Cloudflare uses rate limiting to protect online services from several types of attack.
It can sometimes block valid requests too, displaying an error like this:
What is Cloudflare Error 1015: You Are Being Rate Limited?
When a user comments that they’ve seen error 1015, Cloudflare is rate-limiting their connection. This means the rate-limited device is temporarily blocked from connecting for a short time. When this happens there’s no way for the visitor to access the domain until the error times out.
Visitors who encounter error 1015 often leave the site.
Resolve 1015 errors promptly to keep visitors on your website.
(For the fixes without the rate-limiting explanation, Click here.)
What is Rate Limiting?
Many requests arriving close together can overload a website. Cloudflare lets site owners monitor and control bandwidth use.
In the website owner settings, create a rate-limiting rule for an IP address or domain to reduce the effects of heavy traffic.
Cloudflare can then block traffic automatically from a suspicious visitor or IP address. This stops hackers and spammers from harming site performance through DDoS attacks and other illicit activity.
How to Fix Cloudflare Error 1015: You Are Being Rate Limited
- Slow Down Your Activity
- Disable Rate Limiting
- Delete Your Old Rate Limiting Configuration
- Raise Your Rate Limiting Request Threshold
- Check the Time Restrictions On Your Rate Limits
- Consider Increasing Your Bandwidth
- Optimize Your Website
- Reach Out to the Cloudflare Support Community
Several problems can produce Cloudflare Error 1015: “You are being rate limited”.
When error 1015 blocks a legitimate visitor, the cause is usually a rate-limiting configuration problem that requires the site owner to fix it.
A visitor may send many legitimate requests in quick succession. Your server still needs a configuration that can handle that higher traffic load.
Check the causes below to troubleshoot Cloudflare’s rate-limiting error.
A separate Cloudflare error also uses code 1015: the cache purge error is unrelated to rate limiting.
“Unable to purge” concerns Cloudflare’s cache purge. For that separate 1015 error, read the cache purge guidance here.
1. Slow Down Your Activity
Asking users to slow their clicks can sometimes resolve the error.
Every action a visitor takes uses some of the website’s resources.
Unmanaged traffic can slow or crash the site. Cloudflare rate limiting detects and reduces excessive requests to the domain to prevent those slowdowns.
Except in very rare cases, configure the server to handle ordinary visitor activity and high request volumes without locking people out of the site or app.
Asking visitors to slow down is a temporary measure while you improve Cloudflare’s rate-limiting settings and firewall rules.
2. Disable Rate Limiting
I would not usually recommend disabling Cloudflare rate limiting, though doing so lets visitors move through the site without interruption.
If frequent 1015 errors are stopping business, disabling rate-limit rules opens the website to all traffic from allowed IP addresses.
Disabling the rules can expose the website to slowdowns or crashes caused by high request volumes or DDoS attacks.
Use this only as an initial step while improving the rate-limiting configuration.
3. Delete Your Old Rate Limiting Configuration
Visitors may still report error 1015 after you turn rate limiting off.
In rare cases, rules continue to operate even with rate limiting disabled for the domain.
To turn it off fully, enable rate limiting again in the owner settings, delete all the rate-limit rules and then disable the feature again.
4. Raise Your Rate Limiting Request Threshold
A request limit set too low commonly causes error 1015.
The owner settings limit how many page requests an IP address can make in a given interval. People often assume a pageview counts as a single request.
One pageview can actually send 50 or more requests to the server within seconds, particularly with a reverse proxy or after a cache purge.
Setting limits on the assumption that each pageview is one request often produces error 1015.
If a low request threshold is limiting the site, disable that limit in the account settings or raise it substantially.
5. Check the Time Restrictions On Your Rate Limits
A rule that blocks an IP address for multiple requests within 10 seconds is another common configuration mistake.
That rule can lock out legitimate visitors who are entitled to access the site.
Cloudflare support recommends setting the account’s rate-limiting rules to 10 seconds or more.
The default does not always use this interval. A mistaken “1” in place of 10 seconds commonly causes trouble.
Allow enough time in Cloudflare’s rate limits for normal traffic from simultaneous visitors. Otherwise, users will encounter more 1015 errors.
6. Consider Increasing Your Bandwidth
Cloudflare applies safeguards such as rate limits according to traffic volume and app usage.
If normal traffic or the way your app works is likely to trigger error 1015 regularly, ask Cloudflare support to increase the limit.
7. Optimize Your Website
Cookies stored in a visitor’s browser help load content with fewer requests. Clearing the cookies and cache forces the browser to load the site’s information again.
Poor website design or optimisation can make legitimate IP addresses encounter more page errors.
Customers may report problems such as:
- Frequently needing to refresh the site’s articles and posts.
- Clearing cache & cookies whenever they visit a particular URL.
- Pages that load slowly.
Repeated refreshing and reloading, or revisiting a section on every visit, sharply increases requests to the servers.
For any of these complaints, check that every part of the site loads correctly and gives the visitor’s browser suitable cache & cookie information.
Optimising the website reduces its request load and lets visitors use it without errors.
8. Reach Out to the Cloudflare Support Community
If these steps fail to identify and resolve error 1015 on the domain’s servers, app or program, ask Cloudflare support for help.
Use Cloudflare’s support articles and community forum for configuration problems. A paid support contract also gives access to help by email or live phone support.
Free Cloudflare accounts can still ask for help in the community forums.
Search the Cloudflare forums and wider online community for detailed posts about resolving different error messages.
Follow those forums for updates about the errors you encounter on a Cloudflare site or server.
Why am I getting Error 1015 When Accessing Chat GPT?
Cloudflare error 1015 can appear when you access ChatGPT. It means the connection is rate limited, usually because you have reached the permitted number of requests to ChatGPT’s servers in a given period.
The main causes include:
- Excessive requests: Too many requests to ChatGPT close together may trigger error 1105.
- Network issues: An unstable or slow internet connection can cause errors and timeouts.
- Browser problems: A browser that is outdated or corrupted may impair ChatGPT’s performance.
- Server overload: Heavy traffic puts pressure on the servers and can reduce performance and availability for several users at once.
If the fixes above do not resolve error 1015, your setup may not be the cause.
OpenAI, which makes ChatGPT, sometimes limits how many users can sign in. Its status page has displayed this message:
“At this time, we are limiting the number of users who can log into ChatGPT. We are continuing to remediate the ongoing issue.”
This is usually temporary, lasting a couple of hours at most while ChatGPT rapidly adds servers and GPUs to meet demand.
