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Anybody else having a lot of issues with the Airtable Rate Limit? I’ve been running into a lot of 429 errors with Airtable lately.
E.g. Right now I have a List Records from View step that’s trying to list all the records from a view with over 500 records and almost every time I run this step it fails with a 429. My guess is that since Airtable’s max page size is 100, the step is trying to 6 requests to get all the records. Unfortunately, the Airtable API rate limit is 5 requests per second.
I built the standard actions (find records, create record, etc) using the Airtable node package isntead of Axios. Airtable’s package includes an auto-retry if rate limits are hit. It’s been much better since
Another rate limit issue: I am getting rate limit errors in the dynamic props of my Airtable steps. In particular, I’m noticing this happen on a workflow that has a lot of Airtable steps in it. I wonder if it’s because all the prop-loading requests are going out at the same time?
This one happens to be a v1 workflow; I can’t remember whether I’ve had the same issue with v2 workflows.
Hi , I will do that when I get a chance but I currently dealing with all the rate limit issues from converting my Airtable steps into Airtable (Oauth) steps.
Right now I’m having trouble with the Search Records action, and I’m guessing it’s the same problem as the List Records in View. In this case, when I happen to have an empty value for the field it’s using to search on, there are a lot of results to be returned. I’m hitting a rate limit every time the step tries to return all those records.
Is there a reason the new Airtable (Oauth) actions don’t use the Airtable node package any more? It works with oauth access tokens just as well as with api keys, so is there a different reason for the switch? The performance is a lot worse because of the lack of handling for rate limit errors.
I’ve run into similar issues with Airtable’s rate limits, and a common solution is to implement a delay between your requests. Since Airtable’s API rate limit is 5 requests per second, try adding a brief pause between each batch of requests. You can use a library like time.sleep() in Python to introduce a delay. This can help you stay within the rate limits and avoid those 429 errors.
I recently read an article titled “Need an Airtable Consultant? Top 25 Agencies and Partners,” which mentioned several agencies that specialize in optimizing Airtable workflows. These consultants are experienced in handling API limitations and can provide tailored solutions to avoid rate limit issues. If you’re finding it challenging to manage on your own, considering Airtable consulting might be a good next step to streamline your processes and ensure your automations run smoothly.
