"The API response was an error" in OpenFDA search query

Question

I used the following query: https://api.fda.gov/device/event.json?search=date_received:[20120101+TO+20141231]+AND+device.device_report_product_code:LLZ+AND+product_problem_flag:Y+AND+event_type:"Death"&limit=1

OpenFDA returned a message "The API response was an error. Bummer. Check the syntax and give it another try."

I then tried to relax the time frame and made the query to be: https://api.fda.gov/device/event.json?search=date_received:[20010101+TO+20141231]+AND+device.device_report_product_code:LLZ+AND+product_problem_flag:Y+AND+event_type:"Death"&limit=1

It returned 1 result.

Could anyone help diagnose whether there is a bug in my query? Thanks!

Answer 1

When I run the query, using an ordinary web browser:

https://api.fda.gov/device/event.json?search=date_received:[20120101+TO+20141231]+AND+device.device_report_product_code:LLZ+AND+product_problem_flag:Y+AND+event_type:"Death"&limit=1

The API returns:

{ "error": { "code": "NOT_FOUND", "message": "No matches found!" } }

I believe the message the original poster was seeing is on the interactive query explorer on the openFDA website. It manually reprocesses no-results queries into the "bummer" error message. I'll log a bug to handle "no results found" cases.

In this case, neither the API nor the query are wrong. There are no results for the time period specified.