I'm developing a tool for checking the integrity of links in a web page.
I've noticed that various Instagram URLs will return a HTTP 500 response in cases where if one were to visit the given URL in a browser one would get a HTTP 200 response accompanied by the expected resource.
This is when requesting regular Instagram URLs as one would do as a browser user and not when using the REST API.
A typical request/response using cURL:
curl -v * About to connect() to instagram.com port 80 (#0) * Trying 54.225.159.246... connected > GET /p/YKTkxHBA-P/ HTTP/1.1 > User-Agent: curl/7.22.0 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.22.0 OpenSSL/1.0.1 zlib/1.2.3.4 libidn/1.23 librtmp/2.3 > Host: instagram.com > Accept: */* > < HTTP/1.1 500 Server Error < Cache-Control: no-cache < Content-Type: text/html < Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2013 08:31:09 GMT < Server: nginx < Content-Length: 87 < Connection: keep-alive < <html><body><h1>500 Server Error</h1> An internal server error occured. </body></html> * Connection #0 to host instagram.com left intact * Closing connection #0 I did for some time get HTTP 200 responses in such cases but am now consistently getting HTTP 500 responses.
This is all specific to a given host; such URLs, even when sending requests with cURL, will return HTTP 200 responses from other machines.
Due to this being specific to the host sending the requests I suspect a form of rate limiting or request filtering by IP is going on, however I can find no documentation to the effect.
Will Instagram officially return a HTTP 500 response as above due to a given IP being denied access?
136 Answers
This is an IP rate limit. If you want to skip the part where you contact Instagram and wait for the monkey crew they have working over there to fix the problem, simply assign 1000 IPs to your server and loop through them randomly for your requests. You won't see anymore 500's.
Cheers.
1I've received a mail from Instagram support just yesterday.
...
Hi,We made some changes to our server configurations, can you please check if you are still seeing the 500 errors?
Thanks,
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..well I was 100% certain that those 500ers didn't come from IG's IP rate limit because they weren't returned beforehand either.
I've been checking the logfiles and found a couple 502 (Bad Gateway) and "host unreachables", though no more 500 per se, after 2014-04-14 18:28:56 (PST).
Looks like they've finally sorted it out after nearly a month... ^_^
I had the exact same problem - unfortunately there is no way around it. This happens because of two many requests. At first I thought it was my IP or possibly my UDID until I signed into my app from my own phone and from my home IP but using a different Instagram id and it finally worked as expected again. Eventually, I could use my own ID again as time went by but with limited requests. I am not exactly sure how the algorithm works but the more time that went on the more requests I could use again.
Also, this is in real-time on an actual iPhone in an actual app - not on the iOS sim or Instagram API console, FYI.
Main Point: The request limit is based off the user (5000 requests per hour per user)...there is no IP rate limit.
Hope this helps :)
Clayton
I have the same problem. As i've rad, you have to get an extra access to API, I mean the Sandbox mode in your application does not allow you to use all the API. To get extra premissions go to client preferences, tab "premissions".
It seems to be related to curl version, I also experience the same problem with v 7.22.0 on 4 different machines 10 different ip's, while v7.30.0 and v7.19.7 are working like a charm. Currently investigating further more.
I'm almost 100% sure this happens because the domain/IP address is blocked from the Instagram API.
Reason:
- Works to get the JSON in the browser. Doesn't work to get with cURL from webservice.
- I copied my exact application from my primary domain (were the application doesn't work) to another domain. Same application worked.
The strange thing is that you get a "500 Internal Error" back and not a message "Your IP is blocked".
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