Starting few days ago, after it has been working fine for years, latest AmiQuote 4.17, with default throttling settings started giving me "FatalError: You are downloading too fast! Yahoo: Too Many Requests" on Windows 2016 VPS, while works fine on my Windows 10 Pro laptop with same AQ 4.17 and same settings.. Thinking my VPS is blacklisted I changed to a brand new IP address today, but it does not help.
Yes, my old VPS IP had Number of simultaneous downloads higher at 5 as opposed to 1, but I changed the setting days ago and got a new IP which does not improve things on the VPS.
Thank you.
As you wrote yourself, it works on your laptop. Therefore the problem is NOT with the software, but with Yahoo. When Yahoo blocks you, then only Yahoo can unblock you and nobody else on this planet can do anything about it. Yahoo might block certain ranges of IPs that include IP that your VPS is using.
Thank you. I was thinking that it might be AmiQuote generated cookies stored on my VPS. I already cleared cookies/history with inetcpl.cpl Is there anything else I should clear?
I also have my own web scrapers that use finance.yahoo.com that work fine (aren't blacklisted) from the VPS.
Yes Yahoo generates cookies with every access. If you cleared them, then they are cleared. I don't know what your "web scrapers" are using, but they might be adding things to the equation.
As I wrote many many times - AmiQuote just sends HTTP request using URL that is clearly visible in the Data source definition and that's it. Nothing magical inside. If Yahoo responds with error, it displays Yahoo error. That's all. Nothing magical. Exact same effect would be if you just typed the very same URL in other browser.
They might have blocked you based on different factors (like combination of IP + User Agent string) then the block would appear only with specific program. AmiQuote currently uses "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:76.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/76.0"" as Agent string (chosen because it was very popular at a time). If they blocked you based on Agent String or combination of it with anything else (such as IP) it would behave exactly like that.
But generally speaking this URL works just fine in AmiQuote
The last 2 octets of my IP are different now and AQ UserAgent is hardcoded to Firefox 76. Short of having the ability to change UserAgent in AQ, what can I do?
Let me know if you think of anything else I could try on my VPS to resolve or narrow down the issue further. Are there any other files in my system I could look for and delete that point to my old IP or being possibly blacklisted as of 5/5/2025?
OK, so it seems that my guess about User Agent block was correct. I checked the code and "Debug" page doesn't set Firefox User agent but uses default agent which is actually an application name (Quote.exe). If you have hex editor you can modify agent string in the binary directly at offset 0x2F3A0.
I can add to this conversation. So I have a project in c# that uses the webClient Class, that worked until last week also. Interestingly, a created download URL created in my code works in the my web browser on the machine and AmiQuote works on this same machine. I tried AQ's user-agent and my code still doesn't work? I assume the browser, AQ and my script all use the same IP from the same machine, still getting 429 response, so what could this be? Previously my working user-agent was this...
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:76.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/76.0
to
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:83.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/83.0
whih is the same length string and a valid UserAgent as per Firefox User Agent Strings
but still get "FatalError: You are downloading too fast! Yahoo: Too Many Requests"
So my last 2 octets of my IP are different, my UserAgent is different but still blacklisted, any ideas?
Tomasz, you said "at offset 0x2F3A0", the text with "76" is found at 3A16D-3A16E, and at 3A18A-3A1AB, as per my screenshot, am I doing this right?
I gave the offset in 32-bit version. 64-bit version offsets are different. I would change the agent to something completely different, that doesn't start with Mozilla at all and then try. If this doesn't help, then I have run out of ideas.
Newest AmiQuote 4.18 released just now, has customizable user agent string and auto-rotation of user agents implemented so it changes user agent with each download run
Tomasz, would it be possible to add UserAgent choice that does NOT start with "Mozilla/5.0", in AmiQuote 4.18? Nonce of the AQ 4.18 choices seem to work for me, I went back to using my hacked version of 4.17 with
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.2; .NET CLR 1.0.370000000005;)
The functionality is provided already. AmiQuote accepts ANY string, the one that you see in dropdown are just most popular ones, but you can TYPE anything you want. Just UNCHECK "Auto-rotate user agents" and then the edit field will be enabled and you can enter anything you wish.
Thank you. I think that there is a maximum custom string length of 87 characters long, while some of the supplied UserAgents are much longer, 131+ chars. Anything above 87 chars cannot be edited. Or if I paste in a custom long UserAgent it gets truncated at 87.
Also, are the supplied UserAgents embedded in your code, or could they be externalized into an xml file for easier/bulk editing, outside of the UI, possibly overcoming UI's max string limitation?
There is no limit in software, but simply Windows default behavior is NOT to allow combobox edit strings to enter beyond whats visible, as WS_AUTOHSCROLL is off by default, will add it in the next version to allow endless agent strings, but really, you don't need a "real" User agent string from the browser nor it needs to be of any particular length. User agent is just ANY string. It can be as just "ABCD" and it will work too. It really doesn't matter, as long as it is different from whatever Yahoo is hunting you for.
