# 42917: Account-wide message publish rate exceeded

Identifier: `rate_limit_exceeded_account_messages`



A message was rejected because the rate of messages published across the account exceeded the configured account-wide limit. A proportion of messages are rejected to bring the account back within its limit.

## What you should do

If the message matters, republish it after a short delay, increasing the delay if it is rejected again.

This limit applies to your account's total publish rate, so spreading publishing across more connections or channels does not help: every publish in the account counts towards it. If your account consistently needs a higher publish rate, you can [request a higher limit](https://ably.com/docs/general/limits.md).

## Why it happens

Your account has a maximum total rate at which messages can be published across all of its apps, set by your account's limits. When the account exceeds it, Ably rejects a proportion of messages to bring the account back within the limit. Because this applies across the whole account, an individual publish can be rejected even when the connection and channel it used are each well within their own limits.

## What you'll see

The publish is rejected and the message is not delivered. The error is reported with code 42917 and HTTP status 429, with a message of the form `Maximum account-wide instantaneous messages rate exceeded; permitted rate = ...; metric = messages.maxRate`.