Use retry logic for Connected Content

This page covers how to add retries to your Connected Content calls.

How retries work

Because Connected Content relies on receiving data from APIs, an API might be intermittently unavailable while Braze makes the call. In this case, Braze supports retry logic to re-attempt the request using exponential backoff.

note

Connected Content :retry is not available for in-app messages.

Retry behavior in Canvas steps

Connected Content calls in a Canvas retry only when the call includes :retry. Behavior differs by step type:

Message steps: Connected Content with :retry still uses the messaging pipeline. Recipients are delayed on the send queue while Braze retries the call up to five times. If every retry fails, the message is aborted and the user advances to the next step. For more details, see When the API call fails and retries are enabled.
Context and User Update steps: Braze retries the Connected Content call at the step level (up to five times). If every retry fails, the user exits the Canvas.

For Context and User Update steps, certain retryable step errors—such as a failed promo code fetch or an unexpected step error—can trigger additional step-level retries with exponential backoff (approximately 13 times) before Braze exits the user from the Canvas.

For more information, see Retry behavior.

Using retry logic

To use retry logic, add the :retry tag to the Connected Content call, as shown in the following code snippet:

{% connected_content https://yourwebsite.com/api/endpoint :retry %}
{% connected_content https://www.braze.com :save my_content :basic_auth auth_name :retry %}

When a :retry tag is included in the Connected Content call, Braze attempts to retry the call up to five times.

Preview behavior

Retry logic applies only to live sends (including test sends), not to previews. If a Connected Content call with :retry fails during preview, the preview may display the message “This message would not have been shown because retry functionality was triggered” instead of rendering the content. This is expected behavior and does not indicate an issue within Braze.

Retry outcomes

When a retry succeeds

If a retried attempt is successful, the message is sent and no further retries are attempted for that message.

When the API call fails and retries are enabled

If the API call fails and this is enabled, Braze retries the call while respecting the rate limit you set for each resend. Braze moves any failed messages to the back of the queue and adds additional minutes, if necessary, to the total minutes it takes to send your message.

If the Connected Content call errors out over five times, the message is aborted, similar to how an abort message tag is triggered.

Connected Content calls with abort and retry logic

If a Connected Content call uses abort logic for the same condition as the retry logic, the abort logic takes precedence. This prevents any retries from being attempted. Retry logic already resends the call before aborting it if the status code is unsuccessful. Because both target the same status code behavior, you can remove the abort logic and the call still aborts if all retries fail.

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