This week, I am still in troubleshooting mode even though I overcame the JSON parsing, I am now working on 2 roadblocks. 1 is the barcode scanning package we are currently using does not appear to work on any barcodes. It gives us an error that seems to pop up for various android packages that utilize the camera. The other error came in the form of the amount of API calls I am allowed to make to Barcode Lookup.
I’ve done some preliminary research into this issue and this one seems to be a bit trickier and more of a niche error. So finding an immediate fix on the internet seems to be a bit tougher. This will require a bit more effort and potentially looking at alternative solutions to accomplish the scanning via camera within the app.
The other roadblock I am facing is that there is a limit to the number of API calls I can make to the Barcode Lookup API which is used to access a database of products and their barcode info. I realized I hit this limit when one day while I was programming, the API request was no longer returning a result.
A little digging unveiled that there is a 50 call cap on free accounts and that accounts expire within a week. The cheapest paid option was $99 per month to make 5,000 API calls a month. This is a bit steep for my personal taste, so the workaround I discovered is that I will be creating new free accounts when I run out of the 50 API calls. This should be sufficient for development and for the final project turn in. It is a makeshift work around, but quick and painless enough that it doesn’t limit our development process.
The second issue was resolved, but hopefully by the next blog post I can give a resolved update on the first issue…