What causes "ERR-RATE-LIMIT" in phacility/phabricator?

Stop all attempts from that IP for at least 5 minutes so the failure events age out of the window.

phacility/phabricator · error · ConduitException

ERR-RATE-LIMIT

ERR-RATE-LIMIT

Error message

ERR-RATE-LIMIT

What it means

conduit.getcertificate counts certificate-failure events logged from the current IP over the last 5 minutes (PhabricatorUserLog::loadRecentEventsFromThisIP). More than 5 failures trips 'ERR-RATE-LIMIT', and the rejected attempt is itself logged as another failure, extending the pressure on the IP.

Source

Thrown at src/applications/conduit/method/ConduitGetCertificateConduitAPIMethod.php:49

  }

  protected function defineErrorTypes() {
    return array(
      'ERR-BAD-TOKEN' => pht('Token does not exist or has expired.'),
      'ERR-RATE-LIMIT' => pht(
        'You have made too many invalid token requests recently. Wait before '.
        'making more.'),
    );
  }

  protected function execute(ConduitAPIRequest $request) {
    $failed_attempts = PhabricatorUserLog::loadRecentEventsFromThisIP(
      PhabricatorConduitCertificateFailureUserLogType::LOGTYPE,
      60 * 5);

    if (count($failed_attempts) > 5) {
      $this->logFailure($request);
      throw new ConduitException('ERR-RATE-LIMIT');
    }

    $token = $request->getValue('token');
    $info = id(new PhabricatorConduitCertificateToken())->loadOneWhere(
      'token = %s',
      trim($token));

    if (!$info || $info->getDateCreated() < time() - (60 * 15)) {
      $this->logFailure($request, $info);
      throw new ConduitException('ERR-BAD-TOKEN');
    } else {
      $log = PhabricatorUserLog::initializeNewLog(
          $request->getUser(),
          $info->getUserPHID(),
          PhabricatorConduitCertificateUserLogType::LOGTYPE)
        ->save();
    }

View on GitHub (pinned to 5720a38cfe)

Solutions

Stop all attempts from that IP for at least 5 minutes so the failure events age out of the window.
Find and fix the underlying bad-token/credential source (see ERR-BAD-TOKEN) before resuming, otherwise the limit immediately re-trips.
Add exponential backoff to retry logic and identify the offending client via the Phabricator activity/people log.

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Try / catch

try {
  $result = $call->execute();
} catch (ConduitException $ex) {
  if ($ex->getMessage() === 'ERR-RATE-LIMIT') {
    // Sleep > 5 minutes, fix the underlying bad token, then retry once.
  }
}

Prevention

Cap retries on certificate fetches (e.g. 3 attempts with exponential backoff), never tight loops.
Remember the window is per IP: coordinate CI runners sharing NAT egress.
Investigate the first ERR-BAD-TOKEN instead of retrying through the rate limit.

When it happens

Trigger: A retry loop hammering conduit.getcertificate with bad tokens; several developers or CI runners behind one NAT IP accumulating failures; automated scripts retrying immediately on every auth error.

Common situations: A misconfigured integration stuck in a hot retry loop blocking the whole office NAT; shared build-farm egress addresses where one broken job locks out all others.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of phacility/phabricator@5720a38cfe (2026-08-21). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2337e40040852f32. Report an issue: GitHub.