Overview

Error 90104 is a common XML feed processing error that Amazon sellers encounter when submitting product data through Seller Central or via the SP-API. The error occurs when a required XML element is absent from the feed file, causing Amazon's systems to reject the submission. Understanding this error and how to resolve it can save sellers significant time and prevent delays in listing updates.

Key Points / What Sellers Need to Know

• Root cause — Error 90104 triggers when your feed file is missing a required XML element that Amazon expects for the specific feed type you are submitting.
• Error message format — The error message will specify which element is missing, displayed as: "The [element name] element is missing," helping you pinpoint exactly what needs to be added.
• Feed rejection — When this error appears, the affected records in your feed will not be processed until the missing element is included and the feed is resubmitted.
• Common occurrences — This error frequently appears during product listing feeds, inventory updates, and pricing feeds where certain fields are mandatory depending on the product category.

How This Error Works

When you submit a data feed to Amazon, whether through Seller Central's flat file upload, a third-party tool, or direct API integration, Amazon's systems validate the XML structure against a predefined schema. Each feed type has a set of required elements that must be present for the submission to be accepted. If any of these mandatory elements are absent from your input file, Amazon's parser flags the record with Error 90104 and identifies the specific element that is missing. The error is generated on a per-record basis, meaning some records in a batch feed may succeed while others fail if only certain entries are missing the required data.

Common Causes and Troubleshooting

The most frequent cause of Error 90104 is an incomplete product feed template. Sellers often encounter this when they modify an existing feed file and accidentally remove a required column or field, or when they build a feed from scratch without referencing the correct XML schema definition (XSD) for their feed type. Category-specific requirements are another common culprit — different product categories on Amazon mandate different attributes, so a feed that works for one category may throw this error when applied to another. Additionally, encoding issues or malformed XML can sometimes cause parsers to skip over elements that are technically present in the file but unreadable due to formatting problems.