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🤖 AI & LLMsOpenAI

Occasionally getting 429 Too many requests error

Freshabout 21 hours ago
Mar 14, 20260 views
Confidence Score56%
56%

Problem

Describe the bug I have an app that makes 8 text completion requests to OpenAI using the GPT3.5 turbo in the back-end. The requests are chained together and all together I'm using around 5000 tokens. I have a pay as you go account (older than 48 hours) which according to the documentation about rate limits means that I can make 3500 requests per minute or do 90000 tokens per minute. Now considering the limitations, I believe I don't really hit any rate limits here but somehow I get a 429 Too many requests error back on some occasions. Currently the app doesn't have any active users than me. To Reproduce It happens randomly, so it's hard to say how to reproduce this issue other than chaining multiple createChatCompletions back to back. Code snippets [code block] And it's used like so in the backend: [code block] ``` OS macOs Node version Node v16.14.2 Library version "openai": "^3.2.1",

Error Output

error back on some occasions. Currently the app doesn't have any active users than me.

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1 Fix

Canonical Fix
Unverified Fix
New Fix – Awaiting Verification

Implement Exponential Backoff for API Requests

Medium Risk

The 429 Too Many Requests error can occur due to transient rate limiting by the OpenAI API, even if the overall token and request limits are not exceeded. This can happen if multiple requests are sent in quick succession, leading to a temporary spike in usage that triggers rate limiting. Implementing an exponential backoff strategy allows the application to wait and retry requests after receiving a 429 error, reducing the likelihood of hitting rate limits.

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  1. 1

    Modify Request Logic

    Update the request logic to include error handling for 429 responses and implement an exponential backoff strategy for retries.

    javascript
    async function makeRequestWithRetry(requestFunction, retries = 5, backoff = 1000) {
  for (let i = 0; i < retries; i++) {
    const response = await requestFunction();
    if (response.status !== 429) {
      return response;
    }
    await new Promise(resolve => setTimeout(resolve, backoff));
    backoff *= 2; // Exponential backoff
  }
  throw new Error('Max retries exceeded');
}
  2. 2

    Wrap API Calls

    Wrap your API calls in the new retry function to handle 429 errors gracefully.

    javascript
    const response = await makeRequestWithRetry(() => openai.chat.completions.create({
  model: 'gpt-3.5-turbo',
  messages: messages,
  max_tokens: 5000
}));
  3. 3

    Log Errors

    Implement logging for 429 errors to monitor how often they occur and adjust the backoff strategy if necessary.

    javascript
    if (response.status === 429) {
  console.error('Received 429 error, retrying...');
}
  4. 4

    Test the Implementation

    Run the application and simulate multiple requests to ensure that the exponential backoff is functioning correctly and that 429 errors are handled without crashing the application.

Validation

Confirm the fix by running the application under load conditions that previously triggered the 429 error. Monitor the logs to ensure that 429 errors are logged and that requests are retried successfully without crashing the application.

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Environment

Submitted by

AC

Alex Chen

2450 rep

Tags

openaigptllmapiopenai-api