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How to Fix the WordPress 429 Too Many Requests Error

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Are you seeing the ‘429 Too Many Requests’ error on your WordPress site?

This error message means that a user has sent too many HTTP requests to your website’s server. This error can be extremely frustrating because it is hard to figure out what’s causing it.

In this article, we will show you how to easily fix the ‘WordPress 429 Too Many Requests’ error.

How to fix WordPress 429 too many requests error

What Causes the WordPress 429 Too Many Requests Error?

The ‘429 Too Many Requests’ error in WordPress usually happens when a user, bot, or script tries to make a lot of requests to your website in a short period. This is like a protective measure to stop potential attacks on your site, known as DDOS attacks.

Imagine your website as a busy doorway. To keep things running smoothly, there’s a limit on how many people can enter at once.

If too many try to get in at the same time, the door says “hold on” to some of them, and that’s when you see the ‘429 Too Many Requests’ error.

Causes of 429 error in WordPress

One scenario where you might encounter this error is when there are too many requests from your WordPress website.

If a plugin or a piece of code is trying to load too much information too quickly, your website’s security might say, “Wait, that’s too fast!”

This can affect how your site shows up in search engines and may even prevent you from logging in to your WordPress admin dashboard.

Sometimes, your site might be asking another website for information using something called an API (like a messenger between websites).

If your site asks too often or too quickly, the other website might say, “Hold on, you’re asking for too much too soon,” and it responds with a ‘429’ error.

That being said, let’s look at how to easily troubleshoot and fix the ‘429 Too Many Requests’ error in WordPress.

Fixing the 429 Too Many Requests Error in WordPress

Since the ‘429 Too Many Requests’ error can be caused by different factors, We will show you multiple ways to troubleshoot and fix it.

You can use the quick links below to jump to the method you wish to use:

Find and Deactivate a Misbehaving Plugin

The most common culprit of the 429 error is a bad plugin on your website. Plugins can sometimes make multiple requests to your website, which the server may reject with a 429 error code.

The first thing you need to do is deactivate all WordPress plugins on your website.

You can do this by visiting the Plugins » Installed Plugins page in your WordPress admin area and selecting all the plugins. After that, select ‘Deactivate’ from the ‘Bulk actions’ dropdown menu and click ‘Apply’.

Deactivate all WordPress plugins

If you are unable to access the WordPress admin area, then see our guide on how to deactivate all WordPress plugins via FTP.

Now, visit your website again to see if you can reproduce the ‘429 Too Many Requests’ error. If you can’t, then this means a plugin was causing this issue.

You can now activate your plugins one by one and check your website after activating each one. This way, you can find the plugin causing the error.

Once you find the plugin causing the error, you can replace it with an alternative WordPress plugin or try contacting the plugin author to let them know about the error.

You can see our guide on how to ask for WordPress support and get it for more details.

Switch to a Default WordPress Theme

Many WordPress themes include functionality that normally comes with plugins. These themes may also cause the ‘429 Too Many Requests’ error on your website.

The easiest way to find out if this is the case is by switching to a default WordPress theme like Twenty Twenty-One.

You can do this by heading to Appearance » Themes and clicking on ‘Activate’ beneath one of the default themes.

Activate a default theme

For more details, please see our guide on how to properly change a WordPress theme. This post will also show you what to do if you can’t access the WordPress admin dashboard.

If changing to a default theme resolves the 429 error, then you can find another WordPress theme. You can also report the problem to the theme developer, and they may be able to fix it.

Change Your WordPress Login URL

If you are worried that you are seeing the ‘409 Too Many Requests’ error because of a DDoS attack, then you may want to change your WordPress login URL.

This way, hackers won’t be able to find your login page by adding wp-admin or wp-login to the end of your website’s URL.

You can easily change the WordPress login URL by using the WPS Hide Login plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Once activated, you need to go to Settings » WPS Hide Login.

WPS Hide Login add redirect

Simply enter a new login page URL into the ‘Login url’ box. You can also add a ‘Redirection URL’.

Make sure to click on ‘Save Changes’ to store your settings.

For more information, please see our guide on how to add a custom login URL in WordPress.

Check for Mixed Content Issues

At times, the ‘429 Too May Requests’ error is related to another error called mixed content. This is when your website is served using HTTPS, but parts of it, like the images, content, and other elements, are still loaded in HTTP.

If you use a WordPress security plugin, then it may detect your site’s mixed content issues as potential security threats. Then, it could implement rate limiting to prevent potential attacks or abuse.

If a user triggers this limit by repeatedly loading pages with mixed content, it could result in a 429 code error. To fix this problem, you can read our article on how to fix mixed content errors in WordPress.

Restore Your Website Backup

If you are still not sure what’s causing the ‘429 Too Many Requests’ error and you have a backup in place, then we recommend restoring a backup before the error occurs.

By doing this, you can retrace your steps and figure out what exactly happened that led to the error. What’s more, you can get your website back up and running quickly, which is important if you run an online store or business.

You can read our guide on how to restore a WordPress site backup properly for guidance. If you haven’t done any backups yet but want to do so in the future, then check out our article on how to back up WordPress.

Contact Your Hosting Provider

A lot of times, you will see a ‘429 Too Many Requests’ error in third-party services that need access to your website. These could be search engines, crawlers, and other web apps.

If you are seeing the error in Google Search Console or any third-party service, then most likely, then they are sending too many requests to your website.

In that case, you need to ask your WordPress hosting provider not to block those requests.

Speaking about hosting, you may also want to check if your website is using more resources than provided by your service.

If so, then you will need to upgrade your hosting plan to get more CPU power, bandwidth, and storage space. Or, migrate your WordPress site to a different provider to support its growth.

We hope this article helped you fix the WordPress ‘429 Too Many Requests’ error on your website. You may also want to see our list of the most common WordPress errors and how to fix them, and our top picks for the best WordPress SEO plugins and tools.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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7 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

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  2. Alan Brady says

    Hi, I am persistently getting this 429 error on not only my live site, but also on a brand new site in a sub-domain. Is it possible that the sub-domain “inherits” the 429 error, or do I need to speak to my host provider?

    • WPBeginner Support says

      You would want to speak with your hosting provider and they would be able to help you fix the error as it sounds like it would be from your hosting and not a plugin or theme.

      Admin

  3. Snehal says

    Hello

    We are facing this 429 error code on our website. If you open it directly from the address bar then it is opening but if you type keywords into google search then result pages are not opening, its giving this 429 error code.
    This issue only persists in google search engine not yahoo or bing search. What could be the reason and how to resolve this in google search
    Could you please help us in solving this issue.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      You would want to follow the steps in this article and possibly have Google recrawl your site.

      Admin

    • WPBeginner Support says

      I’m unsure what you mean, if you’re having this error then you would want to follow the steps in the article.

      Admin

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