Q&A

HTTP Status Codes

Answers on HTTP errors that matter for scraping, including 403, 429, 499, 503, and Cloudflare-specific codes.

6 answers

All Anti-bot Basics BeautifulSoup Browser Automation Cloudflare CSS Selectors Data Extraction Headers and Cookies HTML Parsing HTTP Status Codes JavaScript Networking Python Rate Limits Selectors Selenium Web Scraping XPath

What is the HTTP 403 status code, and why does it happen?

HTTP 403 Forbidden means the server identified your request and refused to authorize it. Common causes are anti-bot rules, IP blocks, and WAF filters.

Apr 28, 2026

What does HTTP 499 mean and how do you fix it?

HTTP 499 is an Nginx code logged when the client closes the connection before the server responds. Fix it by aligning timeouts or speeding up the backend.

Apr 28, 2026

What is the HTTP 429 status code?

HTTP 429 Too Many Requests means you exceeded the server's rate limit. Honor the Retry-After header or use exponential backoff before resuming requests.

Apr 28, 2026

What does the 503 status code mean, and does it fix itself?

HTTP 503 Service Unavailable means the server is temporarily overloaded or in maintenance. Most clear on their own, often within the Retry-After window.

Apr 28, 2026

What is HTTP error code 520, and how do you fix it?

Cloudflare error 520 means the origin returned an empty or unparseable response. Common causes are crashes, firewall blocks, and oversized response headers.

Apr 28, 2026

What is the HTTP 444 status code and what does it mean?

HTTP 444 is an Nginx-only code that closes the connection without sending any response. The client sees ERR_EMPTY_RESPONSE and the code appears in Nginx logs.

Apr 28, 2026