Royal Mail: Unable to Manifest error

Overview

This article covers an intermittent Royal Mail manifest error that can occur when manifesting through StoreFeeder.

Cause

Since Royal Mail completed maintenance work on their OBA API in February 2022, there have been intermittent connection issues between third-party software (such as StoreFeeder) and the OBA API. The result is that manifests occasionally fail with an error similar to the following:

This error is intermittent and is beyond StoreFeeder's control.

Solution

1. Wait 5–10 minutes, then attempt to manifest the orders again.
2. As a precaution, check the sales orders created on OBA to confirm there are no duplications. Royal Mail has an automated process for cancelling duplications, but it is good practice to verify.