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Common Account Questions

This error is generated whenever you try and do a lookup using a key that has been deleted, or has expired. Licence keys can be deleted through your account online; if you do this by mistake you’ll need to contact us to get them reinstated. With annual user licences available for the Royal Mail’s Postcode Address File (PAF®) data, this error will be displayed if you have not renewed and the licence has expired; again please contact us.
Each per-click licence key has a setting that dictates the total credit it can consume from the account on a single calendar day. This is a security setting to help protect your credit from being consumed too quickly. It can be changed within the edit wizard of the licence key in question. If you are using a user licence key then the daily limit will be set at the time of purchase, in accordance with our fair usage policy.
Within your key settings you have the option to limit our service to only accept requests on that key that are coming from specified website addresses. This is a security feature to prevent your key from being used anywhere other than the site you intended. If you set this up and get this error message please check the URL is formatted correctly and is available. The website address will be detailed in the table in the email.
This means your account has run out of credit. An error message email will be generated when a user tries to do a lookup. The error will usually show the IP, or URL where the request originated and details of the service that was used. To fix this, log into your account and top up with credit.
The Free Service Limit Exceeded error occurs automatically when there are a significantly higher number of uncharged requests in comparison to charged. For example, when using the address validation service, a find (free) request should usually be followed by a retrieve (charged) request. This error is highlighting an imbalance in free and charged calls to the service. Check the usage on your account under Menu > Reporting to see if the service has been installed correctly. If the calls to the service are dramatically imbalanced please get in touch with our Support team.
Each of our services can have its own security settings. One of these is an allowed URL list, which restricts your service for use on specific web pages. This error message is highlighting that the security you have in place on your account is working as it should by blocking off any unknown URLs from accessing your service.The URL in question can be found in the ‘Additional information’ section of the error message.
  • If you recognise the URL you might like to add it to your list of allowed URLs.
  • If you do not recognise the URL you can ignore this message with the understanding that your security settings are working as intended.
  • Blank source URL? Blank URLs can be caused due to a number of reasons. This can be caused by internal coding, how the service is being used or (most commonly) by pop-up blockers used by customers which can occasionally remove the URL from the request. We block these URLs too because we can’t be certain of the source.
You can find these settings in your account under the security tab for each key.
In your account, there are a number of optional security settings, one of these being an ‘allowed IP list’. This error has occurred due to a request coming through to us from an IP not currently on this list. The IPs in question can be found in the “Additional information” section of your error message. If you recognise the IP address then you can add it to your list of allowed IPs. You can add IPs under ‘Limit by IP’ in your account; you’ll find this under Menu > Your Services > Select the specific Key and select ‘Limits’.
The surge protector detects when there is a notable or out of average surge in account usage. This protects against spam attacks, problems with code looping requests but above all will protect the account credit from being drained. An alert is automatically sent out when the surge protector is triggered and the service is disabled.This setting is commonly triggered when you are load testing the service. While this is not a malicious act this spike in requests will knock out the accounts average usage. We recommend to turn off the surge protector while testing and turning it back on when the testing is completed.If you know what triggered the surge, such testing or an unusually busy period, or have fixed the issue, and you’d like to activate your account again, please get in touch with our Support team.
This error occurs when the key submitted is malformed or incorrect. Keys should be in the format AA11-AA11-AA11-AA11 when submitted and should match one of the keys in your account. Please make sure that the key you are using in your request is correct.
This error is triggered when you attempt to send a request to a non ‘Capture’ API when ‘Sandbox Mode’ is enabled on a key. Sandbox mode uses a fictitious address dataset. Sandbox mode allows you to test your integration without using credit, however, this mode only applies to the /Capture/Interactive/… services. Please ensure you are using only these services when testing using a ‘Sandbox’ enabled key. Alternatively, you can contact our Support team and they will disable the Sandbox mode for you.
Certain services within the ‘Management’ family of services require a ‘Management key’ to use. These can only be created by the support team at Loqate. If you believe you require a management key please contact our Support team directly and they would be more than happy to help.

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Common Integration Questions

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Tag integrations

Yes, this is a great way to get the Loqate Tag working on your website quickly and easily.If you are unfamiliar with Google Tag Manager, begin by reading About Google Tag Manager. To add the Loqate Tag to your container in Google Tag Manager:
  • Click ‘Add a new tag’
  • Select ‘Custom HTML Tag’
  • Enter Loqate as the Tag name and paste the Loqate Tag code into the HTML field
  • Select ‘Continue’ and then ‘Fire On’ > ‘All pages’ to ensure the Loqate Tag loads on all pages of your website.
  • Click ‘Create Tag’ then ‘Publish’ at the top right corner.
Your Loqate Tag is now installed on your website and you are ready to continue setting up Loqate services, eg: Capture.
To complete this process, you must have access to your website source code, be comfortable editing HTML (or have a webmaster/developer who can help you), and have a Loqate account and service set up.To set up the Loqate Tag:
  • Log into your Loqate account and choose to set up the Capture service, after selecting where you will use Capture, you will be presented with the Loqate Tag code. The tag is in a box, it starts with . Click the ‘copy’ button to copy it to your clipboard.
  • The Loqate Tag code contains your unique account ID, don’t mix up code snippets from different accounts.
  • You might want to paste it into a text document if you’re worried about accidentally losing or changing the snippet from your clipboard.
  • Paste your snippet (unaltered, in its entirety) into every web page. Paste it before the closing tag of your website HTML.
  • If you use templates to dynamically generate pages for your site (like if you use PHP, ASP, or a similar technology), you can paste the tracking code snippet into its own file, then include it in your page header.
Yes, you will need to use a program to host the website locally, such as IIS (Windows) or Apache (Mac/Windows). You will need to create a new site in your hosting programme, and then map it to the file or folder containing the pages you want to set the Tag up on. In the site bindings set the port to 80, then run the website, the URL should look something like this: http://localhost/ (this is the URL you will need to enter during our Tag setup process).
There are two ways to add the Loqate Tag to your website:
  • Add the Loqate Tag to your website using a Tag Manager such as Google Tag Manager
  • Add the Loqate Tag directly into the HTML of every page of your website. This is the easiest method, especially if you do not already use a tag manager.
Firstly, check that we are looking at the right website - are there any typos in the website address that you entered? Secondly, did you paste the Loqate Tag code in the right place - save and re-upload your webpages to make sure. Finally, it’s possible your website is cached which means we can’t yet retrieve the updated files that contain the Loqate Tag - see the ‘What can I do if my website is cached?’ question below for help with this.
Adding the Loqate Tag site-wide is the easiest way for you to set up Loqate services. It will allow you to add our new and existing services to any page of your website in future without the need to involve a web developer each time. Sometimes it’s tricky to find the right stage to add the code, so by doing it this way you know for sure our service will work on the pages you need it to.

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General integrations

If you’re not setting up the Loqate Tag on a website, you can use the Loqate API to implement our services in any application.
If your website is not showing recent updates you made then it may need its cache cleared. If you host your own site then speak to your technical team for help. If you do not host your own site then you might need to contact the support team at your hosting provider, or inspect your admin tools for an option to clear the site cache. Sometimes the cache will clear automatically after an hour or so, it’s worth checking again later if you have this problem.
Your account details can be restricted to your specific URL in fact we recommend you do this. This means that even with code types where your details are visible, they are still safe and secure. Anyone attempting to use them from another site would have their requests rejected and you’d be alerted via email.
The 1001 ID Invalid error message indicates that you are passing the wrong type of ID into the Retrieve service. You should only pass an ID from the Find service where the Type was returned as “Address”. Passing IDs of type “Postcode” will not result in a retrieve - instead, these should be passed back into the Find service as “Container” until an “Address” type is returned.

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Address API example

First, use the Find method, triggering a lookup after each user keystroke in a search box.Example request: https://api.addressy.com/Capture/Interactive/Find/1/json.ws?key=AA11-AA11-AA11-AA11&Text=wr2&Container=&Origin=&Limit=&Language=&Countries=Present the Text/Description portion of the response to the user, usually in a container that allows them to click on a desired result. When the user clicks an item, check the “Type” portion of the item:
  • If the Type parameter is anything but “Address”, perform another Find putting the Id into the Container parameter. Maintain the Container parameter until another click is made. Note the Type parameter will only be “Address” when it is a full address the user is selecting, otherwise they need to carry on narrowing down their search results by either typing more or clicking a further item from the results. Example subsequent Find: https://api.addressy.com/Capture/Interactive/Find/1/json.ws?key=AA11-AA11-AA11-AA11&Text=wr2&Method=Match&Container=GB|RM|A|P-WR2-4AA&Origin=&Limit=&Language=&Countries=
  • If the Type parameter is “Address” then perform a Retrieve using the Id for that item from the response. Example Retrieve: https://api.addressy.com/Capture/Interactive/Retrieve/1/json.ws?key=AA11-AA11-AA11-AA11&Id=GBR%7C52509479
Yes, our IP Limiter blocks all IPs that are not on your valid IP list. Only the IPs on your valid IPs list can do lookups. The list of your valid IPs can be found under Menu > Your Services > Click on the Key and ‘Limits’.
If you get a message saying a certain IP is blocked but this IP is not on your blacklist then that means IP Limit is enabled. ‘Limit by IP’ means you can restrict the service to specific IP addresses. If the blocked IP is not on the ‘Limit by IP’ list it can’t use the service.If the IP is valid, you can add it to the ‘Limit by IP’ list to enable access. You can find ‘Limit by IP’ under Menu > Your Services > Click on the specific Key and select ‘Limits’.