Hi SG,

Some people noticed we have new rate limiting features on our site to help prevent too many requests from an individual user in a given period of time. When a user exceeds these limits, they now see a 429 Too Many Requests error page.

In many cases, users are not aware the scripts they're using are generating so much traffic in the background of their browser, and in other instances scripts have errors which cause them to run out of control, such as when I review our logs and see someone loading page 9,423... 9,424... 9,425 all day long when the giveaway results stopped at page 50. This causes a lot of unnecessary load on our servers and the rate limiting features help to address that issue.

A few people were asking what the exact values are so they can keep them in mind and stay within those limitations. They are currently set to...

  • 120 requests per minute
  • 2,400 requests per hour
  • 14,400 requests per day

Some examples of a request could be opening a page, entering a giveaway, or adding someone to your whitelist. I think these values are reasonable, but let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks.

4 years ago

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i have a problem with joining manually(any giveaway) its just sooo long when i press ENTER, like 5-10 seconds and sometimes its not working. Im not spamming etc.

Could this limit be a problem?

4 years ago
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Are you using ESGST? 'Cause if you are, things are slower with the new version.

4 years ago
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yup im using. Should i stop using it or wait for update from ESGT? Or i will never get quicker version?

4 years ago
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The enter button will get quicker in the next version, but other things will remain slow for now because of the new rate limiting system.

4 years ago
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only ENTER button works so slow, nothing else changed for me. So im waiting, thanks :)

4 years ago
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I can say that since this change the entries at the public GA's dropped by ~50%
So i would say, good change.

4 years ago
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How can you tell?

4 years ago
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You aren't fully awake right now or ?

I used that magical thing https://www.steamgifts.com/ and looked at the entries ;o)

4 years ago
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No apparent change in the number of public giveaway entries, although that's what I would have expected to see. Here's a look at the daily entries for public giveaways during the past 10 days.

  • Oct 31: 225,714
  • Nov 1: 230,612
  • Nov 2: 231,331
  • Nov 3: 268,165
  • Nov 4: 234,536
  • Nov 5: 261,654
  • Nov 6: 241,906
  • Nov 7: 247,532
  • Nov 8: 225,968
  • Nov 9: 241,445
4 years ago
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Then, maybe i am only lucky with the games that i own and the ones that i don't own. For me is a clear difference to before from the entry numbers.
Or the last 2 or 3 days are only a coincidence.

4 years ago
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Could be coincidence from the release of the Monthly, I'm guessing a lot of people are entering for the D3 GAs which leaves less points to go around.

4 years ago
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Generally monthly means more more of high points giveaways. So they spread more around.

4 years ago
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Maybe, i don't thought at that possibility because i buy the HB monthly by myself and activate and/or hide all the games from it very quick ;o), but the clear fact is that i see, special at the only 1 hour running GA's, that the entries are from 300 - 500 down to around 150.
Of course not at each GA, it depends at the game, but as a number "over the thumb".

4 years ago
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I have won no games since these changes were implemented and I am outraged that I am no longer seeing a proper return for my emotional investment in this website. I may abandon the website in disgust.

View attached image.
4 years ago
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Your last won game was 4 months ago. Can you share your blueprint for the time machine?

4 years ago
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gotta love when made up stats by users get debunked with official numbers, but they keep making excuses around them. 😂

4 years ago
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It might be best to leave US election drama out of steam gifts.

4 years ago
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We won! By a lot!

Edit: I like how memes from this election will most probably survive longer than those from the last. I don't even remember if there were any memes in Trump vs Obama battle.

4 years ago*
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Trump vs Obama battle

Wasn't it Clinton vs. Trump in 2016?

4 years ago
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Ohh right. I forgot Obama was for 8 years, so it was time for him to go. And another democrat president did not win with Trump.

4 years ago
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View attached image.
4 years ago
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View attached image.
4 years ago
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BUMP

4 years ago
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I forgive you for that

View attached image.
4 years ago
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Bump

4 years ago
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Hi,
i understand, partly, why you limit the traffic at your site and of course should the script devs upgrade their stuff to a site friendly use.

But is it possible to give SGTools a special right/access or whatever is needed to go around that limitation or limit it for that site in a other way ?

I am not a programmer and i don't know much about the technical details but i can say as normal user that it is extreme annoying that i can't check the winners of my GA's and the applicants for my group if they broke the rules with activating wins/multi wins.

I would, of course, still prefer to make that checks DIRECT at steamgifts but because you don't offer such a option you should not limit such a very important site like SGTools, that do, partly, the job your site should do, to a level where it is unuseable.

As long as i don't be able to check winners i will not make GA's
That's a very clear thing for me.
Plus i bet that i am not the only one that will not create GA's as long as it is impossible to check for rulebreakes of winners.

Have a good day.

4 years ago
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I also always use SGTools to check my winners and it would be a real downside if we can't keep SGTools not activated check working because of the rate limits.

Edit: Some background info because it might not be clear from Masafor's post alone: SGTools isn't working for a few days now because of the rate limiting system https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/KvFttO6 and knsys said that it's not easy for him to do anything about that and SGTools is only in maintenance mode https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/20RUc9O.

4 years ago*
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Thanks for the additional Infos.
I were short on time, plus in a hurry when i created the post and came first a few minutes ago back at home.

4 years ago
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I, too, check all my winners.
What makes this situation even more unwieldy is that support staff (in person of Khalaq) is advocating the use of SGTools in this https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/GeDfy/failure-to-activate-and-regifting thread. So we are rightfully encouraged to check our winners and use SGTools for it, BUT are now severly hampered in doing so.

I'll also won't make any GAs as long as this situation holds.

4 years ago*
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Steamgifts should integrate this kind of check, we can't rely on a third party for something so crucial. If we, the users, have to check all of our winners to report the rule breakers, then the site itself should make this check automatically for us with every winner.

4 years ago*
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In the same boat...
Annoyed bump!

4 years ago
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To be fair you can still check the winners, it is just a much longer, and manual, process.

SGTools does not bother to archive data and as such requests the same information over and over again each time someone checks, at least from the post I saw saying they don't archive anything. For example, if everyone you won a giveaway from did a check for unactivated wins that would be about 28219 page requests instead of 1194, making the website work about 23 times harder. Now factor in duplicate win checks doubling the strain when they could have been done at the same time. Also figure each time you check a SGTools gated giveaway, it has to check the same information over and over again. Instead of looking at your last won page and seeing nothing has changed, or updating the few it didn't record previously, it looks through all 47 pages.

Don't get me wrong, this particular problem could, and should, be solved by SteamGifts keeping check of everyone. But this highlights one of the aspects of why cg imposed these limits.

Edit: Wow, already had an answer regarding cached information ages ago and forgot about it. Was reading a different post about archives and stored information and thought it applied mistakenly

4 years ago*
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Your assumptions are all wrong :)

4 years ago
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It, maybe, would help if you explain it more detailed as answer to DarkMercy's sentences.
How are his sentences wrong and what is the truth.

That would, maybe, help that more people understand this specific problem and support our "No GA's till member rulebreak checks are possible" initiative :o)

4 years ago
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SGTools uses two types of caches, there used to be more but for now let's talk about the ones that are in place today.

First, the big one, that stores for every user all their sent and won giveaways with all the relevant information and flags. This cache allows SGTools to do all the operations with bare minimal queries to Steamgifts because in most cases it just have to check the first page of sent/won giveaways page to update it and then it's ready to go.
This is the cache that got nuked some days ago and it's causing the site to reach rate limit as it tries to build the cache back when a query is done about a user that still doesn't have cached values.

Second cache is related only to the giveaway section of the site and stores for every user cached values for all the variables exposed in custom and basic rules. This cache is invalidated every 24h and it's the one that allows a user to enter protected giveaways really fast starting from the second one in this 24h period.

4 years ago
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Is there something that can be done so that the big cache is not nuked again in the future?

4 years ago
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Sorry, I didn't realize that you actually archived everyone's won information. I was going by what I read on older posts, or maybe I just misunderstood

4 years ago
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Sure, each one can check each winners library if he have each of his won games activated there.
That would costs each of us only a bunch of minutes or up to a few hours, depending on how much games the winner won before and how much games he own. And that each time.

I think i am safe when i say that none of the members, that give a lot but don't want to support rule breakers and win sellers, will do that complete time waste work and instead give then nothing more at steamgifts.
I can trade my leftover games at barter... no problem....

Of course is that a option.
But i doubt that this is the option that cg like in the long run because that means lesser Giveaways, lesser attraction of his site, lesser members and in the end lesser earnings for him.

And if you advice to check only if the winner have the game he won from me then it is no option for me too because i catched winners that had up to 38 not activated wins, collected over 4 years, and friends had rulebreakers with up to 46 not activated wins. So it is clear that the "i check only my GA" isn't a option in the long run too.

4 years ago*
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It's more of a stop-gap measure than a proper alternative at this point, but if you're willing to manually compile a list of users' won giveaways, you can then use this site to cut down on the most bothersome part, the library checking.

..not that it'd actually save much time with users with hundreds -or even thousands- of wins, but better than nothing, I guess?
It might be possible to get a script to scrape the list, but that'd also risk incurring into the rate limits the same way SGTools does.

4 years ago
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I am not willing but anyway thanks for the effort :o)

4 years ago
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Deleted

This comment was deleted 4 years ago.

4 years ago
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It's threads like this that make me long for the way that Steamgifts used to be when I joined here 7 years ago. 🙄

4 years ago
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bump for sgtools problem visibility

4 years ago
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Bump, please fix sgtools (and dark mode would be awesome too)

4 years ago
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I just got my first 429 time out while clicking through a train. I have most games hidden that I am not interested in, so I can just click to the next cart in the train if I don't see the eye symbol and I guess I was clicking a bit too quick. I got to cart 61 and then got locked out for a minute.

It's not a big deal, but I was a bit worried because I feel like I have clicked through carts quicker than that in the past since the rate limit was introduce and never got locked out, so I was worried that I might have triggered the 1 hour or 24 hour limit. It would suck to get locked out for 24 hours because I like to check the site at least once an hour to not miss out on the short 1 hour giveaways.

Edit: I think I know why it happened. I was just reading through this thread and saw a comment about how redirects get counted as 2 requests. I just went back to the train to check and sure enough, the links all end at the code xxxxx/ without the game name. If I am not mistaken, that would cause a redirect to the full URL and count as 2 requests which is why I got locked out after cart 61 (122 requests within 1 minute). Now I feel better :)


Edit 3/14: I just got my 2nd 429, but this one was my fault. Someone posted a list of invite only links and I opened them all at the same time in new tabs by using the extension Linkclump. I didn't realize how many links there were, but it was well over 100. I do it that way because it is much quicker for me to close each tab that doesn't have the eye icon than trying to remember all the names of the 18k games I have blocked. If I don't see the eye icon, I already know I am not interested in the game and skip to the next.

3 years ago*
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