Your mobile app's third-party API integration is failing. How will you troubleshoot and fix the issue?

To troubleshoot and fix a failing third-party API integration in a mobile app, begin by checking the logs for error messages and noting any recent changes that might have triggered the issue. Verify the API's status on its official status page or social media to rule out outages or maintenance. Review the latest API documentation to ensure your implementation is correct and up-to-date. Test network connectivity and firewall settings to confirm that the app can reach the API server. Double-check that API keys or tokens are accurate and not expired. Use debugging tools to inspect HTTP requests and responses for errors. Implement retry logic for transient errors and enhance error handling to manage exceptions gracefully.

Start by ensuring that your app has the necessary access to the third-party API. Check your API keys, tokens, and any authentication credentials. Verify that they are correctly configured and have not expired. Access issues are often the root cause of API integration failures.

Ensure the API key for core development is kept secure and integrated with different environments like Qual, Staging, and Production. Make sure your API key is up-to-date. Some third-party APIs refresh their API keys every three months for secure access. Do not store your secure key in any mobile device or desktop code; always keep it in Azure Key Vault or any other secure storage. This way, if any key changes, you won't need to update your application manually. The API key in Azure Key Vault will auto-update your UI accordingly.

Systematic Diagnosis and Resolution: Troubleshooting a failing third-party API integration involves a systematic approach. First, verify that the API endpoints and credentials are correctly configured. Check the API documentation for any updates or changes. Use tools like Postman to test API requests independently from your app, ensuring the issue is not within your code. Review error logs and server responses to identify specific error messages. Once identified, implement fixes, retest thoroughly, and monitor the integration to confirm stability. Clear and transparent communication with the API provider can also provide valuable insights and support.

First You've To Check That Your Token Or Other API Keys Are Valid And Working, If They're Valid Start Running Your API URL And Keys In Postman for example and see the results to make sure that everything is OK at your app.

To address authentication issues, always refresh tokens before they expire. Implement logic in your application to throttle requests to prevent exceeding rate limits by spacing out requests appropriately. If the API responds with a rate limit error, wait for some time before retrying the request. Additionally, reduce the number of API calls by batching requests or caching responses when possible.

After every api call , we should also log into our system about which api call was recently done. these logs can be life savour

To Verify that your API is working or not, take a look at the logs such as Logcat in Android Studio and see what happens when your app send a request & receive a response, If everything is okay like access token & auth are valid, and the api limit is not exceeded then try your api outside your app, Try it in postman to see what's wrong.

Look at your server logs to see if there are any error messages or warnings that can give you a clue about what went wrong. Check the response from the API calls. Often, APIs return error codes or messages that can help diagnose the problem.

To check for logs, usually, with Sublime Text, you can open up big files of logs and searching for patterns and timestamps. There are also other ways for checking for example server logs, you can login to that particular server via SSH and with iTerm2 terminal can highlight logs.

Use monitoring tools to set up alerts for change log updates from the API service. Tools like Zapier, RSS feeds, or webhooks can notify you of changes automatically. On your code - 1. Implement an abstraction layer between your application and the API. This allows you to manage API interactions in one place, making it easier to update when changes occur. 2.Store API endpoint URLs, request parameters, and other configurable elements in a centralized configuration file or environment variables. This way, updates can be managed without altering the core code.

When implementing any API or any other RESTful service, always use versioning in the URL, this way when the project gets bigger, and the backend side needs to change some behavioural at that particular endpoint, it can be done easily with using v1, v2, and so on, and the mobile apps can adopt new updates based on the versioning.

To Prevent This Issue Specially When You're Not The API Owner You Can Create A Monitor From A Website Like (Better Stack) To Track & Check For The API Every Hour For Example And If Any Change Were Made In The API The Monitor Will Send You A Notification That This Link Is Not Working.

Review the latest API documentation to see if there have been any changes or deprecations that might affect your integration.

Postman is a powerful tool for testing and simulating APIs. While there are many alternatives available on the market, such as Insomnia and Paw, I still prefer using Postman for both macOS and Windows.

You Can Test The API In (PostMan) Or (HTTPie) To Identify The Problem Like Auth Error Or Response Error Or The End point is not working.

Test the API calls locally or in a staging environment to determine if the issue is with the API or specific to your production environment.

Also, you can use ProxyMan and add breakpoints to any request, and modify the outcome of any API response in real time. In order to build the functionality of the App, I would suggest to use mock data at first hand, this way you can work async in any team regardless if the backend the implementation.

Grafana with Prometheus is a top choice for free API monitoring, Collects and visualizes real-time metrics from your APIs and also Provides customizable dashboards to monitor API performance, errors, and usage.

Adding more logs to your code implementation helps to debug more easily when problems arise, keep in mind those logs to be hidden from the outside world (like, don't use INFO logs for sensitive data), you can use DEBUG logs, and send them to a remote server like Analytics, Datadog, Splunk, in a secure manner.

Check if your app is hitting any rate limits imposed by the API. Exceeding these limits can cause failures. Monitor the response times of the API. High latency can sometimes cause timeouts or failures in your app.

If the issue persists and cannot be resolved, consider exploring alternative APIs or solutions. Evaluate other third-party providers that offer similar functionalities. Ensure that the new API meets your app's requirements and integrates seamlessly. Having a backup plan can mitigate risks associated with API dependency.

Consider using an alternative API if available, especially if the current API is unreliable. Implement robust error handling to gracefully manage API failures and provide feedback to users.

Usually if it is a startup client, or an initial phase project, with small traffic users projections and only to test an MVP hypothesis, Firebase can be at very handy for this, as the project evolve, it can be migrated to a bigger cloud services, like Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, or your own server infrastructure. Migration should be made without losing the user base.

At some point I had to debug a connection problem within client-server application, because it wasn't using HTTP/HTTPS protocol or WebSockets to easily troubleshoot and debug with ProxyMan or Charles, it was using SMTP protocol, and in order to debug what happened there, I had to use a different sniffing tool called NSSurge. With that one I was able to see the traffic and the ACK connections and than come with a proper fix.

Search forums, Stack Overflow, or the API provider's support community for similar issues. Other developers may have encountered and solved the same problem.

Strategically and from a security perspective, direct communication between a mobile app and a third-party API should be managed in very rare cases. In most instances, there should be middleware between them. Middleware can enrich and validate data, notify about any errors, and cover fallback scenarios.