SPSS_SERVICE_ERROR — SPSS microservice degraded

Summary

The SPSS microservice (used only for .sav export) is degraded. All other API surfaces — coding, codebook, refinement, MCP — work normally.

HTTP status

503 Service Unavailable. Standard envelope. Often returned with Retry-After.

Example response

{
  "success": false,
  "error": {
    "code": "SPSS_SERVICE_ERROR",
    "message": "SPSS export service is temporarily unavailable. Retry in a few minutes.",
    "request_id": "req_01HXJZK4ABCDEF",
    "doc_url": "https://docs.surveycoder.io/errors/spss-service-error"
  }
}

Why this happens

• The SPSS microservice is restarting.
• A large concurrent export queue.
• A bug in the underlying pyreadstat integration for a specific export shape.

How to fix it

1. Retry with backoff — the microservice usually recovers within a few minutes.
2. As an immediate workaround, export to CSV or Excel instead — those run in the main API and don’t depend on the SPSS service.
3. Check the status page for an active SPSS incident.

This error only ever appears on SPSS export endpoints. If you see it on any other endpoint, that’s a misclassified bug — email support@surveycoder.io.

Related

• SERVICE_UNAVAILABLE
• GATEWAY_TIMEOUT