1667 - Xero backups not completing due to daily API limits

Symptom

Xero backups start on schedule, but do not complete.

Cause

Xero applies a daily limit of 5 000 API requests per Xero organisation, per connected application. This limit is set and enforced by Xero and applies to all third-party applications that connect to Xero, including backup services (in this case the RedApp). For most organisations, a daily backup completes well within this allowance. 

However, organisations with a high volume of records, particularly Journals and Invoices, may require more requests than Xero permits in a day. If the daily limit is reached while a backup is in progress, Xero stops accepting further requests until the allowance resets. As a result, the backup for that day does not complete. The RedApp has no control over the daily allowance reset time, which is determined by Xero and varies from one organisation to another.

Each backup starts from scratch; it does not resume from the point where the previous backup was interrupted. This means there is no benefit to initiating multiple backups in a day. An additional backup that is started on the same day as a scheduled backup will encounter the same request limit, and if the additional backup runs close to your organisation's reset time, it may consume part of the next day's request allowance, which will affect that day's scheduled backup.

Solution

To prevent backups from being interrupted, we recommend allowing the scheduled daily backup to run to completion without initiating any additional backups.