Question Rate limit on steamcommunity.com

[lukasio]

Hello,

 

I was under the impression that the rate limit for requests to steamcommunity.com (for example to fetch someone's inventory) was about 20 per minute per ip.

However, today I already start getting http 429 errors after just 4 requests (10 seconds between each request).

I also noticed that multiple csgo related website are having issues today, so I was wondering if steam lowered the rate limit or if it's just a temporary thing due to steam having server issues.

 

Also, is there a way to fetch user inventories other than using http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/steam64id/inventory/json/730/2/, that is less prone to steam server issues or rate limits.

 

Thanks in advance.

 

 

[Dr. McKay]

Nobody knows what goes on at Valve, but the rate-limit for inventories was made much more strict yesterday. Nobody knows if it will change again in the future.

[lukasio]

Thanks for the response. It seems like the Valve changed something again. Since about an hour you can do some decent amount of requests again, only if you provide login cookies. Without I'm still getting blocked after 3 requests.

Was it always like that that when you provided login cookies you could do more requests than without?

[Dr. McKay]

I don't know, but it makes sense to me. Are you requesting your own inventory while logged in, or others'?

[lukasio]

It doesn't seem to matter if you request your own inventory while logged in or other's, which makes sense.

Best solution for now is propably to run a bot solely for the purpose of generating login cookies, and letting php or whatever use those cookies to fetch inventories.

Edited December 10, 2016 by lukasio

[Thirtieth]

1 day ago got a problem: even 5 request per 2 minutes throws 429 error for  http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/steamid64/inventory/json url.

 

Had a try with referer, cookies from main steamcommunity.com page and etc. Nothing helps. Anyone knows solution?

[Robinlemon]

Ask a Steam mod for access to the new Steam API, it's been out for three years but you need to be registered! 

[lukasio]

It seems everyone had that problem, but since about 12h if you provide login cookies you can do a decent amount of requests again.

You only need to provide steamLogin and steamLoginSecure as cookies in the header. You don't seem to need to provide any other header data like referer.

[Thirtieth]

It seems everyone had that problem, but since about 12h if you provide login cookies you can do a decent amount of requests again.

You only need to provide steamLogin and steamLoginSecure as cookies in the header. You don't seem to need to provide any other header data like referer.

Well I gave it a shot but it look's like steam doesn't support my cookies or what. Could you give me please an example of yours (cURL example or smth)? I have these data, but it seems like I can't send it properly:(

Edited December 10, 2016 by Thirtieth

[lukasio]

Check what headers chrome sends when you view someones inventory then copy data as cURL and see if that works for you.

[Iwasawafag]

Ask a Steam mod for access to the new Steam API, it's been out for three years but you need to be registered! 

 

What? There's some secret API methods that's becoming available simply by request? Where can I get more info?