When interacting with the API, if the request was correctly handled by the server and no errors were produced, a 200 HTTP status code will be returned. The body of the response will usually be a JSON object (except for file downloads) that will contain at least the following two properties:
- response_code: if the item you searched for was not present in VirusTotal's dataset this result will be 0. If the requested item is still queued for analysis it will be -2. If the item was indeed present and it could be retrieved it will be 1. Any other case is detailed in the full reference.
- verbose_msg: provides verbose information regarding the response_code property.
In case of error you can get any of the following status codes:
| Code | Description |
|---|---|
| 204 | Request rate limit exceeded. You are making more requests than allowed. You have exceeded one of your quotas (minute, daily or monthly). Daily quotas are reset every day at 00:00 UTC. |
| 400 | Bad request. Your request was somehow incorrect. This can be caused by missing arguments or arguments with wrong values. |
| 403 | Forbidden. You don't have enough privileges to make the request. You may be doing a request without providing an API key or you may be making a request to a Private API without having the appropriate privileges. |