Groq common errors

Groq Common Errors

Overview

Comprehensive reference for Groq API error codes, their root causes, and proven fixes. Groq returns standard HTTP status codes with structured error bodies and rate-limit headers. This skill walks the diagnosis from raw error string to fix, then hands off to the full per-status reference for depth.

Every Groq error body follows one shape — read the code and type first:

{
  "error": {
    "message": "Rate limit reached for model `llama-3.3-70b-versatile`...",
    "type": "tokens",
    "code": "rate_limit_exceeded"
  }
}

Prerequisites

• GROQ_API_KEY exported in the environment (keys start with gsk_).
• curl and jq available for the diagnostic probes below.
• For SDK-level handling: groq-sdk (TypeScript) or groq (Python) installed.

Instructions

1. Capture the failing status and body. Read the raw error response — the HTTP status plus the code/type fields determine the whole diagnosis path.

2. Confirm the key works before assuming anything deeper:

   set -euo pipefail
   # Verify API key is valid — expect a model count, not an auth error
   curl -s https://api.groq.com/openai/v1/models \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer $GROQ_API_KEY" | jq '.data | length'
   

3. Confirm the model still exists. Many 400s are deprecated model IDs — list the live models and Grep your codebase for any stale ID:

   curl -s https://api.groq.com/openai/v1/models \
     -H "Authorization: Bearer $GROQ_API_KEY" | jq '.data[].id' | sort
   

4. Map the status to a fix using the table below, then drill into references/error-reference.md for the exact error string, causes, and copy-paste fix.

5. For SDK integrations, branch on the typed exception classes — see references/sdk-error-handling.md.

Output

A diagnosis that names the error class, the root cause, and the concrete fix — for example: "429 on TPM: token budget exhausted; add the single-retry handleRateLimit wrapper and honor retry-after," or "400: mixtral-8x7b-32768 is deprecated; switch to llama-3.3-70b-versatile." When run against real code, the output is the edited call site plus a verification curl that returns 200.

Error Handling

Map the HTTP status to its cause; full error strings, rate-limit headers, and fixes live in references/error-reference.md.

Status	Meaning	First move
401	Invalid / missing key	Confirm GROQ_API_KEY starts with gsk_; test with /models
429	RPM / TPM / RPD limit hit	Read retry-after; back off and single-retry
400	Deprecated model or bad params	List live models; replace stale IDs
413	Request over context window	Trim prompt (Llama models cap at 128K tokens)
500 / 503	Groq-side outage or overload	Retry with backoff; fall back model; check status page

When the failure is transient (429/500/503), retry with backoff and honor retry-after rather than hammering. When it is structural (401/400/413), fix the request — retrying will not help.

Examples

Minimal end-to-end probe that isolates auth vs. model vs. payload problems:

# A 200 here means key + model + payload are all valid; a non-200 status
# tells you which layer failed.
curl -s -o /dev/null -w "%{http_code}" \
  https://api.groq.com/openai/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $GROQ_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model":"llama-3.1-8b-instant","messages":[{"role":"user","content":"ping"}],"max_tokens":5}'

• Rate-limit retry wrapper (TypeScript, honors retry-after): see the 429 section of references/error-reference.md.
• Typed SDK exception branching (TypeScript + Python): references/sdk-error-handling.md.

Resources

• Groq Error Codes
• Groq Rate Limits
• Groq Model Deprecations
• Groq Status Page
• Full per-status reference: references/error-reference.md
• SDK error handling + escalation path: references/sdk-error-handling.md
• For comprehensive debugging, see the groq-debug-bundle skill.