Getting hammered by 429s on bulk user updates — need help with backoff logic

Running a script to update ~2,000 users in our tenant (mostly just toggling some custom attributes and updating phone numbers). I’m hitting /api/v2/users/{userId} with a PUT request using the Python SDK.

Everything works fine for the first 50 or so calls. Then the server starts throwing 429 Too Many Requests errors like crazy. I see the Retry-After header in the response, but my current sleep logic isn’t catching it fast enough and I’m getting rate-limited harder.

Here’s the rough loop I’ve got:

import time
from purecloudplatform.client import PureCloudPlatformClientV2

api_instance = PureCloudPlatformClientV2(api_client).users_api

for user in users_to_update:
 try:
 body = User(
 phone_numbers=[PhoneNumber(value=user['phone'], type='work')],
 custom_attributes=user['custom_attrs']
 )
 api_instance.put_user(user['id'], body=body)
 # Naive sleep
 time.sleep(0.1)
 except PureCloudPlatformClientV2.rest.ApiException as e:
 if e.status == 429:
 # This feels wrong
 time.sleep(1)
 continue
 else:
 raise e

The Retry-After header sometimes says 5 seconds, sometimes 10. If I just sleep for 1 second and retry, I keep hitting the wall. Should I be parsing the Retry-After header dynamically and sleeping for that exact duration? Or is there a built-in method in the SDK I’m missing that handles rate limiting automatically?

Also, is there a way to batch these updates? I know there’s a bulk update endpoint for some things, but I don’t see one for general user profile changes.

You’re ignoring the Retry-After header. That’s your problem. The SDK doesn’t handle rate limiting for you automatically in bulk loops. You need to parse that header and sleep for the exact duration specified.

Here’s a minimal wrapper that handles the 429s properly.

import time
from purecloudplatformclientv2 import ApiClient, Configuration, UsersApi
from purecloudplatformclientv2.rest import ApiException

def update_user_with_backoff(users_api, user_id, user_request):
 retries = 5
 for attempt in range(retries):
 try:
 # Standard PUT call
 users_api.put_user(user_id, user_request)
 return True
 except ApiException as e:
 if e.status == 429:
 # Parse Retry-After header
 retry_after = e.headers.get('Retry-After')
 wait_time = int(retry_after) if retry_after else 5
 
 print(f"Rate limited. Waiting {wait_time}s...")
 time.sleep(wait_time)
 else:
 raise e
 
 return False

Also, check if you can batch these updates. If you’re just toggling attributes, look into the bulk update endpoints if available for your specific object type. Hitting /api/v2/users/{userId} 2000 times is heavy. If you’re doing this from Mexico City, make sure your server clock is synced. Time drift can mess up token validation too.