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API error messages

Introduction

Most API requests are completed successfully, but sometimes things go wrong and an error message is returned instead of the expected response.

Our API provides a variety of descriptive error messages intended to provide the reason for the error and provide suggestions for the appropriate solution. 

API error messages can be divided into several different groups (depending upon the type of error, the underlying cause, and the optimal solution), but the format of the API error messages is consistent, and is as follows:

"Severity Level""Error Category":"Error Message"

The "Severity Level" can be either E for an error or W for a warning. The "Error Category" can be one of General, API, Query, Order, Trade, Funding or Service. The "Error Message" can be any text string that describes the reason for the error (such as Invalid arguments).

For example, an error indicating that an invalid currency pair had been used in a ticker query would be as follows:

EQuery:Unknown asset pair

Note that some third party software (mobile apps, trading bots, etc.) choose to hide the original API error and present a customized error instead, hence an alternative error format or content is possible depending upon the software being used.

General usage errors

EGeneral:Permission denied
Permission denied errors are returned when the API client is attempting a task for which the API key does not have permission. For example, if an API client attempted to retrieve the account balance using an API key that was configured to allow trading access but not account management access, then the permission denied error would be returned. You can review your API keys and their settings (such as their permissions) via the Settings -> API tab of account management. You would need to make sure that the API keys being used by your third party apps have all of the settings and permissions that your apps require.
EAPI:Invalid key
This error is returned when the API key used for the call is either expired or disabled, please review the API key in your Settings -> API tab of account management or generate a new one and update your application.
EQuery:Unknown asset pair
You can pull the complete list of our asset pairs from the AssetPairs public call and look for the pair name as the entry of the Json headers or by the parameter "altname": https://api.kraken.com/0/public/AssetPairs
EGeneral:Invalid arguments
This error is returned when a method is called without the required parameters. For example, calling the QueryOrders method without specifying a valid transaction ID (txid) parameter would cause the invalid arguments error to be returned. Calling a method with unnecessary parameters would still not return the invalid arguments error because the unnecessary parameters would simply be ignored.
EAPI:Invalid signature
Invalid signature errors occurs if either your API key or API secret are written incorrectly in your program or because the POST data used in the authentication and the POST data sent to the API do not match.

For additional reference, the following is example Python code to implement the API signature algorithm. The appropriate API public key should be copied and pasted from account management, and the API method and POST data should be updated appropriately. The output value can be used directly as the value for the API-Sign HTTP header. 

#!/usr/bin/env python

# Import required Python libraries
import time
import base64
import hashlib
import hmac

# Decode API private key from base64 format displayed in account management
api_secret = base64.b64decode("nmlrD83t1J+yVWKUBx9vD6j26C5zhC11tFfXpN+Ww+8oOVuGgse5AeADcvl95jYaD+UAi3D5CrVfFr8GfQ7zhA==")

# Variables (API method, nonce, and POST data)
api_path = "/0/private/TradeBalance"
api_nonce = str(int(time.time()*1000))
api_post = "nonce=" + api_nonce + "&asset=xxbt"

# Cryptographic hash algorithms
api_sha256 = hashlib.sha256(api_nonce + api_post).digest()
api_hmac = hmac.new(api_secret, api_path + api_sha256, hashlib.sha512)

# Encode signature into base64 format used in API-Sign value
api_signature = base64.b64encode(api_hmac.digest())

# API authentication signature for use in API-Sign HTTP header
print(api_signature)

The SHA256 is calculated using the nonce value itself and the POST data for the API method and the POST DATA is comprised of the name/value pairs for the nonce (again) and the API method parameters. An example of the data that should be passed to the SHA256 for the TradeBalance method would be as follows:

SHA256 = SHA256 of "1541933977000nonce=1541933977000&asset=xxbt"

The string value that is passed to the SHA256 should not contain any additional null (\0) values and the string value should not be encoded as base64 or hex (i.e. the string value should be a plain text string).

The URI path is the entire URL of the API method except for the "https://api.kraken.com" prefix, so the URI path of the TradeBalance method (for example) would be the string value "/0/private/TradeBalance" without any additional null values.

The HMAC SHA512 is calculated using the URI path and the previously calculated SHA256 digest, with the base64 decoded API private key as the HMAC key. An example of the data that should be passed to the HMAC would be as follows:

HMAC SHA512 using base64 decoded private key = HMAC of "/0/private/TradeBalanceSHA256"

The API-Key and API-Sign HTTP headers are the only two required custom HTTP headers. The API-Key header is an exact duplicate of the API public key from account management. The API-Sign header is the HMAC SHA512 digest encoded using base64.

EAPI:Invalid nonce
ESession:Invalid session
Invalid session errors are returned via the WebSocket API, when an attempt is made to subscribe to an authenticated (private) feed using an authentication token that is no longer valid (has already expired, for example).

The solution is simply to request a new authentication token via the REST API GetWebSocketsToken endpoint, and use the new token for all subsequent authenticated (private) subscription requests.

EAPI:Bad request
A bad request error indicates that there is something incorrect about the underlying HTTP request (not the subsequent API request), such as mismatched URLs between REST/WebSocket, or not including the HTTP POST data correctly: 
% curl --data "" https://api.kraken.com/0/private/GetWebSocketsToken

{"error":["EAPI:Bad request"]}
EGeneral:Unknown Method
This error is returned when the endpoint being called is not a valid endpoint.

Rate limit errors

EOrder:Rate limit exceeded
While adding and canceling orders does not count against our standard API counter limits, these operations do have their own add and cancel order counter. This counter works in a way where the longer orders are left on the order book, the more orders clients are able to add or cancel.
EGeneral:Temporary lockout
Temporary lockout error messages can occur if you had too many failed API calls or too many invalid nonce errors in a short period of time or invalid signatures. Even though these calls return an error, that error still counts against your API limits and may result in a temporary lockout.

Temporary lockouts last approximately 15 minutes. After receiving the temporary lock out error, please wait 15 minutes before sending any new API requests. If you are triggering several invalid nonce errors, please increase the nonce window as this can help reduce the frequency that these errors will occur. Please try to reduce the frequency of your private API calls also.

Trading errors

EOrder:Cannot open position
Opening new spot positions on margin has been temporarily suspended for trading engine maintenance. The feature will be making a return soon and you can follow along with updates on status.kraken.com.

Another reasons may be that spot positions on margin are not currently available for clients residing in certain countries.

EOrder:Cannot open opposing position
On Kraken you cannot open a long and short position for the same pair.

If wishing to open a long and short position for the same currency, please choose different trading pairs with the same currency as the base or quote currency. Ex: short XBT/USD, long XBT/EUR.

EOrder:Margin allowance exceeded
This error occurs when you have exceeded the margin allowance limits for your current verification level. Margin allowance limits for each currency varies based on your current verification level.
EOrder:Insufficient margin
We have limited funds available for margin extensions. The "insufficient margin" message indicates that we are out of funds in the applicable margin pool for the time being. This can change at any time. You may be able to successfully place your order just seconds or minutes later, but high volume orders and orders placed during high volume times may take longer. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience.
EOrder:Insufficient funds (insufficient user funds)
You do not have the funds available to place this order. Please review your open positions and orders for items that may be holding up your funds.
EOrder:Order minimum not met (volume too low)
You have not met the minimum order volume for this asset.
EOrder:Orders limit exceeded
You have exceeded the maximum amount of open orders available to your account.

These limits are based on your verification level. Please close some of your open orders or verify your account to a higher level.

EOrder:Positions limit exceeded
You have exceeded the maximum amount of open positions available to your account.

These limits are based on your verification level. Please close or settle some or all of your open positions or verify your account to a higher level if possible.

EOrder:Order not editable
An attempt was made to edit an existing (open) order but the modifications could not be completed successfully. Possible reasons include insufficient funds for the new order, some partial fill scenarios, and some leveraged orders.
EOrder:Not enough leaves qty
The new volume is less than the already executed/filled volume.
EOrder:Margin position size exceeded
The order sized exceeded the margin position size limit of the trading pair.
EGeneral:Invalid arguments:display volume minimum not met
The display volume has not met the minimum order volume.
EGeneral:Invalid arguments:display-volume
The display volume must be less than the volume of the order.
EGeneral:Invalid arguments:iceberg:ordertype
Iceberg orders are not compatible with any other order types besides a limit order.

Funding errors

EFunding:Too many addresses
Each crypto currency has a maximum of 5 new (unused) deposit addresses, after which any attempt to create a 6th new address will return an error.
EFunding:No funding method
This error is returned whenever the funding endpoints are called with an invalid or missing "method" parameter. 
EFunding:Unknown withdraw key
The "key" input parameter does not correspond to the address description set within account management (via the Funding -> Withdraw).
EFunding:Invalid amount
The minimum withdrawal amounts by currency varies and any attempted withdrawal below the minimum would result in this error.
EFunding:Failed
This is a generic error indicating that a funding request could not be completed (for example, clients from certain locations attempting to make on chain staking requests would cause this error).
EGeneral:Invalid arguments:beneficiary_recipient
The requested withdrawal could not be completed, because the destination address is missing the required beneficiary/recipient information (note that this currently only applies to select withdrawals from Canadian accounts).

Service status errors

EService:Unavailable or EService:Busy
The service errors you are experiencing should only be temporary. You may wish to resubmit your requests if they have failed. We will be monitoring the issues and will update our page: https://status.kraken.com/

Internal errors

EGeneral:Internal error
When we are facing API degradation issues, these can translate into problems for both Kraken and cryptowat.ch in the form of service unavailable messages, 8XX errors on cryptowat.ch and site outages.
ETrade:Locked
This issue has to do with the security of your account which may have been compromised. Please change your password and Two-Factor Authentication and contact our Support Center.
EAPI:Feature disabled
This error occurs when a flag or input parameter is disabled temporary or permanently. The error should come from one of the inputs passed, please contact our support sending a log with the complete informations used for the call that generated the error.

Cloudflare errors

HTTP status codes 5xx and 10xx
These 5xx and 10xx errors are not actually API errors, but rather are web server errors from Cloudflare. API errors are always returned in JSON format such as "error":["ErrorType:ErrorMessage"], so any time that an error in a different format is received (such as an HTTP status code of 520, 504, 502, 1020, etc.), the interim solution is to try the API call again shortly afterwards and hopefully the call will then be successful.

A side effect of this issue is that an order can be placed successfully even though a 5xx or 10xx error is returned instead of the expected response. This is possible because Cloudflare sometimes experiences the error after the call to the API has been handled, hence the API call has been successful but returning the results via Cloudflare is not.

A solution to this side effect is to use user references (the userref parameter) for all orders. By placing each order with a unique user reference, the OpenOrders method can be used to confirm whether the order was placed successfully or not, thereby determining if the order needs to be placed again or not.

For example, if a call to the AddOrder method for a limit order includes the parameter "userref=12345678", a subsequent call to the OpenOrders method using the parameter "userref=12345678" would return the order information (including the order ID) for successfully placed orders, but would return no order information (such as only "result":"open":) for failed orders.