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Using 3 times too many Twitter requests

Oliver Andrews

18 Mar, 2010 08:22 PM via web

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Hi,

Using this page for reference - http://support.realmacsoftware.com/faqs/socialite/twitter-rate-limi... - I have no lists, no searches and no profile peeks, so Socialite should only be using 3 requests for every refresh.

However, checking API requests before and after a refresh shows that it is actually using 9 for every refresh.

This wasn't the case prior to 1.0.3 as I have always had it set to refresh every 1 minute (which should use 180 of the 350 requests in an hour) and it used to work fine. Starting with 1.0.3 I now run out of requests about 20 minutes before the hour is up. On the basis that it's using 3 times too many for every refresh that makes sense. After 38 minutes it's used 342 requests so at the 39th refresh there aren't enough left and Twitter stops updating for the next 20 minutes.

If you need any more information let me know.

Thanks
Ollie

1. Support Staff 2 Posted by Nik Fletcher on 19 Mar, 2010 09:38 AM

   

   Hi Ollie

   Thanks for your message. There's actually a few more than 3 requests that are used each time:

   • 1 request for your home timeline
   • 1 request for your mentions
   • 1 request for direct messages you've received
   • 1 request for direct messages you've sent
   • 1 request for each of the retweet sidebar groups (so another 3 - 'Others' Retweets', 'Your Retweets' and 'Your Tweets, Retweeted')
   • 1 request to check for the presence of your lists [this was previously done every 5th refresh]
   • 1 request to check for the presence of any lists you subscribe to [again, previously done every 5 refreshes].

   In total: nine is the correct number of requests. In the coming weeks, Twitter will be raising the number of requests per hour to 1,500 which should alleviate this issue.

   Because of a bug in the Twitter API (that was returning an incorrect API rate limit), we had to remove the rate limiting - which will soon be un-necessary.

   We're going to be looking at improving the API request usage a little further in a future update - however for now, my only recommendation would be to lower the refresh frequency.

   Please let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

   Kind regards,

   Nik

   -- Nik Fletcher
   

   Support & QA Manager, Realmac Software

   Our support team are in the office between 9am and 5pm UK time, Monday to Friday, and we aim to answer all requests within one business day.

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2. 3 Posted by Oliver Andrews on 19 Mar, 2010 10:39 AM

   

   Hi Nik,

   Thanks for explaining that, I guess the page on the website is out of date.

   Unfortunately there are times when 5 minutes is too long a gap for a refresh period, during popular events when group conversations move quickly for example. Looks like I'll have to use another client at those times until Twitter get round to increasing their API requests.

   Thanks
   Ollie

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3. Support Staff 4 Posted by Nik Fletcher on 19 Mar, 2010 10:53 AM

   

   Hi Ollie

   Thanks for your message. Even without the list calls, the requests we use with retweets mean that refreshing every minute would push users over the rate limit. We're looking into ways around this, however.

   Kind Regards,

   Nik

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4. 5 Posted by jonbusby on 23 Mar, 2010 10:46 AM

   

   C'mon guys...I am getting Rate Limit exceeded and am only doing about 5-10 tweets an hour!

   Wouldn't mind but I have paid for this. As an aside it happens more on my iMac than my Macbook.

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5. Support Staff 6 Posted by Nik Fletcher on 23 Mar, 2010 10:52 AM

   

   Hi Jon

   Thanks for your message. Could you let me know how often you're refreshing? If you're refreshing every minute, you'll need to turn it back to every 5 minutes until Twitter further up the rate limit. This is something they'll be doing in the near future, at which point refreshing every minute will be possible once again!

   Kind Regards,

   Nik

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6. 7 Posted by jonbusby on 23 Mar, 2010 10:56 AM

   

   Thanks Nik

   Got it at 30 minutes. Better, but that kind of defeats the object of Twitter.

   It's a great app tho, just needs a bit of tweaking, which I acept is kinda out of your hands.

   Thanks for the speedy response.

   Jon

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7. Nik Fletcher closed this discussion on 23 Mar, 2010 11:00 AM.

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