Awhile back I noticed that the Amazon Machine Tags plugin I use on various sites stopped working and wasn’t sure why since it had not been updated in quite awhile. When initially investigating I was hoping that there was an update I had missed that would resolve the issue with Amazon Machine Tags however that was not the case. Luckily the fix was easy and is documented below.
Amazon Machine Tags WP Plugin Not Working:
It appears that Amazon updated their API again and it has caused issues with the WordPress plugin called Amazon Machine Tags. This plugin allows you to post easily Amazon products with your reseller ID embedded in the links. This plugin has worked perfect for a long time so it was bound to break because of how often Amazon updates their API. Anyhow to resolve the issue simply put a file called amtap-aws-key-verification.txt into the “wordpress-root/wp-content/cache/” folder. Inside of the amtap-aws-key-verification.txt put only the word true which will solve the problem. Make sure that the permissions are the same as all of he other amtap files in the directory or it may not resolve your issue.
Other Caching Services:
Also make sure that if you use other caching plugins such as WP Super Cache that you clear the contents of the cache so that your AMTAP links show up properly.
Making Changes To AMTAP Via WordPress Admin:
If you make any changes to the Amazon Machine Tags admin it is likely going to delete the amtap-aws-key-verification.txt file so you will need to add it again each time you make any changes to Amazon Machine Tags in the WordPress admin.