The 1h retry-after doesn't match the actual ratelimit logic? My new orders keep declined

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My domain is: gameserver.minecrawler.pp.ua

Hi! I have a server that does self-provision of TLS certificates using my custom implementation. It worked well for a couple of years, but then it broke: turns out, I didn't cover the scenario where an order could have several authorisations. After fixing the bug, I realised I could no longer create new orders: every new attempt returned the following error:

too many failed authorizations (5) for "gameserver.minecrawler.pp.ua" in the last 1h0m0s, retry after 2026-01-23 10:14:03 UTC: see Rate Limits - Let's Encrypt (urn:ietf:params:acme:error:rateLimited)

I realise I got rate-limited due to previously failed authorisations (because of the bug in my client logic). But the rate-limit didn't go away after retrying to create a new order in an hour. In fact, even after shutting down my server for more than a day and then booting it up again, I was still getting the same 1h rate-limit error.

Also, it seems that the API mentions a section that no longer exists on the rate-limits page (#authorization-failures-per-hostname-per-account).

Is there a way to know what's the actual limit that I've hit, and how much should I wait before retrying? Thanks

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Good note. Thanks. @mcpherrinm would you or someone look into that?

@vladbat00 Let's Encrypt started allowing IP addresses in their certs so that document section (and link) now says "identifiers" instead of "hostname". The rate limit link should be for: Rate Limits - Let's Encrypt

As for why you still get these errors are you sure you don't have some other task / process requesting (and failing) cert requests? Are you able to create a new account to see what happens? This particular rate limit is per account so a new account would get a fresh order and authorizations.

I don't have any good suggestions on how to debug that failure. If you don't already I would add logging of every http request and response to make sure you still don't have a stray bug.

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Thank you for such a prompt reply! Yes, changing the account did help.

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