ASA2 1.35.0 is now available. This release is about tidying up and troubleshooting: Collections get a usage list and a “Delete with products” action, and the Creators API connection test now explains invalid_client errors.

Find Where a Collection Is Used Before You Change It

A collection can be embedded in many posts and pages. Deleting or restructuring one meant guessing which of them would break. Every collection now has a Show usage action that answers the question.

The action appears in the row actions of ASA2 > Collections and as a button on the Manage items page. It lists every post and page that embeds the collection with the shortcode, including the ASA2 Gutenberg block. The table shows title, post type and status, with Edit and View links for each entry.

The usage list for a collection that is embedded in several posts and pages.The usage list for a collection that is embedded in several posts and pages.

The delete confirmation of a collection now states that deleting a collection does not delete any products. Show usage needs no configuration and is visible to every user who may edit collections.

The Find where a collection is used section of the documentation covers the details.

Delete a Collection Together With Its Products

Products that are no longer available on Amazon pile up over time. Even when they were already gathered in a collection, you had to delete each one by one in the Products list. ASA2 1.35.0 adds two actions that remove them from where you are already working.

Delete with Products in the Collections List

Next to the existing Delete link, the Collections list now offers Delete with products. It removes the collection and the products it contains in one go. Plain Delete still removes only the collection and leaves your products alone.

Delete Product from ASA2 on the Manage Items Page

On the Manage items page, the normal Delete link only takes an item out of the collection. The new Delete product from ASA2 action removes a single product from ASA2 completely.

The Confirmation Page Shows What Still Uses Each Product

Nothing is deleted before you confirm. The confirmation page lists every product with the posts and other collections that still use it, each with a link. Products that are still in use are not pre-selected, so they stay unless you tick them yourself. If the collection itself is embedded in posts, a warning above the table lists those posts.

Products that are still in use stay unchecked by default.

Both actions are shown only to users who have the permission to delete collections and products. Usage detection has the same limits as Show usage and also does not cover Smart Collections, so check those places before deleting products that might be used there. The Delete a collection with its products section lists what gets deleted.

Troubleshooting invalid_client in the Amazon Creators API

After migrating to the Creators API, the connection test of some users fails with invalid_client. The raw error is a 401 response from api.amazon.co.uk/auth/o2/token and gives no hint about the cause. ASA2 1.35.0 shows a checklist below the error message instead.

The checklist appears directly under the failed connection test.

The checklist has four points:

1. Eligibility is not the cause. Amazon rejected the request while logging in, before it reached the product API. The state of your Associates account plays no role for this error.
2. Credential type and version must match. Credentials with version 3.x work only with LWA (v3), credentials with version 2.x only with Cognito (v2). Switching v3 credentials to Cognito does not help and only produces a different invalid_client error.
3. ID and secret come from the same set. Generating new credentials in Amazon Associates Central invalidates the previous set. Copy both values from one CSV file, without spaces before or after them.
4. api.amazon.co
5. .uk is the expected token endpoint. For LWA credentials in the Europe region, including Germany and other EU marketplaces, that address is what ASA2 expects. A UK address in the error message does not mean a wrong marketplace is configured.

If all four points check out and the error remains, generate a new credential set in Associates Central and enter it again.

Compare the Saved Secret Without Showing It

The Credential Secret field stays empty when you edit a marketplace, so you could not tell whether the saved value was complete. It now shows the length and the last 3 characters of the saved secret, for example “Saved secret: 44 characters, ends with …xY9”. Compare that with the CSV file from Amazon to spot a truncated or incomplete copy.

Length and last 3 characters of the saved secret.

A related fix removes one cause of the error. Secrets containing characters such as <, %3C or repeated spaces were altered by text-field sanitizing when the setup form was saved. ASA2 now stores the secret exactly as entered and removes only leading and trailing whitespace.

The Troubleshooting invalid_client section of the Creators API setup documentation repeats the checklist with the raw error message.

Collections With Products From Several Shops

The Manage items page of a collection has a new Shop column. For collections that mix Amazon products with another shop such as MediaMarkt, it shows at a glance which shop each item belongs to.

A change in the background goes with it. Products assigned to another shop were refreshed through the Amazon Creators API on page view and when you clicked “Update” on the product edit screen. Shop article numbers in the ASIN field then logged misleading “Invalid ASIN” errors and used up API requests.

ASA2 1.35.0 no longer sends these products to Amazon. Shop-sync products are refreshed through their shop. IDs that no product in ASA2 matches, such as the ID of a deleted product, are not looked up anywhere. The log says “Product not found” with the ID and the likely cause, and an invalid ASIN on an Amazon product is logged with the product title and ID.

Bug Fixes & Improvements

• Synchronize data: The button in the shop details no longer spins endlessly when the data feed URL returns an error instead of the CSV file. The sync stops, shows the HTTP status and a shortened server response, and writes the error to the ASA2 log
• Search in admin lists: The search field in Collections, Templates, Ratings, Log and the other ASA2 lists stays visible when a search finds nothing, so you can change or clear it without leaving the page
• Page links and column sort links in the same lists keep your search term and active filters. Before, page 2 showed the unfiltered list

Technical Requirements

• PHP: 8.1 or higher (unchanged)
• WordPress: 6.0 or higher, tested up to 7.1.4
• Permissions: “Delete with products” and “Delete product from ASA2” require the permission to delete collections and products
• Migration: None. No settings need to be reconfigured

Getting Started

1. Update ASA2 through the WordPress dashboard, or download version 1.35.0 from your account area
2. Open ASA2 > Collections, use Show usage on a collection you plan to clean up, then decide between Delete and Delete with products
3. If your Creators API connection test fails with invalid_client, work through the checklist and compare the secret fingerprint with your CSV file

For questions or issues, visit the help page. Full documentation is available in the Collections documentation and at docs.getasa2.com. The complete release history is on the changelog page.