appfolio-common-errors

AppFolio Common Errors

Overview

AppFolio's Stack API powers property management integrations for tenant screening, work orders, lease management, and accounting. Each portfolio operates under its own subdomain ({company}.appfolio.com), meaning a single integration may need to handle multiple base URLs. Errors commonly stem from authentication misconfiguration, incorrect base URLs per portfolio, and business logic violations like duplicate tenant records or conflicting lease dates. Tenant lookup failures (404) are the most frequent issue, typically caused by targeting the wrong portfolio subdomain. This reference covers HTTP-level failures, property-management-specific validation errors, and recovery patterns for the most frequently encountered issues.

Error Reference

Error Handler

interface AppFolioError {
  code: number;
  message: string;
  category: "auth" | "rate_limit" | "validation" | "server";
}

function classifyAppFolioError(status: number, body: string): AppFolioError {
  if (status === 401 || status === 403) {
    return { code: status, message: body, category: "auth" };
  }
  if (status === 429) {
    return { code: 429, message: "Rate limit exceeded", category: "rate_limit" };
  }
  if (status === 404 || status === 409 || status === 422) {
    return { code: status, message: body, category: "validation" };
  }
  return { code: status, message: body, category: "server" };
}

Debugging Guide

Authentication Errors

AppFolio uses HTTP Basic Auth with client_id:client_secret. Verify credentials are not URL-encoded. Each portfolio has its own base URL -- confirm you are targeting the correct {company}.appfolio.com subdomain. Credentials rotate on partner approval changes.

Rate Limit Errors

The Stack API enforces 120 requests/minute per API key. Batch tenant lookups instead of individual calls. Use Retry-After header value when present. Bulk endpoints (e.g., /properties?page=1&per_page=100) reduce call count significantly. Rate limits are per-key, not per-portfolio, so multi-portfolio integrations share the same budget.

Validation Errors

Work order creation requires unit_id, description, and priority. Tenant creation requires first_name, last_name, and email. Lease creation fails with 409 if dates overlap an existing active lease on the same unit -- query current leases first. Move-in and move-out dates must be valid ISO 8601 format. Unit IDs are portfolio-specific and cannot be reused across subdomains.

Error Handling

Quick Diagnostic

# Verify API connectivity and auth
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" \
  -u "${APPFOLIO_CLIENT_ID}:${APPFOLIO_CLIENT_SECRET}" \
  "${APPFOLIO_BASE_URL}/api/v1/properties"

Resources

• AppFolio Stack API Docs
• AppFolio Status Page

Next Steps

See appfolio-debug-bundle.