Intermittent api.dropboxapi.com port 443: Connection timed out

[mbushpilot2b]

Hello Dropbox Cummunity,

    I am getting intermittent api.dropboxapi.com port 443: Connection timed out when calling the access point "/docs/get_metadata" for multiple docs (foreach or loop), I know its not an error on my end but what can be done about this?

Also getting: "Error: read ECONNRESET" also when i use the access point "/docs/get_metadata 

I think since i am trying to download my entire dropbox paper account every few hours as i write this script and getting meta data for each one all at once, (less than 1,000 at a time), the dropbox api server is intentionally cutting the connection. I want to know the limits so I do not get these errors. 

Thanks,

Daniel

[Greg-DB · Accepted solution]

The Dropbox API does have a rate limiting system, but we don't have any specific numbers documented. It is only designed to prevent abuse though, and is accordingly relatively generous.

Further, if/when the API does rate limit you, it would always return an actual HTTPS response with an explicit error. It wouldn't just terminate or time out the connection, so what you're seeing here is a different issue.

It sounds like you're just hitting basic general service availability problems, perhaps due to the amount of documents you're trying to access. That being the case, you should just add some automatic retrying in your code, ideally with an exponential backoff.

[mbushpilot2b]

Thanks! 👌