The short version
- 01Stop retrying. Cloudflare warns that repeated attempts can extend the block.
- 02Wait a period of time before trying the site again.
- 03Contact the site owner if you need your IP excluded from rate limiting.
- 04If you own the site, review your rate limiting thresholds in the Cloudflare dashboard.
- 05Widen a rule that counts requests over one second to something like ten seconds.
- 06Check whether a script or integration of yours is generating the traffic.
Raw message
Error 1015 — You are being rate limited
Likely causes
- The site owner's rate limiting rules restricting how many requests a visitor may make.
- A threshold set over a very short window, such as one second.
- Automated tools, scripts or aggressive refreshing tripping a limit meant for abuse.
- A shared or corporate IP address where several people's traffic is counted together.
What 1015 means
Cloudflare's wording is the message itself: you are being rate limited. The site has received too many requests from you in a short time and has temporarily blocked access. The cause Cloudflare gives is that the website owner has configured rate limiting rules restricting how many requests a visitor can make in a given time period.
This is deliberate, configured behaviour rather than a fault. Nothing is broken at the site, nothing is broken on your connection, and the block is temporary by design.
It is worth knowing that the limit counts requests from an IP address, not from a person. On a shared office or campus connection, or behind a corporate proxy, you can trip a limit you personally did nothing to deserve — everyone's traffic arrives from the same address.
If you are a visitor
Cloudflare's first instruction carries a warning worth taking literally: wait for a period of time, then try accessing the website again later, and do not repeatedly try to access the website within a short period, as this may extend the block. Refreshing is the one thing that makes it worse.
That is a real behavioural trap. The natural response to a page that will not load is to reload it, and here each reload is another request counted against the limit that blocked you. Close the tab and come back later.
If you need access sooner, or you believe you are being blocked unfairly, Cloudflare's advice is to contact the site owner to request that your IP be excluded from rate limiting. Only they can do that; Cloudflare will not act on a visitor's behalf.
If you own the site
Cloudflare's guidance is to review your rate limiting thresholds and adjust the configuration. The specific suggestion is telling: if your rate limiting blocks requests in a short time period — one second is the example given — try increasing the time period to ten seconds.
A one-second window is very easy to trip accidentally. A single page that loads a dozen assets, a user who double-clicks, or a browser prefetching links can all exceed it without any abusive intent, and the visitor sees a block page instead of your site.
Before loosening anything, check what the traffic actually is. If a rule is firing on genuine visitors, the threshold is wrong. If it is firing on a scraper or a credential-stuffing attempt, it is working, and the answer is to leave it alone rather than to widen it.
Sources and review notes
Checked on . Based on Cloudflare's support documentation for error 1015. Cloudflare's cause, the warning about extending the block, and the one-to-ten-second threshold example are as published. The note about shared IP addresses and the advice to check what the traffic is before loosening a rule are editorial. Glitchary is independent of Cloudflare.