Troubleshooting

• Why am I getting a 404 error on a repository that exists?
• Why am I not seeing all my results?
• Can I get my rate limits bumped?

If you’re encountering some oddities in the API, here’s a list of resolutions to some of the problems you may be experiencing.

Why am I getting a 404 error on a repository that exists?

Typically, we send a 404 error when your client isn’t properly authenticated. You might expect to see a 403 Forbidden in these cases. However, since we don’t want to provide any information about private repositories, the API returns a 404 error instead.

To fix this, you can either ensure that you’re authenticating correctly, or make sure that your scopes are valid.

Why am I not seeing all my results?

Most API calls accessing a list of resources (e.g., users, issues, e.t.c.) support pagination. If you’re making requests and receiving an incomplete set of results, you’re probably only seeing the first page. You’ll need to request the remaining pages in order to get more results.

It’s important to not try and guess the format of the pagination URL. Not every API call uses the same structure. Instead, extract the pagination information from the Link Header, which is sent with every request.

Can I get my rate limits bumped?

The GitHub API has a pretty lenient quota for rate limits, for your enjoyment and our safety. You can read more about it here.

If you’re using OAuth or Basic Authentication and are hitting your rate limits, you might be able to fix the issue by either caching our results, or using conditional requests.

In certain exceptional cases, we may temporarily bump your rate limit higher. You should be prepared to answer technical questions about your goal and your planned usage of the API. We may still choose not to bump your limit if we feel that you can achieve your wildest dreams with the current rate limit (but don’t worry, we’ll help you out).