What does it mean if you are being rate limited in Midjourney?

Whenever you are rate limited in Midjourney, it means that you've done too many actions of the same type within a short period of time and this triggered Discord's rate-limiting security measure.

Why am I being rate limited in Midjourney?

Rate limits are meant to prevent servers from being overloaded by too many concurrent queries. Sometimes this is caused by malicious actors who are trying to attack a server with "brute force". However, if the server infrastructure wasn't built to handle large volumes of traffic, then "regular" users can also overload a server. Rate limiting prevents excessive usage by individuals and limits how many requests you can send within a given period of time.

How do you bypass rate limiting in Discord?

While most rate limits are lifted within a few minutes, there are also ways of circumventing them. Most of the time, all you need is a different IP address. So, if you're on your smartphone, you could switch to a mobile network. Or you could connect through a VPN. Restarting your WiFi router usually fixes the issue as well.

[SOLVED] Midjourney: "You Are Being Rate Limited"

Are you having technical problems with Midjourney in Discord?

Most people who use Midjourney for the very first time are also first-time users of Discord.

So it’s no surprise that they might not be familiar with common Discord issues such as the Midjourney error “You are being rate limited”.

In this guide, we’ll explain what is causing the error and what you need to do in order to fix it.

Let’s dive right in.

Table of Contents Show

How to Fix “You Are Being Rate Limited” in Midjourney

Infographic explaining how to fix "You are being rated limited" Midjourney errors. — Infographic explaining how to fix “You are being rated limited” Midjourney errors.

Rate limiting is a very common concept in today’s internet server infrastructure.

Nearly every online service that is reasonably popular and receives a boatload of traffic uses rate limiting in some shape or form.

And since Midjourney currently still runs as a Discord bot, it’s no surprise that users occasionally run into this error.

If you’re confronted with a “You are being rate limited” error in Midjourney, then it usually just means that you’ve done a particular action or a type of action too many times within a certain period of time.

Whenever you “go overboard”, Midjourney will rate limit you for some time.

Rate limiting is used to protect servers from so-called “brute force attacks” which are often used to force a server to shut down due to overload.

These attacks are commonly referred to as “Distributed Denial of Service” (DDoS) attacks because they usually use distributed networks of bots to attack infrastructure.

The good news is that it’s relatively easy to fix the “You are being rate limited” error if you’re just a regular user.

Key Points (tl;dr)

If you are being rate limited in Midjourney, then it’s usually due to the excessive use of a particular command.
Rate limits are applied at an IP address level and are set for the entire Discord platform.
Aside from simply waiting for the limit to be lifted, you can also use various methods of changing your IP address (e.g. VPNs) to circumvent the limit.

Method 1: Use Incognito Mode

If you’re using Discord through your web browser, then sometimes all you need to do is go private.

In other words, if you’re using the Chrome browser, open an “Incognito” window.

This prevents Discord from reading any of your browser cookies and very often, this is enough to fix the “You are being rate limited” Midjourney error.

If you are using another type of browser, “Incognito Mode” may have a different name such as “Private Browser Window”.

Method 2: Use a VPN

Since rate limiting is usually done at an IP address level, accessing the Midjourney Discord through a different browser might not solve your problem.

If you already have a VPN application on your system, try connecting through a different country.

Since you’re connecting from a different IP address, you will most likely no longer see the Midjourney error “You are being rate limited”.

Method 3: Restart Your Router

If you don’t already have a VPN application, finding and installing one may not be the easiest solution.

Alternatively, you can try restarting your WiFi router.

When your router restarts, it will reconnect to the internet and it is usually assigned a completely new IP address within your provider’s subnet.

Most of the time this is sufficient because Discord only rate limits the specific IP address you had before.

However, if you’re still getting the Midjourney error “You are being rate limited”, then you either have a fixed IP address or Discord is rate limiting the entire subnet of your provider.

While this would be somewhat out of the ordinary, we cannot rule it out completely.

Method 4: Just Wait

The fourth and final method how you can fix the Midjourney error “You are being rate limited” is by simply waiting.

I know this is probably not what you wanted to hear but rate limits are always time-based.

The most common rate limits are applied to 5 or 15-minute cycles.

In other words, that’s how long you should wait before you try another action in Midjourney.

If you continue to get the “You are being rated limited” error, then it’s possible that you’ve exceeded the hourly rate limit.

In that case, you may need to wait a little longer.

Either way, it’s only a matter of time until you’ll be able to use Midjourney again.

Just be patient, and next time, take it slow.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Before we close off this guide, let’s quickly address some of the most common questions related to the Midjourney error “You are being rate limited”.

What does it mean if you are being rate limited in Midjourney?

Whenever you are rate limited in Midjourney, it means that you’ve done too many actions of the same type within a short period of time and this triggered Discord’s rate-limiting security measure.
Why am I being rate limited in Midjourney?

Rate limits are meant to prevent servers from being overloaded by too many concurrent queries. Sometimes this is caused by malicious actors who are trying to attack a server with “brute force”. However, if the server infrastructure wasn’t built to handle large volumes of traffic, then “regular” users can also overload a server. Rate limiting prevents excessive usage by individuals and limits how many requests you can send within a given period of time.
How do you bypass rate limiting in Discord?

While most rate limits are lifted within a few minutes, there are also ways of circumventing them. Most of the time, all you need is a different IP address. So, if you’re on your smartphone, you could switch to a mobile network. Or you could connect through a VPN. Restarting your WiFi router usually fixes the issue as well.

Conclusion

Many of the errors that Midjourney users encounter don’t actually have anything to do with Midjourney’s software itself.

Since Midjourney uses a Bot within Discord, it also benefits from the security measures that the platform has to offer.

Luckily, the majority of technical issues can be solved quite easily.

Here at Tokenized, we want to help you learn as much as possible about the AI software industry. We help you navigate the world of tech and the digitalization of our society at large, including the tokenization of assets and services.

[SOLVED] Midjourney: “You Are Being Rate Limited”