Pushing config changes to 500 agents via POST /api/v2/users and hitting 429s. Standard exponential backoff isn’t catching the burst window. Here’s the retry logic:
for attempt in range(max_retries):
response = requests.post(url, json=payload)
if response.status_code == 429:
sleep(2 ** attempt)
continue
break
It’s still getting rejected after the sleep. What’s the correct way to handle the retry-after header here?
The issue is you’re ignoring the server’s instruction. When Genesys returns a 429, it includes a Retry-After header. Your code sleeps for a calculated value, but that value might be too short or too long compared to what the API actually allows. You need to parse that header.
Here is how to handle it properly in Python. Check the headers first.
import requests
import time
def update_users_with_retry(url, payload, max_retries=5):
for attempt in range(max_retries):
response = requests.post(url, json=payload)
if response.status_code == 429:
# Get the specific wait time from the header
retry_after = response.headers.get('Retry-After')
if retry_after:
wait_time = int(retry_after)
else:
# Fallback to exponential backoff if header is missing
wait_time = 2 ** attempt
print(f"Rate limited. Waiting {wait_time} seconds...")
time.sleep(wait_time)
continue
else:
return response
return None # Failed after max retries
Also, make sure your request payload isn’t too large. Sometimes bulk operations trigger internal limits even before the rate limiter catches it. Keep payloads lean.
Yeah, that Retry-After header is the key. My script was doing the same thing until I actually parsed it. Sometimes it returns an HTTP date, sometimes just seconds, so you gotta handle both. Here’s what I use in my Python bulk updater. It’s a bit more verbose but stops the 429s cold.
import requests
import time
from email.utils import parsedate_to_datetime
from datetime import datetime
response = requests.post(url, json=payload)
if response.status_code == 429:
retry_after = response.headers.get('Retry-After')
if retry_after:
try:
# Try parsing as integer seconds first
wait_time = int(retry_after)
except ValueError:
# Fallback to HTTP date format
retry_date = parsedate_to_datetime(retry_after)
wait_time = (retry_date - datetime.now(timezone=retry_date.tzinfo)).total_seconds()
print(f"Rate limited. Waiting {wait_time}s...")
time.sleep(max(0, wait_time))
# Retry logic here
Just make sure your auth token isn’t expiring mid-batch either. That’ll cause a different error but looks similar if you’re not checking the status code carefully.