Elsevier Developer Portal

API Error Messages

Troubleshooting quick tips

Verify you are submitting with your request a valid APIKey.
If using the CrossRef's TDM service, verify you are submitting with your request a valid CrossRef TDM token.
Check your IP address and verify it is within the IP address range of an organization that has a subscription to Elsevier products.
The specific resource you wish to search or retrieve may not be covered by your organization's subscription. If so, please contact your library or information services department to arrange access.
If you are not with a subscribing organization you can still retrieve free and open access content -- or speak to us about non-subscriber access. See here for more details.

Common Error Scenarios

Introduction

Resources such as Article Retrieval API allow clients to retrieve various formats of a full-text article. However, access to the different formats, including the full content of the article, can be limited based upon the user's entitlements. User entitlements are a combination of what is covered by the user's subscription and what is deemed freely available (open access content) within the Elsevier system.

An article outside of a user's entitlements may be filtered in the amount of content returned or could be restricted altogether if that format is only available in context with the entire document contents (ex. HTML or ePub).

How views impact access to content

A view is an indicator of the amount of and type of data associated with a particular resource. Each resource URI has a default view of the resource returned when a specific view is not provided. This may or not be the totality of the data available based upon a variety of factors. The factors that influence the views supported include:

The permissions associated with the APIKey used in the request (the APIKey may not be configured to allow access to some views or formats).
The entitlements associated with the end-user credentials submitted with the request. For example, although the APIKey may be configured to return a the full text of an article as the default view when the end-user is entitled to the source from which the document came, the response may return only a subset of that text if that end-user is not entitled.
Certain formats of resource may not be supported in all views. For example, formats such as HTML, ePUB, and MOBI are only applicable for the full text of an article, which means these formats would not be returned if the end-user is not entitled to the source from which the document came.

Because of these factors, it is also possible to receive an error when explicitly specifying a view. An error would occur if one of the factors above prevents the return of the view specified. When a view is not specified, a best effort is made to "downgrade" the view to another, lesser one that is acceptable based upon the permissions associated with the APIKey and/or end-user entitlements.

The following outlines some of the scenarios under which an error response (HTTP status of 400, 401, or 403) can be returned:

Error Condition	Error Codes	Explanation
Inability to retrieve the full content of a specific document. Also unable to retrieve the document in other formats such as PDF and HTML.	HTTP 401 - Unauthorized (APIKey [...] with IP address [...] is unrecognized or has insufficient privileges for access to this resource) HTTP 403 - Forbidden (Requestor configuration settings undefined or insufficient for access to this resource.)	Authorization and access to documents is managed through a combination of APIKey configuration settings and the A&E entitlements of authorization (through IP address or authorization token). Although an APIKey may be properly configured to allow access to the full content of the document the authenticated A&E account (identified through the IP address or authorization token associated with the request) does not contain sufficient entitlements to access the document. This typically occurs when a document comes from a source to which the A&E account is not subscribed.
Inability to retrieve the document when requesting a specific view, such as FULL.	HTTP 400 - Bad Request (View parameter specified in request is not valid) HTTP 401 - Unauthorized (APIKey [...] with IP address [...] is unrecognized or has insufficient privileges for access to this resource)	Certain fields or views map to specific entitlement-restricted areas of the document. The inability to retrieve a specific view of a document typically occurs because the requestor is not entitled to the full content of the document. Requests for textual formats such as XML or JSON submitted without a specific field or view will return the most complete format of the document available. On the other hand, specifying a specific field or view associated with content in the document for which the requestor is not entitled to retrieve will result in an error.
CrossRef TDM Token: Inability to retrieve the full content of a document.	HTTP 401 - Unauthorized (APIKey [...] with IP address [...] is unrecognized or has insufficient privileges for access to this resource) HTTP 403 - Forbidden (Requestor configuration settings undefined or insufficient for access to this resource.)	Authorization and access to documents when using a CrossRef TDM token is managed through the A&E entitlements of authorization, identified through the IP address submitted with the request. Thus, the authenticated A&E account may not contain sufficient entitlements to access the full content of the document. This typically occurs when a document comes from a source to which the A&E account is not subscribed.
CrossRef TDM Token: Inability to retrieve the document when requesting a specific view, such as FULL.	HTTP 400 - Bad Request (View parameter specified in request is not valid) HTTP 401 - Unauthorized (APIKey [...] with IP address [...] is unrecognized or has insufficient privileges for access to this resource) HTTP 403 - Forbidden (Requestor configuration settings undefined or insufficient for access to this resource.)	Certain fields or views map to specific entitlement-restricted areas of the document. The inability to retrieve a specific view of a document typically occurs because the A&E account associated with the IP address of the requestor is not entitled to the full content of the document. Requests for textual formats such as XML or JSON submitted without a specific field or view will return the most complete format of the document available. On the other hand, specifying a specific field or view associated with content in the document for which the requestor is not entitled to retrieve will result in an error.
Ability to retrieve full text in some response formats, such as XML and JSON but not others, such as PDF or HTML.	HTTP 400 - Bad Request (View parameter specified in request is not valid) HTTP 401 - Unauthorized (APIKey [...] with IP address [...] is unrecognized or has insufficient privileges for access to this resource) HTTP 403 - Forbidden (Requestor configuration settings undefined or insufficient for access to this resource.)	An APIKey can be configured to allow access only to textual formats of the document (XML, JSON) and restricts access to other, richer mime type formats (PDF, HTML, ePub, etc.).

Additional Information

An explanation of how our APIs authenticate and authorize clients for access can be found here.
General API documentation can be found here.