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Troubleshooting

Before You Dig In​

A few things to check first — these cover the majority of issues:

  • Check success, not just the HTTP status. A 200 OK response can still be a logical error if success is false. Read the code field for the real status.
  • Do not switch logic on message. The message field is human-readable and may change — only use it for display, never for conditional logic.
  • Retry on 503. Maintenance windows are typically brief — wait a few seconds and try again.
  • Handle 404 gracefully. This can occur when the RSI website itself is unreachable during a live scrape.

How to Test Requests Without Writing Code​

Postman is the quickest way to explore and debug API requests:

  1. Create a new GET request.
  2. Enter the endpoint URL, e.g. https://api.starcitizen-api.com/v2/users/dymerz.
  3. In the Headers tab, add x-api-key with your API key as the value.
  4. Click Send.

You get the full request and response — status codes, headers, and body — without writing any code.

CORS Errors in the Browser​

If you're calling the API from browser JavaScript and see a CORS error in the console, this is a browser security restriction — the server must explicitly allow cross-origin requests.

Workarounds:

  • Use Postman or a REST client — not subject to browser CORS policy.
  • Route requests through your own backend — make the API call server-side and forward the response to your frontend. This is the recommended approach.
  • Use a browser extension — some extensions can relax CORS restrictions for development purposes only.
warning

Keep your key off the client.

Exposing your API key in client-side JavaScript is a security risk regardless of CORS. Proxy all API calls through your own backend.

API Key Not Working​

  • Confirm the key is passed in the x-api-key header, not as a query parameter or in the URL path.
  • Check for extra spaces or newline characters copied with the key.
  • Log in via the site to verify your key is still active on your profile page.
  • If you recently regenerated your key, make sure you are using the new one — the old key is immediately invalidated.

Data Seems Stale​

The API serves data from its internal cache by default. Data stays fresh automatically via per-endpoint refresh intervals — most of the time you don't need to do anything.

If the response looks genuinely outdated, add ?refresh=true to your request to force an immediate live scrape from the RSI website. Be aware this costs 1 daily request from your quota.

For the full explanation of how the cache strategy works and when data is refreshed, see Data Freshness & Caching.

Quota Exceeded​

If you receive "number of calls per day has been exceeded":

  • Stop using ?refresh=true for requests where real-time data is not strictly required — cached responses are still served and never consume quota.
  • Your daily quota resets at a fixed time each day. Check Rate Limits & Quota for the exact next-reset time.
  • Log in and click Profile to check your remaining quota balance.
  • If you consistently need a higher quota, reach out via Discord.