Why does my Drive API request fail when there is more than one PATCH request in a batch?

Question

I'm trying to add a new parent folder to a large number of my Google Drive files. I'm using batch requests to avoid sending too many requests, but this doesn't work when there is more than one PATCH request added to the batch. The Google server is returning a 502 Bad Gateway HTTP error response. What is wrong or how can I workaround this?

General:

Remote Address:216.58.196.138:443
Request URL:https://content.googleapis.com/batch
Request Method:POST
Status Code:502 OK

Response headers:

alt-svc:quic=":443"; ma=604800; v="30,29,28,27,26,25"
alternate-protocol:443:quic,p=1
content-length:1613
content-type:text/html; charset=UTF-8
date:Tue, 01 Dec 2015 06:18:36 GMT
server:GFE/2.0
status:502

Request headers:

:authority:content.googleapis.com
:method:POST
:path:/batch
:scheme:https
accept:*/*
accept-encoding:gzip, deflate
accept-language:ru,en-US;q=0.8,en;q=0.6,de;q=0.4,pt;q=0.2,uk;q=0.2,it;q=0.2
authorization:Bearer ya29.PQI-rcaU2_Pd7tq3XufXVWPfje4ioMzBLhvKOieYuFgs2MnxTyQvtJ0QDR7EiWnN5SOPlGo
content-length:2291
content-type:multipart/mixed; boundary=batch691088898561756483
dnt:1
origin:https://content.googleapis.com
referer:https://content.googleapis.com/static/proxy.html?jsh=m%3B%2F_%2Fscs%2Fapps-static%2F_%2Fjs%2Fk%3Doz.gapi.en.Dm6zFqHZO9M.O%2Fm%3D__features__%2Fam%3DAQ%2Frt%3Dj%2Fd%3D1%2Ft%3Dzcms%2Frs%3DAGLTcCPQ-9iC9Y-vGIOJ-RoQCZkFL66QXw
user-agent:Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_10_3) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/46.0.2490.86 Safari/537.36
x-chrome-uma-enabled:1
x-client-data:CKW2yQEIqbbJAQjEtskBCPCIygEI/ZXKAQi8mMoB
x-clientdetails:appVersion=5.0%20(Macintosh%3B%20Intel%20Mac%20OS%20X%2010_10_3)%20AppleWebKit%2F537.36%20(KHTML%2C%20like%20Gecko)%20Chrome%2F46.0.2490.86%20Safari%2F537.36&platform=MacIntel&userAgent=Mozilla%2F5.0%20(Macintosh%3B%20Intel%20Mac%20OS%20X%2010_10_3)%20AppleWebKit%2F537.36%20(KHTML%2C%20like%20Gecko)%20Chrome%2F46.0.2490.86%20Safari%2F537.36
x-goog-encode-response-if-executable:base64
x-javascript-user-agent:google-api-javascript-client/1.1.0-beta
x-origin:http://app.local
x-referer:http://app.local

Request payload:

--batch691088898561756483
Content-Type: application/http
Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary
Content-ID: <0B28tlN6SgYRacHVwdEQ5b1RtZmc>

PATCH /drive/v2/files/0B28tlN6SgYRacHVwdEQ5b1RtZmc?addParents=0B28tlN6SgYRaS2syM1VGWjllMnc
X-JavaScript-User-Agent: google-api-javascript-client/0.1
Authorization: Bearer ya29.PQI-rcaU2_Pd7tq3XufXVWPfje4ioMzBLhvKOieYuFgs2MnxTyQvtJ0QDR7EiWnN5SOPlGo
X-ClientDetails: appVersion=5.0%20(Macintosh%3B%20Intel%20Mac%20OS%20X%2010_10_3)%20AppleWebKit%2F537.36%20(KHTML%2C%20like%20Gecko)%20Chrome%2F46.0.2490.86%20Safari%2F537.36&platform=MacIntel&userAgent=Mozilla%2F5.0%20(Macintosh%3B%20Intel%20Mac%20OS%20X%2010_10_3)%20AppleWebKit%2F537.36%20(KHTML%2C%20like%20Gecko)%20Chrome%2F46.0.2490.86%20Safari%2F537.36

--batch691088898561756483
Content-Type: application/http
Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary
Content-ID: <0B28tlN6SgYRadVFRV0lRQW1kVlE>

PATCH /drive/v2/files/0B28tlN6SgYRadVFRV0lRQW1kVlE?addParents=0B28tlN6SgYRaS2syM1VGWjllMnc
X-JavaScript-User-Agent: google-api-javascript-client/0.1
Authorization: Bearer ya29.PQI-rcaU2_Pd7tq3XufXVWPfje4ioMzBLhvKOieYuFgs2MnxTyQvtJ0QDR7EiWnN5SOPlGo
X-ClientDetails: appVersion=5.0%20(Macintosh%3B%20Intel%20Mac%20OS%20X%2010_10_3)%20AppleWebKit%2F537.36%20(KHTML%2C%20like%20Gecko)%20Chrome%2F46.0.2490.86%20Safari%2F537.36&platform=MacIntel&userAgent=Mozilla%2F5.0%20(Macintosh%3B%20Intel%20Mac%20OS%20X%2010_10_3)%20AppleWebKit%2F537.36%20(KHTML%2C%20like%20Gecko)%20Chrome%2F46.0.2490.86%20Safari%2F537.36

--batch691088898561756483
Content-Type: application/http
Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary
Content-ID: <0B28tlN6SgYRaLW1qYmxrZUV2S0E>

PATCH /drive/v2/files/0B28tlN6SgYRaLW1qYmxrZUV2S0E?addParents=0B28tlN6SgYRaS2syM1VGWjllMnc
X-JavaScript-User-Agent: google-api-javascript-client/0.1
Authorization: Bearer ya29.PQI-rcaU2_Pd7tq3XufXVWPfje4ioMzBLhvKOieYuFgs2MnxTyQvtJ0QDR7EiWnN5SOPlGo
X-ClientDetails: appVersion=5.0%20(Macintosh%3B%20Intel%20Mac%20OS%20X%2010_10_3)%20AppleWebKit%2F537.36%20(KHTML%2C%20like%20Gecko)%20Chrome%2F46.0.2490.86%20Safari%2F537.36&platform=MacIntel&userAgent=Mozilla%2F5.0%20(Macintosh%3B%20Intel%20Mac%20OS%20X%2010_10_3)%20AppleWebKit%2F537.36%20(KHTML%2C%20like%20Gecko)%20Chrome%2F46.0.2490.86%20Safari%2F537.36

--batch691088898561756483--

Answer 1

Try changing the URL to https://www.googleapis.com/batch instead of https://content.googleapis.com/batch

Using your exact request and data but changing the URL I received a 200 with an authentication error for each request, as expected for old tokens.

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Vary: Origin
Vary: X-Origin
Content-Type: multipart/mixed; boundary=batch_NP9EsgqJk5k_AAFjWZ0MHaM
Date: Thu, 03 Dec 2015 13:52:18 GMT
Expires: Thu, 03 Dec 2015 13:52:18 GMT
Cache-Control: private, max-age=0
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
X-Frame-Options: SAMEORIGIN
X-XSS-Protection: 1; mode=block
Server: GSE
Alternate-Protocol: 443:quic,p=1
Alt-Svc: quic=":443"; ma=604800; v="30,29,28,27,26,25"
Content-Length: 2027

--batch_NP9EsgqJk5k_AAFjWZ0MHaM
Content-Type: application/http
Content-ID: <response-0B28tlN6SgYRacHVwdEQ5b1RtZmc>

HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
WWW-Authenticate: Bearer realm="https://accounts.google.com/", error=invalid_token
Content-Type: application/json; charset=UTF-8
Date: Thu, 03 Dec 2015 13:52:18 GMT
Expires: Thu, 03 Dec 2015 13:52:18 GMT
Cache-Control: private, max-age=0
Content-Length: 249

{
 "error": {
  "errors": [
   {
    "domain": "global",
    "reason": "authError",
    "message": "Invalid Credentials",
    "locationType": "header",
    "location": "Authorization"
   }
  ],
  "code": 401,
  "message": "Invalid Credentials"
 }
}

--batch_NP9EsgqJk5k_AAFjWZ0MHaM
Content-Type: application/http
Content-ID: <response-0B28tlN6SgYRadVFRV0lRQW1kVlE>

HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
WWW-Authenticate: Bearer realm="https://accounts.google.com/", error=invalid_token
Content-Type: application/json; charset=UTF-8
Date: Thu, 03 Dec 2015 13:52:18 GMT
Expires: Thu, 03 Dec 2015 13:52:18 GMT
Cache-Control: private, max-age=0
Content-Length: 249

{
 "error": {
  "errors": [
   {
    "domain": "global",
    "reason": "authError",
    "message": "Invalid Credentials",
    "locationType": "header",
    "location": "Authorization"
   }
  ],
  "code": 401,
  "message": "Invalid Credentials"
 }
}

--batch_NP9EsgqJk5k_AAFjWZ0MHaM
Content-Type: application/http
Content-ID: <response-0B28tlN6SgYRaLW1qYmxrZUV2S0E>

HTTP/1.1 401 Unauthorized
WWW-Authenticate: Bearer realm="https://accounts.google.com/", error=invalid_token
Content-Type: application/json; charset=UTF-8
Date: Thu, 03 Dec 2015 13:52:18 GMT
Expires: Thu, 03 Dec 2015 13:52:18 GMT
Cache-Control: private, max-age=0
Content-Length: 249

{
 "error": {
  "errors": [
   {
    "domain": "global",
    "reason": "authError",
    "message": "Invalid Credentials",
    "locationType": "header",
    "location": "Authorization"
   }
  ],
  "code": 401,
  "message": "Invalid Credentials"
 }
}

--batch_NP9EsgqJk5k_AAFjWZ0MHaM--