Amazon Product API: "Your request is missing a required parameter combination" on Blended ItemSearch

Posted by Daniel Schaffer on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Daniel Schaffer
Published on 2010-04-02T17:21:20Z Indexed on 2010/04/02 17:23 UTC
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amazon-product-api

I'm having some problems trying to do an ItemSearch on the Blended index using the Amazon Product API.

According to the documentation, Blended requests cannot specify the MerchantId parameter - and indeed, if I try to include it I get an error telling me so. However, when I don't include it, I get an error telling me that my request is missing a required parameter combination and that a valid combination includes MerchantId... what the hell? Here's the XML response:

<Items xmlns="http://webservices.amazon.com/AWSECommerceService/2005-10-05">
  <Request>
    <IsValid>False</IsValid>
    <ItemSearchRequest>
      <Availability>Available</Availability>
      <Condition>All</Condition>
      <Keywords> home theater pc and other geekery</Keywords>
      <ResponseGroup>Similarities</ResponseGroup>
      <ResponseGroup>SalesRank</ResponseGroup>
      <ResponseGroup>OfferSummary</ResponseGroup>
      <ResponseGroup>Small</ResponseGroup>
      <ResponseGroup>Images</ResponseGroup>
      <SearchIndex>Blended</SearchIndex>
    </ItemSearchRequest>
    <Errors>
      <Error>
        <Code>AWS.MissingParameterCombination</Code>
        <Message>Your request is missing a required parameter combination. Required parameter combinations include MerchantId, Availability.</Message>
      </Error>
    </Errors>
  </Request>
</Items>

The failing requests are being sent as part of batches with other requests that are succeeding.

I'm using REST to send my requests, so here's an example of a request:

http://ecs.amazonaws.com/onca/xml?AWSAccessKeyId=-------------&
ItemSearch.1.Keywords=Mates%20of%20State&
ItemSearch.1.MerchantId=Amazon&
ItemSearch.1.SearchIndex=DVD&
ItemSearch.2.Keywords=teaching%20Lily%20various%20computer%20related%20skills&
ItemSearch.2.SearchIndex=Blended&
ItemSearch.Shared.Availability=Available&
ItemSearch.Shared.Condition=All&
ItemSearch.Shared.ResponseGroup=Small%2CSalesRank%2CImages%2COfferSummary%2CSimilarities&
Operation=ItemSearch%2CSimilarityLookup&
Service=AWSECommerceService&
SimilarityLookup.1.ItemId=B000FNNHZ2&
SimilarityLookup.2.ItemId=B000EQ5UPU&
SimilarityLookup.Shared.Availability=Available&
SimilarityLookup.Shared.Condition=All&
SimilarityLookup.Shared.MerchantId=Amazon&
SimilarityLookup.Shared.ResponseGroup=Small%2CSalesRank%2CImages%2COfferSummary&
Timestamp=2010-04-02T17%3A18%3A05Z&
Signature=----------------

Any ideas as to what I'm doing wrong?

Developer IT