My Discord bot hits rate limits despite low request frequency

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1

I’m working on a Discord bot that updates a voice channel name when players join or leave a Minecraft server. The bot is supposed to rename the channel every time there’s a change in player count. But I’m running into a weird issue.

Even though I’m sending way fewer requests than Discord’s limit of 50 per second, I’m still getting rate limited. I’ve tried setting a 20-second delay between requests, but I still hit the limit after just 3 renames.

Here’s a snippet of my code:

@tasks.loop(seconds=1)
async def rename_channel():
    global player_count
    try:
        current_status = minecraft_server.get_status()
        voice_ch = bot.get_channel(CHANNEL_ID)
        
        if not voice_ch:
            print('Channel not found')
            return
        
        if player_count != current_status.active_players:
            await voice_ch.edit(name=f'Players: {current_status.active_players}')
            print(f'Channel renamed: {current_status.active_players} players')
            player_count = current_status.active_players
        else:
            print('No change')
    except Exception as e:
        print(f'Error: {e}')

@bot.event
async def on_startup():
    print(f'Bot active: {bot.user}')
    initial_players = minecraft_server.get_status().active_players
    await bot.get_channel(CHANNEL_ID).edit(name=f'Players: {initial_players}')
    print(f'Initial channel name set: {initial_players} players')
    rename_channel.start()

The error I’m getting is:

discord.http We are being rate limited. PATCH *{Channel_ID_link}* responded with 429. Retrying in 580.74 seconds.

This happens after about 2-3 successful renames. Am I missing something in my code? Any ideas on how to fix this?

2

hey mate, i had a similar problem. discord’s channel edit rate limit is super strict. instead of updating every change, try batching updates. like, check every 5 mins and update only if theres a big change. or use a text channel for frequent updates. that way u avoid the nasty rate limits

3

I’ve experienced similar issues with rate limits when working on Discord bots. In my case, it turned out that channel edit operations have a distinct and much stricter rate limit compared to other API requests. Instead of updating the channel name every time a change occurs, I solved it by checking when the last update was made and then scheduling updates at longer intervals. I also considered using alternative methods, like sending status messages to a text channel, which helps keep the data current without risking the strict channel rate limits. Adjusting the update frequency based on these insights worked well for me.

4

I’ve dealt with this exact issue before. Discord’s rate limits for channel edits are incredibly strict. What worked for me was implementing a cooldown system. Instead of trying to rename the channel every second, I set up a cooldown period of about 10 minutes between edits. This significantly reduced the rate limit errors.

Here’s a basic implementation you could try:

import time

last_edit_time = 0
cooldown = 600  # 10 minutes in seconds

@tasks.loop(seconds=60)
async def rename_channel():
    global last_edit_time, player_count
    current_time = time.time()
    
    if current_time - last_edit_time < cooldown:
        return

    # Your existing code here
    # ...

    if player_count != current_status.active_players:
        await voice_ch.edit(name=f'Players: {current_status.active_players}')
        last_edit_time = current_time
        player_count = current_status.active_players

This approach should help you avoid hitting the rate limits while still keeping your channel name relatively up-to-date.