My API key appears to be throttled. Help?

[mlissner]

Hi, I'm getting the following when using the API, what gives?

HTTP 429 Too Many Requests
Allow: GET, HEAD, OPTIONS
Content-Type: application/json
Retry-After: 85774
Vary: Accept
{
    "detail": "Request was throttled. Expected available in 85774 seconds."
}

[mlissner]

The most common reason for this is that you're not using the auth token properly. Some of our APIs allow limited free access for testing and experimentation. What often happens is people get their programs working and then the program fails with a 429 error.

Check if your program is running properly

You can check two things when this happens:

1. Check your profile. At this page, you can see how many API requests you've made on a given day:

   https://www.courtlistener.com/profile/api/#usage

   If that URL doesn't show much usage, you probably aren't authenticating properly.

2. Try loading the same URL via your browser when you're logged in. If that works, then your program isn't throttled, your anonymous user is. I.e., you're not authenticated properly.

Fixing the issue

If you're not authenticated properly, see the authentication docs about how to set things up:

https://www.courtlistener.com/api/rest-info/#authentication

Usually, you'll want to use the Authentication header. Don't forget the word Token as part of the header value!

If that still doesn't work

If you've done all of the above and you're still throttled, well, that means you're actually hitting a limit of how much you can use the API. Don't set up more accounts to get around this. We hate that. Instead, send us an email and we'll see what we can do.

[hjohns12]

Did https://www.courtlistener.com/profile/api/#usage get moved to a different url? Just got a 404 when I tried checking my usage!

[johnhawkinson]

It looks like it's now https://www.courtlistener.com/profile/api#usage
I would guess it broke during the Django update?

[mlissner]

Definitely a bug. I'll look into it, thanks.

[mlissner]

This only affected a few URLs in the profile section. Code is fixed. Will deploy it soon. Thank you again.