hermes update fails with 'RPC failed; HTTP 429'

Running hermes update prints 'Failed to fetch updates from origin' with an HTTP 429 error.

Difficulty

Easy

Time

~5 min

Steps

Fixed in

v2026.8.19

Last checked

Oct 17, 2026

Verified fix: PR #90696 merged on 2026-08-20. Fixed in v2026.8.19 (first stable release containing the merge commit). Last checked 2026-10-17.

Symptom

Running hermes update prints 'Failed to fetch updates from origin' with an HTTP 429 error.

Evidence what you'll see

error: RPC failed; HTTP 429 curl 22 The requested URL returned error: 429
Happens at the 'Fetching updates' step

Cause

GitHub was rate limiting or having an outage. The updater showed this as a generic fetch failure, so it looked like a broken install.

Fix steps

0 of 2 done

Step 1Wait a few minutes and run hermes update again.
Step 2Upgrade to a release that includes PR #90696, which reports HTTP 429 as rate limiting or an outage and tells you to try again in 5 minutes.

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Verify the fix worked

Run hermes update again and confirm the fetch succeeds, or that the message now names the rate limit.

Sources and credit

Summarized in our own words from these public reports. Credit goes to their authors.

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