Response status code 499 is a rare status code which means that the server has unexpectedly closed the connection.
This could mean that the target server is experiencing technical difficulties and the requests can be retried after a brief delay.
However, in web scraping, the 499 status codes usually means the server is identifying scraper and blocking them. Repeated blocks can result in full IP block so 499 errors need to be addressed as soon as possible.
To address 499 status codes the scraper can be:
- Rate limited
- Distributed through multiple agents using proxy rotation.
- Usse web scraping APIs that does that all for you - such as Scrapfly
