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mostviewed api failure: pvi-cached-error: An earlier attempt to fetch this data failed. To limit server load, retries have been blocked for 30 minutes
Open, HighPublicPRODUCTION ERROR

Description

mostviewed API by PageViewInfo extension https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php?action=query&list=mostviewed returns the following error

{
    "error": {
        "code": "pvi-cached-error",
        "info": "An earlier attempt to fetch this data failed. To limit server load, retries have been blocked for 30 minutes.",
        "*": "See https://en.wikipedia.org/w/api.php for API usage. Subscribe to the mediawiki-api-announce mailing list at <https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/mediawiki-api-announce.lists.wikimedia.org/> for notice of API deprecations and breaking changes."
    },
    "servedby": "mw-api-ext.codfw.main-5cbc55bb9b-j6wk6"
}

This causes Recommendation-API's translation recommendation returning blank results based on "Popular" article filter

Event Timeline

Restricted Application changed the subtype of this task from "Bug Report" to "Production Error". · View Herald TranscriptMar 18 2025, 7:31 AM
Restricted Application added a subscriber: Aklapper. · View Herald Transcript

Seems working now. The blocking of retries for 30 mins for all consumers of API seems not an optimal approach. Also see T382376: PageViewInfo caches errors due to the request limit which can lead to denial of service

This is blocking passing of CI for recommendation-api as well, where we rely on waiting for 30 minutes: https://integration.wikimedia.org/ci/job/recommendation-api-ng-pipeline-test/773/console

Nikerabbit triaged this task as Unbreak Now! priority.Mar 3 2026, 8:19 AM
Nikerabbit subscribed.

This seems to have deteriorated to the point that the error is being returned all the time. This blocks mergeds to recommendation-api service and breaks the features in CX relying on this.

Nikerabbit lowered the priority of this task from Unbreak Now! to High.Mar 5 2026, 8:06 AM

We were able to merge, but still should look into this.