Every other search/getFood - User is performing too many actions (Error Code 12)

[Beacher]

Hey there,

we're developing a site that takes advantage of Fat Secret's API, and
when we first started developing we were able to query without any
issue, if we searched many foods in succession, it would give us the
"User is performing too many actions" error, which is understandable
as it probably looks like an attempt to begin copying Fat Secret's
database to the API, this rarely happened, only when I got click happy
in my testing.

Any how, fast forward a few weeks to now, we're still developing the
site (I'm the only one testing ingredients) and if I perform a getFood
command or do a search, it will return the ingredient or results,
however if I perform a getFood or search a 2nd time, it will give me
the "User is performing too many actions" error. I understand limiting
the usage of the API to prevent abuse, but I can't use it (as a single
user) twice within 10 seconds without getting this error.

Is it possible that the restrictions on our account may have gotten
set wrong?

I realize the premium version of the service doesn't have limits,
however we're just starting the site out and could not afford the
monthly costs associated with it (yet).

Thanks in advance.

[Len]

Hi there,

The 'User is performing too many actions' generally relates to API
throttling limits or OAuth related timestamp sequencing issues for
multi-threaded clients in place to restrict likely inappropriate
activity. We are surprised that you'd be experiencing this error/
restriction if you're not making a large number of calls. We'll
certainly look into this further.

All the best,
Len

[Beacher]

Thanks a lot for the quick response!

I'm curious, what is considered a large number of calls? I'm
performing one call for the search of ingredients, and then one call
to get the serving type of a selected ingredient, so it's doing 2-3
API calls in succession. However, I'm still getting the error after I
search a few times (and it seems like once you get that error, you'll
keep getting it until whatever restriction is put in place is auto
lifted after a certain time).

I mean 5,000 calls/day = 3.47 calls/min 24 hours a day, if that's how
the limits are set, then this error is making sense, but I'm not doing
more then probably 100 calls/day right now overall, if that, while
testing, but they are usually in groups close together over a couple
hours.

Thanks again for any insight!