Common HTTP errors in the Figma API

Pedro Duarte Faria

Introduction

To get the data of your Figma file, the functions from package make a HTTP request to the Figma API. But this request can fail for a number of reasons, and if this does happen, is called to raise an error and report to the user, what kind of error message the Figma API returned.

A HTTP error means that the server could not fulfill the HTTP request you made. In the context of the figma package, we usually request for the data of a specific Figma file to the servers of the Figma platform, and if a HTTP error occurs, this means that servers of Figma could not deliver the data of this Figma file to you.

Every successful HTTP request occurs when the server respond with a HTTP status code equal to 200. So, every HTTP request that we make to the Figma servers that have a HTTP status code different than 200 is a HTTP error.

Most common HTTP errors

The most common HTTP errors returned by the Figma API are status codes 400, 404 and 403. The status code 400 is usually a signal of a internal bug in the figma package, and you should (if possible) report it to the authors by registering an issue in the official repository of the package.

In the other hand, status codes 404 and 403 are usually result of an user mistake in the key variables they provided to the functions of package.

library(figma)

Wrong node ID in figma::get_figma_page() results in status code 400

When you use figma::get_figma_page(), and it returns an HTTP error with status code 400, is possible that this error was caused by a mistake in the node ID that you provided to the function.

In other words, if the Figma API returns the status code 400 with figma::get_figma_page(), there is a chance that you provided a wrong or invalid node ID to the API. As an example, the code below uses a clearly wrong node ID, but a valid personal access token and a valid file key.

node_id <- "wrongID"
file_key <- "hch8YlkIrYbU3raDzjPvCz"
token <- "My valid personal access token... "
result <- get_figma_page(
  file_key, token, node_id
)

Error in `get_figma_page()`:
! HTTP Error:

• * URL used in the request: https://api.figma.com/v1/files/hch8YlkIrYbU3raDzjPvCz/nodes?ids=wrong
• * Status code returned by the API: 400
• * Error message returned by the API: ID wrongID is not a valid node_id
• * Headers returned by the API:
List of 3
 $ status : int 400
 $ version: chr "HTTP/2"
 $ headers:List of 13
  ..$ content-type                : chr "application/json; charset=utf-8"
  ..$ content-length              : chr "54"
  ..$ date                        : chr "Sun, 30 Oct 2022 23:10:49 GMT"
  ..$ access-control-allow-origin : chr "*"
  ..$ access-control-allow-headers: chr "Content-Type, X-Figma-Token, Authorization"
  ..$ cache-control               : chr "no-cache, no-store"
  ..$ vary                        : chr "X-Figma-Token,Authorization"
  ..$ x-cache                     : chr "Error from cloudfront"
  ..$ via                         : chr "1.1 a5f39a4680587f7042bdbc4ff6cd417c.cloudfront.net (CloudFront)"
  ..$ x-amz-cf-pop                : chr "GRU3-P1"
  ..$ alt-svc                     : chr "h3=\":443\"; ma=86400"
  ..$ x-amz-cf-id                 : chr "74-bxpmIzbo3clyliImc4IZCaVtxgW-VCFlMN9Na8Ixva1caM8JENw=="
  ..$ strict-transport-security   : chr "max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload"
  ..- attr(*, "class")= chr [1:2] "insensitive" "list"
Run `rlang::last_error()` to see where the error occurred.

404: File not found

When the Figma API returns a status code equal to 404, it means that the servers of Figma could not find the file you referred through the file key (or file ID) that you provided. In other words, you probably provided an incorrect file key (or file ID) to ’s function.

In the example below, I give a valid personal access token, but a very incorrect file key (or file ID). As a result, the Figma servers respond to the HTTP request with a HTTP status code equal to 404, indicating that they could not find a Figma file identified by the key :

file_key <- "This key does not exist"
token <- "A valid personal token ..."

result <- figma::get_figma_file(
  file_key, token
)

Error in `figma::get_figma_file()`:
! HTTP Error:

* URL used in the request: https://api.figma.com/v1/files/This key does not exist
* Status code returned by the API: 404
* Error message returned by the API: Not found
* Headers returned by the API:
List of 3
 $ status : int 404
 $ version: chr "HTTP/2"
 $ headers:List of 13
  ..$ content-type                : chr "application/json; charset=utf-8"
  ..$ content-length              : chr "32"
  ..$ date                        : chr "Sun, 30 Oct 2022 01:36:12 GMT"
  ..$ access-control-allow-origin : chr "*"
  ..$ access-control-allow-headers: chr "Content-Type, X-Figma-Token, Authorization"
  ..$ cache-control               : chr "no-cache, no-store"
  ..$ vary                        : chr "X-Figma-Token,Authorization"
  ..$ x-cache                     : chr "Error from cloudfront"
  ..$ via                         : chr "1.1 1854e234bfccfb7a387b67a7feff26d2.cloudfront.net (CloudFront)"
  ..$ x-amz-cf-pop                : chr "GRU3-P1"
  ..$ alt-svc                     : chr "h3=\":443\"; ma=86400"
  ..$ x-amz-cf-id                 : chr "HE9e153j-uftva_tydKpb6kibQM5Kcw62URWoxsC4zoYSSmNnX-VOA=="
  ..$ strict-transport-security   : chr "max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload"
  ..- attr(*, "class")= chr [1:2] "insensitive" "list"
Run `rlang::last_error()` to see where the error occurred.

403: Invalid token

When the Figma API returns a status code equal to 403, it means that you provided an invalid personal token. This means that you probably forgot to correctly set your personal token, or maybe, you unintentionally forgot one character in the token.

In the example below, I use a valid file key, but, a very incorrect personal access token. When I deliver these key variables to figma::get_figma_file(), it makes the HTTP request to the Figma API with this incorrect token, and the Figma servers respond to this request with a HTTP error equal to 403.

file_key <- "hch8YlkIrYbU3raDzjPvCz"
token <- "This is an incorrect token"

result <- figma::get_figma_file(
  file_key, token
)

Error in `figma::get_figma_file()`:
! HTTP Error:

* URL used in the request: https://api.figma.com/v1/files/hch8YlkIrYbU3raDzjPvCz
* Status code returned by the API: 403
* Error message returned by the API: Invalid token
* Headers returned by the API:
List of 3
 $ status : int 403
 $ version: chr "HTTP/2"
 $ headers:List of 13
  ..$ content-type                : chr "application/json; charset=utf-8"
  ..$ content-length              : chr "36"
  ..$ date                        : chr "Sun, 30 Oct 2022 01:32:20 GMT"
  ..$ access-control-allow-origin : chr "*"
  ..$ access-control-allow-headers: chr "Content-Type, X-Figma-Token, Authorization"
  ..$ cache-control               : chr "no-cache, no-store"
  ..$ vary                        : chr "X-Figma-Token,Authorization"
  ..$ x-cache                     : chr "Error from cloudfront"
  ..$ via                         : chr "1.1 f88bd4c15622473fc18eef7d15f4b8d4.cloudfront.net (CloudFront)"
  ..$ x-amz-cf-pop                : chr "GRU3-P1"
  ..$ alt-svc                     : chr "h3=\":443\"; ma=86400"
  ..$ x-amz-cf-id                 : chr "CClnH5QCZF1wC31us3POW1TWxoODMcriBq0n29_P-y6Q2KYWa6Zw8A=="
  ..$ strict-transport-security   : chr "max-age=31536000; includeSubDomains; preload"
  ..- attr(*, "class")= chr [1:2] "insensitive" "list"
Run `rlang::last_error()` to see where the error occurred.

Other possible HTTP errors

You can read the section of “Errors” in the official Figma API documentation if you want to know more about other kinds of HTTP errors that can be returned by the API.

On the date of writing of this document, the official documentation describes two more possible HTTP errors, which are HTTP status codes 429 and 500. The status code 429 means “rate limit” in the server, and if this error occurs, you do not have much choice than trying the request again in a few minutes. But if you get the status code 500 instead, this usually occurs for very large image render requests, which may time out the Figma server.