Warning Issue: Error in handle_api_response(resp, TRUE) : -> DHS API Request Failed [500] -> Error Type: dhs_internal_server_error

[bpatenaude]

Hello, I am getting the following error whenever I try to get a dataset (it worked yesterday and has worked for months prior so there seems to be something new going on the DHS side, perhaps? My whole team is getting the same error no matter what dataset we try to download:

get_datasets() (with any dataset we have in our account) produces:

Error in handle_api_response(resp, TRUE) :
-> DHS API Request Failed [500]
-> Error Type: dhs_internal_server_error

I have re-downloaded the package using:
devtools::install_github("ropensci/rdhs")

which didn't solve the problem.

Here is my Session Info, if helpful:

setting value
version R version 4.0.3 (2020-10-10)
os macOS Big Sur 10.16
system x86_64, darwin17.0
ui RStudio
language (EN)
collate en_US.UTF-8
ctype en_US.UTF-8
tz America/New_York
date 2022-04-26

[jeffeaton]

Thanks very much for flagging this. I reproduced this error just now:

> get_datasets("MWIR71FL.zip")
Error in handle_api_response(resp, TRUE) : 
   -> DHS API Request Failed [500] 
   -> Error Type: dhs_internal_server_error

I traced it to the call to dhs_surveys() API endpoint failing in the internal function available_datasets().

> dhs_surveys()
Error in handle_api_response(resp, TRUE) : 
   -> DHS API Request Failed [500] 
   -> Error Type: dhs_internal_server_error

That API endpoint is here: https://api.dhsprogram.com/rest/dhs/surveys. I get the same error when I try to browse to it via web browser:

Hopefully the API will be resolved in the next day or so.

[jeffeaton]

Hi @bpatenaude,

I've just checked this again and it looks to me that the API is back up again. Is it working for you again?

@OJWatson -- one thought I had while debugging this. Would it be easy for rdhs:::handle_api_response() to print the URL of the API call if it fails?

Thanks,
Jeff

[verhulsta]

Hi @jeffeaton,

I contacted DHS this week and showed them your message. They fixed it immediatly.

Thanks,

Andrea