Help · Troubleshooting

Downloads failing: rate limits

From RangefinderInvest's built-in help · applies to version 0.53.0

When a bulk download reports failures such as "couldn't be fetched" or "returned no data," the cause is almost always the data source rate-limiting the app, not bad symbols and not lost data. Existing history is always kept; a failed fetch just means no new rows this attempt.

What to do

  1. Use "Retry these." Failed tickers stay listed and selected, so one click re-runs just the stragglers. Most clear on the first retry.
  2. If retries keep failing, wait. A tripped Yahoo limit can stall requests for a while (sometimes the better part of an hour). The app already paces itself, with profile fetches strictly one at a time and price history in modest batches, because that's the fastest sustainable pace; hammering retries only extends the timeout.
  3. A ticker that fails every time at one source may just not be covered there. Pin it to the other source on Securities & prices and rebuild its history.

Why this happens

Yahoo's feed is unofficial and throttles sustained request volume; a thousand-ticker universe simply takes minutes. Tiingo has documented, per-key limits. They are generous for daily use, but a full-universe rebuild can still brush them.

Failures that aren't rate limits look different: a symbol typo fails instantly and identically at both sources, and a stale price with successful downloads is a different problem entirely.