apache/beam · error · IOException

Unable to get Google Ads response after retrying

Error message

Unable to get Google Ads response after retrying %d times using query (%s)

What it means

GoogleAdsV23.processElement retries the GoogleAdsService.search call up to MAX_RETRIES with backoff; if all attempts fail it throws IOException 'Unable to get Google Ads response after retrying N times using query (...)' with the last exception as cause.

Solutions

Inspect the cause (lastException) for the underlying Google Ads error code
Fix the GAQL query if it is a client error (4xx)
Reduce query rate / implement longer backoff to respect quotas
Refresh or fix credentials if auth errors are reported

Example fix

// before
String query = "SELECT invalid_field FROM campaign";
// after
String query = "SELECT campaign.id, campaign.name FROM campaign"; // valid GAQL

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Validate before calling

// validate GAQL offline: check required SELECT/FROM present and fields exist for the resource

Try / catch

try { read.expand(p); } catch (IOException e) { if (e.getMessage().startsWith("Unable to get Google Ads response after retrying")) { inspectCauseAndBackoff(e.getCause()); } else throw e; }

Prevention

Respect Google Ads API quotas; batch queries and limit date ranges
Test GAQL queries in the Google Ads query validator
Monitor auth token expiry for long-running jobs

When it happens

Trigger: A Google Ads query that fails on every retry within processElement - persistent API errors (quota exceeded, invalid query, auth expiry) exhausting MAX_RETRIES.

Common situations: Exceeded Google Ads API rate limits over an extended window; malformed GAQL query; expired credentials mid-run; Google Ads API outage.

Understand the failure class

Background: 'Something went wrong' / 'Request failed (500)' / 'HTTP error! status: 404' — what failed HTTP requests actually mean and how to find the real cause — this error's family across 28 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of apache/beam@12126d8942 (2026-09-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a8a8e5585408b919. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at sdks/java/io/google-ads/src/main/java/org/apache/beam/sdk/io/googleads/GoogleAdsV23.java:537

            if (retryableError.getDetails().getQuotaErrorDetails().hasRetryDelay()) {
              nextBackoff =
                  new BackOff() {
                    @Override
                    public void reset() {}

                    @Override
                    public long nextBackOffMillis() {
                      return Durations.toMillis(
                          retryableError.getDetails().getQuotaErrorDetails().getRetryDelay());
                    }
                  };
            } else {
              nextBackoff = backoff;
            }
          }
        } while (BackOffUtils.next(sleeper, nextBackoff));

        throw new IOException(
            String.format(
                "Unable to get Google Ads response after retrying %d times using query (%s)",
                MAX_RETRIES, request.getQuery()),
            lastException);
      }

      @Teardown
      public void teardown() {
        if (googleAdsServiceClient != null) {
          googleAdsServiceClient.close();
        }
      }

      private Optional<GoogleAdsError> findFirstRetryableError(GoogleAdsFailure e) {
        return e.getErrorsList().stream()
            .filter(
                err ->
                    // Unexpected internal error

View on GitHub (pinned to 12126d8942)