# 42915: Per-connection outbound message rate exceeded

Identifier: `rate_limit_exceeded_per_connection_outbound`



Messages were not delivered to a connection because the rate of messages being sent to it exceeded its per-connection outbound limit. The client is notified of the gap by a channel continuity loss, which it receives as error 80020.

## What you should do

What to do depends on whether your application can tolerate the gap:

- If it can, no action is needed and the error can be ignored.
- If it cannot, fetch the messages the connection did not receive from [history](https://ably.com/docs/storage-history/history.md) when it encounters this error.

To stop hitting the limit, consider spreading subscriptions across more connections, so that each one receives fewer messages. If a connection genuinely needs to receive messages at a higher rate, you can [request a higher limit](https://ably.com/docs/general/limits.md).

## Why it happens

Each connection has a maximum rate at which Ably will deliver messages to it, set by your account's limits. When more messages than that need to be sent to a connection, Ably drops the excess and signals the gap to the client. This code records that the limit was reached; the gap itself is reported to the client as 80020.

## What you'll see

This code appears in your app's error statistics, recorded with HTTP status 429 and the metric `connection.outboundRate`. The client itself receives the continuity loss as error 80020.