WARNING: An error ocurred when hitting API to fetch {active versions,project language}

[amotl]

Dear lovely Read the Docs team,

we know this extension is not actually maintained, but we are still using it with our Sphinx documentation theme, because we haven't been able to tackle getting rid of it just yet.

Occasionally, this extension yielded some connectivity errors in the past, possibly because it is hammering the RTD API a bit too tough when rebuilding all the docs, boiling down to about 10 projects that will cause a miniature spike of traffic against it. When observing any kind of errors, another manual rebuild usually resolved the situation. ¹

Now, starting last night, it looks like the errors are persisting, oscillating around those:

WARNING: An error ocurred when hitting API to fetch active versions.
WARNING: An error ocurred when hitting API to fetch project language.

Is there anything you could do about it until we will be migrating off this compatibility layer? ²

With kind regards,
Andreas.

/cc @msbt

Footnotes

1. We are diligently tracking usage and problems over here: https://github.com/crate/crate-docs-theme/issues/553 ↩

2. NB: We are running Sphinx with -W across the board, which turns all warnings into errors, that's why this is hitting our builds maximally ;]. Sure enough, we should migrate off the compatibility layer as soon as possible. ↩

[humitos]

We were having issues with the API, so I don't think it's related with the Sphinx extension itself. See readthedocs/readthedocs.org#12082.

If you re-build your docs now do you still experiment this issue?

[amotl]

Thank you. The problem is only happening intermittently, and is usually fixed by re-building, right. Nothing too big to worry about, but maybe it completes the picture of your debugging story.

We are now taming the amount of requests to the RTD API per rebuild a bit.

• Improve vendorised sphinx-build-compatibility to make less requests to RTD's API crate/crate-docs-theme#596
• Improve vendorised sphinx-build-compatibility not calling RTD API on link checks crate/crate-docs-theme#597

We were having issues with the API.

Also good luck taming it, and thanks for all your work. Internet weather is very bad these days.

[amotl]

Hi. It looks like the rebuilds have improved using the patches referenced above.