Steam Web API constantly rate-limited (Error 429) New key, never used

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Rubik Apr 21 @ 2:35pm

For the past month or so I've been constantly getting rate-limited by the Steam Web API. I figured maybe my key was leaked, so I generated a new one. Same thing..

Since that didn't work, I figured maybe it was an account issue so I made a brand new account, purchased a game, and generated a brand new key. I made a single request to get a user's profile details every 120 seconds and logged the response code. About every 10-20 minutes it will return Error 429 (rate-limit).

I am the only person that has access to this key. I have spoken to other game server hosts and they report a similar experience with no response from Valve on this.

It started 2 days before that recent maintenance window that took Steam completely offline and a second maintenance window had to be scheduled for the following Thursday.

Is anyone else experiencing this? How can I get in contact with Valve? This is not an isolated incident and has been happening every day since that maintenance window about a month ago.

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Originally posted by FlQyD:

They are issuing shadow bans, if your usage seems like data scraping. If your application is not breaching their guidelines, you should ask them to remove the shadow ban: webapi@valvesoftware.com,

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FlQyD Apr 22 @ 3:10am

They are issuing shadow bans, if your usage seems like data scraping. If your application is not breaching their guidelines, you should ask them to remove the shadow ban: webapi@valvesoftware.com,

Rubik Apr 22 @ 5:49am

Do you think calling the same endpoint every 2 minutes constitutes abuse? Lmao. Thank you for the reply and email to reach someone.

Last edited by Rubik; Apr 22 @ 5:49am

FlQyD Apr 22 @ 10:26pm

No, i am saying if steam thinks that you are abusing, scraping they will shadow ban you, with crazy rate limits.

Rubik Apr 23 @ 5:37am

That’s weird, all I’m doing is fetching player details every couple of minutes to check the response code. I suspect something is broken on their end.

PewnyPL Apr 23 @ 9:58am

Originally posted by Rubik:
That’s weird, all I’m doing is fetching player details every couple of minutes to check the response code. I suspect something is broken on their end.

Your best bet is to try contacting Valve with the email given by FlQyD, but do note, after yesterday's Steam Maintenance there are some issues with the API on their end (for many people the Steam -> Community Inventory (the one with trading cards, emotes, etc.) doesn't work at all, giving error 500 on everything, web browsers, Steam client and Steam mobile).

Last edited by PewnyPL; Apr 23 @ 9:59am