Rate limit errors with backups to Dropbox through rclone

Getting Help
1

Hello everyone!
I’ve been using restic with a Dropbox business account through the rclone backend since November 2020.
Since I’ve been using Dropbox with restic, I’ve been noticing rate limit errors in the log files.
It did not bother me because, in the end, the backups finished correctly because restic was retrying the uploads.
But since 2 or 3 days ago, the backups are not finishing correctly, they error out.

A sample of the errors I’ve been seeing these months:

found 1 old cache directories in /root/.cache/restic, run `restic cache --cleanup` to remove them
no parent snapshot found, will read all files
rclone: 2021/04/04 11:58:01 ERROR : data/21/212987beeb8ece593f268766f53e5474d546ab225ea0319ea760f549a1624da1: Post request put error: upload failed: too_many_requests/...
rclone: 2021/04/04 11:58:01 ERROR : data/21/212987beeb8ece593f268766f53e5474d546ab225ea0319ea760f549a1624da1: Post request rcat error: upload failed: too_many_requests/...
rclone: 2021/04/04 11:58:01 ERROR : data/b3/b3828484ef5318bdb110e5e33cd8bd22e27f4482d8a243524f89b8ffcbd6894b: Post request put error: upload failed: too_many_requests/.
rclone: 2021/04/04 11:58:01 ERROR : data/b3/b3828484ef5318bdb110e5e33cd8bd22e27f4482d8a243524f89b8ffcbd6894b: Post request rcat error: upload failed: too_many_requests/.
rclone: 2021/04/04 11:58:01 ERROR : data/a9/a93b2a374a35d1bd737ec15187f77b2223e6cf765ceca6cc32f6d47bafae91be: Post request put error: upload failed: too_many_requests/..
rclone: 2021/04/04 11:58:01 ERROR : data/a9/a93b2a374a35d1bd737ec15187f77b2223e6cf765ceca6cc32f6d47bafae91be: Post request rcat error: upload failed: too_many_requests/..

Today I’ve been trying to fix it. I’ve tried the RCLONE_TPSLIMIT=9 flag and even tried setting it on 1.
I’ve also tried the RCLONE_CHECKERS=1 without success.
The only thing that has gave me some sort of success was the RCLONE_TRANSFERS=1 flag.
With this flag, there are no rate limit errors, but the files never finish uploading.

I’ve tried the rclone command alone, without any flag and it uploads just nice:

rclone copy --log-level="DEBUG" archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso "DropboxHDD:Pruebas"
2021/04/04 12:21:24 DEBUG : rclone: Version "v1.53.3" starting with parameters ["rclone" "copy" "--log-level=DEBUG" "archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso" "DropboxHDD:Pruebas"]
2021/04/04 12:21:24 DEBUG : Creating backend with remote "archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso"
2021/04/04 12:21:24 DEBUG : Using config file from "/root/.rclone.conf"
2021/04/04 12:21:24 DEBUG : fs cache: adding new entry for parent of "archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso", "REDACTED"
2021/04/04 12:21:24 DEBUG : Creating backend with remote "DropboxHDD:Pruebas"
2021/04/04 12:21:24 DEBUG : archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso: Need to transfer - File not found at Destination
2021/04/04 12:21:24 DEBUG : archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso: Uploading chunk 1/16
2021/04/04 12:21:26 DEBUG : archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso: Uploading chunk 2/16
2021/04/04 12:21:29 DEBUG : archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso: Uploading chunk 3/16
2021/04/04 12:21:30 DEBUG : archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso: Uploading chunk 4/16
2021/04/04 12:21:33 DEBUG : archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso: Uploading chunk 5/16
2021/04/04 12:21:35 DEBUG : archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso: Uploading chunk 6/16
2021/04/04 12:21:37 DEBUG : archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso: Uploading chunk 7/16
2021/04/04 12:21:40 DEBUG : archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso: Uploading chunk 8/16
2021/04/04 12:21:42 DEBUG : archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso: Uploading chunk 9/16
2021/04/04 12:21:45 DEBUG : archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso: Uploading chunk 10/16
2021/04/04 12:21:47 DEBUG : archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso: Uploading chunk 11/16
2021/04/04 12:21:49 DEBUG : archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso: Uploading chunk 12/16
2021/04/04 12:21:52 DEBUG : archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso: Uploading chunk 13/16
2021/04/04 12:21:55 DEBUG : archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso: Uploading chunk 14/16
2021/04/04 12:22:00 DEBUG : archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso: Uploading chunk 15/16
2021/04/04 12:22:02 DEBUG : archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso: Uploading chunk 16/16
2021/04/04 12:22:05 DEBUG : archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso: DropboxHash = 93495455dbef794368a9fdc550c5a79d0c22817882adbea44307334942a68313 OK
2021/04/04 12:22:05 INFO  : archlinux-2021.04.01-x86_64.iso: Copied (new)
2021/04/04 12:22:05 INFO  : 
Transferred:   	  750.324M / 750.324 MBytes, 100%, 18.408 MBytes/s, ETA 0s
Transferred:            1 / 1, 100%
Elapsed time:        41.6s

2021/04/04 12:22:05 DEBUG : 5 go routines active

If there is anything else I can try or adjust tell me, please. I would gladly thank you.
Thanks!

2

If this has been working in the past and you haven’t changed anything I would asume a problem on Dropbox’s site. A request limit of 1 is way too low, especially for a business account. Have you tried contacting Dropbox?

3

Well, I’ve been getting these errors since the beginning but since 2 of April the snapshots hang up uploading.
I will contact Dropbox to see if they have changed some limits in their backend.
Also, this morning I’ve tried this pull request in rclone that implements “batch uploading”. I’m not getting rate limit errors anymore and, for what I can see in the system monitor, it gets pretty good speeds. The only downside is that the snapshots don’t finish uploading, they get stuck on 99% aprox.
I will update this thread if I find anything or if Dropbox’s support answers me.