WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 2026|No. 15264
Technology · Digital Preservation

Internet Archive Addresses Wayback Machine Access Issues Amidst High Traffic

The Internet Archive has provided an update on recent access issues affecting the Wayback Machine, explaining that protective measures against high-volume automated traffic have sometimes inadvertently blocked legitimate users.

The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine interface on a computer screen.
The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine interface on a computer screen. · Photo by Kevin Ache on Unsplash
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We’ve heard you: “Fix the Wayback Machine!”

Here’s what’s going on. The Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine has been hit by waves of high-volume automated traffic, and we’ve put protections in place to keep the service running. One recent change: we rewrote the message you see when a request is blocked with a 429 error — the HTTP code that means “too many requests.”

Those protections sometimes catch real people by mistake. If that’s happened to you, we’re sorry, and we appreciate your patience while we work to reduce the errors.

We’re getting better at telling abusive bots apart from the people who depend on the Wayback Machine every day. If you think you were blocked in error, email info@archive.org with your operating system, browser, and IP address, and we’ll look into it.

PAN's pipeline reviewed approximately 1 open sources for this article. No human editor reviewed this article before publication.

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