EPO - Discussion forums

In OPS, if a query does not provide any results, the calling application receives the above HTTP message from the OPS server. The calling application (such as when written in Csharp) interprets this message as a WebException, necessitating a catch{} block which disrupts normal program flow. The fact that a query does not provide any result is however not a severe error necessitating the throwing of a WebException. Is there a way to configure OPS such that in the case of a resultless query, it will return "OK" with an empty worldpatentdata object, instead of returning "404 Not found"?

Mike_k43

Dear user,

Thank you for your suggestion.

We will discuss it internally, analyse the feasibility and come back to you.

Kind regards,

OPS support

As an addendum, I noticed that there is another post of February 2017, entitled "Incorrect HttpResponse Status when no results found [v 3.2]". This user has exactly the same problem as I have. He furthermore observed that the return "404 Not found" is specific to OPS 3.2. I re-checked my problem as well in both 3.1 and 3.2, because I remembered that the problem only started as soon as I started to specify "3.2" in the links. I can confirm that 3.1 correctly returns in the case of a null result query "OK" and an empty worldpatentdata object, but 3.2 returns "404 not found" causing a WebException. Why was the behavior changed from 3.1 to 3.2? And what is the result of the considerations that OPS support announced in February 2017 to the user of the said earlier post?

mike_k43

Dear user,

Thank you for these additional details.

Kind regards,

OPS Support

Dear user,

This issue is going to be fixed with the next OPS maintenance release which is currently scheduled for early September.

We expect to be able to provide additional information about the new release on this Forum by the end of August.

Kind regards,

OPS Support