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I just got this error message for the first time (I was getting this as the response to any request on the SE network for about the last five minutes, until now):

We're sorry...

There are an unusual number of requests coming from this IP address. To protect our users, we can't process any more requests from this IP address right now. We'll restore access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. If you believe you have reached this page in error, contact us.

As far as I know, I was not spamming SE or participating in DOS attack, and I find it unlikely that any of my office coworkers who share my IP address were doing so either.

Granted, I was pressing F5 a lot. But I've always pressed F5 a lot on SE, and have never gotten this message before. So my question is: Is it possible to get this error message simply by refreshing too much or too often? Or is that message reserved for a truly massive number of requests that are unlikely to be caused by one person refreshing a lot? (In the former case, I can't explain why I've never gotten it before; in the latter case, I can't explain why I just got it now).

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    Is this related to the new instant-updating thingadingdong?
    – The Unhandled Exception
    Mar 26, 2012 at 22:43
  • What does "a lot" mean to you? If it's "consistently more than once every 10 seconds", you may just want to take a break from the Stack Exchange for a bit ;)
    – Ry-
    Mar 26, 2012 at 22:58
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    @minitech Sorry, could you please explain what you mean by "take a break from the Stack Exchange for a bit"? That statement confuses me...
    – The Unhandled Exception
    Mar 26, 2012 at 22:59
  • @minitech, it is not consistently more than once every 10 seconds, but admit I do have occasional bursts where I'm checking for updates on many different questions and it crosses that threshold. But I guess my confusion arises because this is nothing new to me -- I've always browsed SE like that.
    – Ben Lee
    Mar 26, 2012 at 22:59
  • @BenLee: Oh, you're okay then.
    – Ry-
    Mar 26, 2012 at 23:01
  • I get this occasionally when I've left a lot of questions open in tabs and Chrome helpfully restores my session...reloading them all at one time. I've never seen it any other time, and I have a pretty twitchy Cmd+R finger.
    – Cody Gray - on strike
    Mar 26, 2012 at 23:04

2 Answers 2

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You can get it normally, but it's fairly unlikely. I've only gotten it a couple times, and every time I thought "ok, that's fair"; I was spamming F5 once every few seconds for some particular unusual reason. I've never gotten it just from normal refreshing to check for updates to things. Plus, you no longer need to refresh on many pages, since the pages will update automatically when things change

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    Old habits die hard though. I've been reloading all afternoon. Also, the new code is great but not foolproof; example: this very answer only showed up for me after a reload.
    – The Unhandled Exception
    Mar 26, 2012 at 23:00
  • Yeah, getting updates pushed will take some getting use to, but once I am used to, it may help me wean myself off F5. Thanks for the answer though, I guess I was just pressing F5 a tiny bit more frequently than my normal peak.
    – Ben Lee
    Mar 26, 2012 at 23:02
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I've got this message once by clicking some questions open, but:

  • This happened right after I opened the browser, which loads some of SE sites and chats.

  • I have an events user script on the left side, updating once a minute.

  • My question does a request to find possible duplicates.

  • I run other user scripts (to fetch the accept rate) that could possibly do requests as well.

  • I think I checked the review tabs right before that.

So you probably might want to check what happens under the hood.

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