Not working properly with Digikey for several months

[terminator356]

Hi. Since we last spoke about a year ago ago I've been using the app and have amassed quite an inventory.
Thanks! It's very helpful.

However, for the last several months something seems to have changed and now when scanning Digikey parts,
all the fields are blank except for the MPN part number.
The description, supplier, and even quantity are all blank or zero.

I hope you can find some time to look into it.
Here are a couple of pics: QR on the bag and same QR on the paper invoice. I hope you can read them.

[terminator356]

Oops. My mistake sorry.

Lately I've been scanning the smaller QR codes on the paper invoice because it's much faster
and less aggravating.

But there is less information in the smaller QR codes!
So yeah, no quantity etc.

Thanks.
I'll close this later on...

[frmdstryr]

It looks like there is a "Q20" at the end of the invoice QR code, I'm not sure why that's not getting picked up... If I get time later this week I'll add an update to fix that and mark that format as digikey.

[frmdstryr]

I'm not sure how to make it detect the supplier (given they all use a similar format except for LCSC).

What do you think about having a "Settings" page where a default supplier can be set?

[terminator356]

That sounds fine.

Perhaps users need to be aware that the supplier might not be automatically detected.
For that reason might I suggest that when the 'scan' button is pressed, before scanning,
pop up a dialog with a supplier box that says something like:
"Please select the supplier. This can be changed later in the supplier box."
They could select the supplier before scanning. Have a "don't show this again" button of course.
Since there would be a supplier entry box on the dialog, I would suggest making it an editable
drop-down list with Digikey and Mouser and LCSC already added.

Or... how about pop up the dialog AFTER scanning, only if the supplier could not be detected.
"Supplier could not be detected. Please select the supplier. This can be changed later in the supplier box."

Or... you could forget about this dialog altogether. That'd be OK.
But I still suggest making the supplier box on the editing page an editable drop-down list
to make selecting a supplier easier and faster so we don't have to keep typing the supplier in.

Also: Small typos on the editing page:
"Suppler" and "Suppler SKU" should of course read "Supplier" and "Supplier SKU".
(Suppler has a completely different meaning of course, he he!)

Thanks very much.
Tim.

[frmdstryr]

Thanks for pointing out the typos and for the suggestions.

I pushed a few updates:

Along with correcting the typos it should correctly pull the quantity from the invoice now.

For now I just made the supplier (and manufacturer) editable dropdowns as you suggested (adding another prompt would require more involved changes).

I also added a settings page (accessible from the menu on the parts list) to set a default supplier. If after scanning you either save or use "Import from supplier" without setting the supplier it will use the default. If you need to scan a bunch of parts from one supplier you can change the default so it doesn't have to be re-entered multiple times. Maybe a future update will save the last used supplier or something.

I forgot to add it to the changelog but it also only looks for 2D barcode formats so it shouldn't pick up the other barcodes on new Digikey labels.

Anyways the update v1.0.9 is on my site and should become available on fdroid in a few days.

[legrostdg]

I also have this issue. v1.0.9 does not seem to be available on fdroid. Thanks for the app!

[frmdstryr]

Oops, I forgot to push the tag.

[legrostdg]

v1.0.9 is on fdroid and it fixes the issue, thanks!

[legrostdg]

I think the issue can be closed.

[legrostdg]

Oh, there still is an issue with Digikey: scanning works great, but after that "Import from supplier" sometimes doesn't work, based on the MPN. For example, "CRCW08051M00FKEA" returns "No exact part match found. Try adding an SKU" but "Open supplier website" reports the part. After adding an SKU it does work, but it would be great to avoid it. Working example: "CL21B104KBCNNNC"

[legrostdg]

Example of part for which "Import from supplier" does not work, even after adding an SKU: MPN: BAV70LT3G, Supplier SKU: BAV70LT3GOSCT-ND

[terminator356]

Got it. Works great. Thanks very much!

Yes actually I am having a problem with 'Import from supplier' for some time now.
It used to be somewhat intermittent. It would work for say 10 or 20 parts then say
"Failed to import" and nothing seemed to fix it except maybe waiting a day or two.
Now it seems to have stopped working completely saying "Failed to import" all the time.

Tested on my older Galaxy tablet and new Samsung phone.

The other day I tried it with an accidentally blank SKU and it responded:
"No exact part match found. Try adding an SKU". (Implies the connection was good.)
So I added an SKU, but then it said "Failed to import".
Now I just tried the same test, and it says "Failed to import" even with a blank SKU.
Coincidence maybe but it just shows the weird intermittent nature of it.

Hm. Do you suppose this might have to do with the amount of traffic on their site?
Some kind of throttling or shut-outs?
Sorry if that's been answered already.

[frmdstryr]

It sounds like DigiKey thinks your a bot and decided to block you (if you flush your browsers local storage they immediately block you now).

Regarding the no exact match found. The app currently relies on how DigiKey search redirects to the exact part page when a specific match is found. If the mpn/SKU isn't specific enough in the search it shows a different page which doesn't have the import data. The app could possibly parse this intermediate page and show a prompt to pick which part variant but sometimes it is way off.

The fix for both would probably be to use the DigiKey api. It would require people to create and set an API key in the settings.

[legrostdg]

Thanks for the explanation. Regarding the part with MPN BAV70LT3G, I tried the 3 proposed "DigiKey Part Number" as SKU: "BAV70LT3GOSTR-ND", "BAV70LT3GOSCT-ND", "BAV70LT3GOSDKR-ND". None worked...

After searching a bit more on the part webpage, I found "Additional Resources" -> "Other Names", and some of these should work ( "2832-BAV70LT3GTR", "6196-BAV70LT3G", "ONSONSBAV70LT3G", "2156-BAV70LT3G-OS") as the search redirect to the part webpage. But I'm not sure as I got hit "Failed to import"... Digikey must be really picky with blocking, I'm not what I would call a power user (maybe 10 tries today)... It's still possible to access to the website on my browser, so probably the blocking uses the user-agent.