azure.com:443 HTTP/1.0\r\n'

send: b'\r\n'

send: b'GET /api/retail/prices?$filter=serviceName%20eq%20%27Virtual%20Machines%27%20and%20priceType%20eq%20%27Consumption%27%20and%20indexof%28meterName%2C%20%27Spot%27%29%20eq%20-1%20and%20indexof%28meterName%2C%20%27Low%20Priority%27%29%20eq%20-1%20and%20indexof%28productName%2C%20%27Dedicated%20Host%27%29%20eq%20-1%20and%20indexof%28productName%2C%20%27Cloud%20Services%27%29%20eq%20-1&$skip=4000 HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: prices.azure.com\r\nUser-Agent: python-requests/2.28.1\r\nAccept-Encoding: gzip, deflate\r\nAccept: */*\r\nConnection: keep-alive\r\n\r\n'

reply: 'HTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\n'

header: Content-Length: 219

header: Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8

header: Date: Fri, 08 Sep 2023 00:48:15 GMT

header: Server: Microsoft-IIS/10.0

header: Cache-Control: no-cache

header: Content-Encoding: gzip

header: Expires: -1

header: Pragma: no-cache

header: Set-Cookie: ARRAffinity=267e41c40942d87f5c40e95a0bc8e4e360ff8dfc03abb6f61c6fbff0beb2bde6;Path=/;HttpOnly;Secure;Domain=prices.azure.com

header: Set-Cookie: ARRAffinitySameSite=267e41c40942d87f5c40e95a0bc8e4e360ff8dfc03abb6f61c6fbff0beb2bde6;Path=/;HttpOnly;SameSite=None;Secure;Domain=prices.azure.com

header: Vary: Accept-Encoding

header: x-ms-ratelimit-retailPrices-retry-after: 60

header: x-ms-ratelimit-remaining-retailPrices-requests: 9

header: X-AspNet-Version: 4.0.30319

header: X-Powered-By: ASP.NET

{'BillingCurrency': 'USD', 'CustomerEntityId': 'Default', 'CustomerEntityType': 'Retail', 'Items': [], 'NextPageLink': None, 'Count': 0}
SwathiDhanwada-MSFT 18,996 Reputation points Moderator

2023-09-08T02:22:39.6766667+00:00

Yu Le Yi I want to assure you that our team is actively working on a solution, and product team have identified the issue's root cause. While we understand the frustration of dealing with this problem, please rest assured that product team are taking every possible step to expedite the resolution.

Based on current progress, we anticipate that the issue will be fully resolved by next week. We will keep you updated on our progress and notify you as soon as the issue is completely resolved.
SwathiDhanwada-MSFT 18,996 Reputation points Moderator

2023-09-14T07:07:00.2766667+00:00

Yu Le Yi This issue has been fixed. Kindly check from your end and revert to me if you are still facing the issue.
Yu Le Yi 25 Reputation points

2023-09-15T02:53:27.5866667+00:00
Hi SwathiDhanwada,

Thank you and your team's work very much.

However, I'm still facing this issue. Today I tried three times:

The first time failed with an empty item result when skip=51000

The second time finished successfully and the final skip is 62000

The third time failed again with an empty item result when skip=4000
SwathiDhanwada-MSFT 18,996 Reputation points Moderator

2023-09-15T17:46:41.9+00:00

Yu Le Yi Product team have rolled out the new changes to this API to increase the page size from 100 to 1000 and the increased call volume is what causing this throttling. Product team are rolling out another change by mid next week – so that you will get 429 – Http Status code and will provide information on the re-try intervals so that they can re-try within that interval for continuation. Kindly re-try the same page after 60 seconds till that fix go live.

Also please share the time stamp and time zone of this issue happened so that PG team can investigate more on the specific call to check what might have caused the throttling during this time frame.
Yu Le Yi 25 Reputation points

2023-09-18T00:47:49.2566667+00:00
Hi SwathiDhanwada,

To record detailed time stamp, I've run the test again today.

The first time:

From: Mon, 18 Sep 2023 00:17:12 GMT

To: Mon, 18 Sep 2023 00:18:24 GMT

Result: failed with an empty items result when skip=21000.

Failed Response Header:

reply: 'HTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\n' header: Content-Length: 219 header: Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8 header: Date: Mon, 18 Sep 2023 00:18:24 GMT header: Server: Microsoft-IIS/10.0 header: Cache-Control: no-cache header: Content-Encoding: gzip header: Expires: -1 header: Pragma: no-cache header: Set-Cookie: ARRAffinity=c3e56c5cc8f2059e9ca5b31ea6306f0b4d439389925f19007ee442dc2004e749;Path=/;HttpOnly;Secure;Domain=prices.azure.com header: Set-Cookie: ARRAffinitySameSite=c3e56c5cc8f2059e9ca5b31ea6306f0b4d439389925f19007ee442dc2004e749;Path=/;HttpOnly;SameSite=None;Secure;Domain=prices.azure.com header: Vary: Accept-Encoding header: x-ms-ratelimit-retailPrices-retry-after: 60 header: x-ms-ratelimit-remaining-retailPrices-requests: 9 header: X-AspNet-Version: 4.0.30319 header: X-Powered-By: ASP.NET

There is a unique cookie of 'ARRAffinity=c3e56c5cc8f2059e9ca5b31ea6306f0b4d439389925f19007ee442dc2004e749' in response header which I think could possible be helpful for your team to locate this failed request.

The second time:

From: Mon, 18 Sep 2023 00:24:42 GMT

To: Mon, 18 Sep 2023 00:30:41 GMT

Result: successfully get all results, final skip=62000

The third time:

From: Mon, 18 Sep 2023 00:31:11 GMT

To: Mon, 18 Sep 2023 00:34:44 GMT

Result: successfully get all results, final skip=62000
SwathiDhanwada-MSFT 18,996 Reputation points Moderator

2023-09-18T10:56:26.8233333+00:00

Yu Le Yi Thanks for the details and I will share them with PG team and keep you posted on the updates.
SwathiDhanwada-MSFT 18,996 Reputation points Moderator

2023-09-27T07:24:19.2666667+00:00

Our product team recently conducted a thorough investigation into the issue you reported. It appears that a certain call pattern triggered throttling on our end, resulting in you receiving no records during the affected period. We've taken immediate action and made necessary fixes to address this throttling concern.

To ensure that the issue is fully resolved for you, we kindly request your assistance in confirming whether you are still encountering any problems after the recent fixes have been implemented.

Looking ahead, we have plans to further enhance our system. In the upcoming week, we'll be rolling out an additional fix. If, in the future, high call volumes lead to throttling, our system will respond with a 429 HTTP Status code. This will enable you to retry the call after a designated re-try time frame, allowing you to proceed with your request seamlessly.
Yu Le Yi 25 Reputation points

2023-09-28T06:59:39.6866667+00:00

Hi SwathiDhanwada,

I just run the test for several times today and all successfully passed with full response. Looks like this issue has been resolved.

It helps me a lot. Thank you and your team very much. Have a nice day. :-)
Yu Le Yi 25 Reputation points

2023-09-28T07:04:12.26+00:00

Hi SwathiDhanwada

I just run the test today for several times and all successfully passed with full responses. So looks like this issue has been nicely resolved. Thank you and your team's work. It helps me a lot.

Have a good day :-)
SwathiDhanwada-MSFT 18,996 Reputation points Moderator

2023-09-28T07:10:10.7933333+00:00

Yu Le Yi Glad to know the issue is resolved. Thanks for confirming this.

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