anthropics
[BUG] 5-hour limit reached in less than 1h30
Environment
- Platform (select one):
- [X] Anthropic API
- [ ] AWS Bedrock
- [ ] Google Vertex AI
- [ ] Other:
- Claude CLI version: 1.0.89 (Claude Code)
- Operating System: macOS 15.5
- Terminal: Terminal App
Bug Description
Claude Code says " ⎿ 5-hour limit reached ∙ resets 12pm", but I only started paying for Claude (and used Claude Code) less than 1h30 ago...
Steps to Reproduce
- Create a new subscription
- Use Claude Code for 1h30 (including one sub agent?)
- Observe the error message
Expected Behavior
See the 5h limit after 5h of use...
Actual Behavior
Got " ⎿ 5-hour limit reached ∙ resets 12pm" in less than 1h30 of use.
Additional Context
Found 3 possible duplicate issues:
- https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/6392
- https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/3460
- https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/6146
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This is the worst Customer feature that any company has ever implemented - it is not clear, and is infuriating, especially if you are paying for a service.
Something is definitely wrong with their usage limits calculation. I'm getting the same thing after literally only running a /compact command today to compact a session I had yesterday (albeit I had to run the command about 5 times because the api kept timing out, but still).. Being on the Max plan, there's just no way I used all of my limit just running /compact. Thank god I only have to wait 1 hour, but there needs to be an easy command you can run to see a breakdown of your limits and how it's calculating them.
same is happening to me. prior to this week using a monitor tool, it would pretty much exactly show what was happening and when it would run out. now it's no where near the time or token usage and i get 5 hour limit reached after an hour or two
🔋 T:6.3k/28.6k | $:7.61/119 | ⌛️2h 18m | Usage:22%
📊 Session-Based Dynamic Limits Based on your historical usage patterns when hitting limits (P90) ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 💰 Cost Usage: 🟡 [█████████████████████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░] 59.5% $7.61 / $12.78
📊 Token Usage: 🟢 [██████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░] 21.9% 6,257 / 28,615
📨 Messages Usage: 🟢 [████████████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░] 40.7% 118 / 290 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── ⏱️ Time to Reset: 🟡 [████████████████████████████░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░░] 2h 6m
🤖 Model Distribution: 🤖 [██████████████████████████████████████████████████] Sonnet 100.0% ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 🔥 Burn Rate: 36.0 tokens/min 🐌 💲 Cost Rate: $0.0438 $/min
🔮 Predictions: Tokens will run out: 01:51 Limit resets at: 02:00
This is the worst Customer feature that any company has ever implemented - it is not clear, and is infuriating, especially if you are paying for a service.
It actually is very clear and even documented if you would read it. I cant remember the exact numbers but you get X message per session. A session is defined by 5 hours from the first prompt. If you use more message than your tier/session allows within that 5 hour session? You get cut off and use until the time is reset. Its also hard capped to 50 of those sessions per month and in about 22 hours? They are also enforcing a weekly cap in combination to the monthly cap while keeping 50 sessions... Its so lame...
I've never seen this message before, and today I got it after 2-3 hours of light/normal use...
I switched over to "Opus Plan Mode" yesterday, if that makes any difference.
Yeah, this is a terrible policy (and customer experience) for sure. I think the biggest issue is that it seems like compacting history gets included. I suppose it makes sense, given that it's all text/tokens, but it provides no value to the customer, and is really only necessary due to limitations in LLMs. Which is to say it's essentially a vendor problem, not a customer problem. The issue for me is that starting a new chat adds a whole ton of time/work in explaining any previous problems, breakthroughs, and/or progress to the new agent, since it has absolutely no idea what's going on when a chat begins.
This whole context issue (among many other things) is why we're not getting replaced by AI any time soon. Complete amnesiac human employees would be a bit of a disaster at any company, no? It would be like Severance, but where the employee also forgot everything about the job when they walked through the door! Heh...
I typically use it moderately on a 4 hour shift right now, used to use it on 8 hour shifts with no issues, now with this update I can't even make it 3 hours without hitting the limit.
Same here. Sign-up less than 1 hour ago. And reached already the limit. This message is either wrong, or bugged.
Are they going to fix this if not i will be canceling my payment and we all should to show them this is not useful at all. We have to stand up here this was silly today 44min is not anywhere close to 5 hours..Has to be a major bug look at all the people here having the same problem please fix it..
Got this after 30 minutes of work or so. It’s pure theft they basically don’t allow me to work more than an hour or so. Previously the limits I could still abide by to throttle performance limits but this is just stealing. I pay money for pro and now I cannot use it, it cuts my productivity down to zero.
I will cancel if they don’t remove this bullshit.
Making another comment . Got blocked 4 hours ago, 9am reset at 11am, were on lunchbreak and started working again at 12.30pm. It's now 1.27pm and blocked again.
Did something change? I can sometimes hit the 5-hour warning if I work all day but never like this. Something must have changed(???)
I dont think the limit has to do with 5 Hours.. i think its like (simplified) - X questions every 5 hours. you started a minute ago, but asked all those X questions-> you are blocked for 5 hours minus that minute.
another example would be, started 3 hours ago, used that maximum X questions again- you are blocked for 2 hours from that moment.
having said that. its not ask X questions every 5 hours.. its a lot more complicated. (probably compute cost or something). ill just add that this is terrible.. ive been blocked multiple times these past few days and sometimes i didnt even ask that many questions (yes, the questions all have multiple questions/segments in them) but ive been blocked for almost asking nothing. its insane.
This needs to get fixed remove this 5 hour limit or as you see above we all are going to stop paying .. Silly 44mins did not even ask much at all .. Get more on free chatgpt and I'm paying something stinks here..
Are they going to fix this if not i will be canceling my payment and we all should to show them this is not useful at all. We have to stand up here this was silly today 44min is not anywhere close to 5 hours..Has to be a major bug look at all the people here having the same problem please fix it..
There is nothing to fix? You get what you pay for? You dont get 5 hours of use.... you get X amount of prompts per 5 hours. You want more? You pay for more?
Got this after 30 minutes of work or so. It’s pure theft they basically don’t allow me to work more than an hour or so. Previously the limits I could still abide by to throttle performance limits but this is just stealing. I pay money for pro and now I cannot use it, it cuts my productivity down to zero.
I will cancel if they don’t remove this bullshit.
So you go to the grocery market. It says 20 euro per kg... You only have 20 euro but you want to leave the store with 5kg. Does that work anywhere else in the world for any scenario? So why would this be different? Either use sonnet or buy a higher tier if you want to use it more and not get cut off?
I pay for max 20x and i still get throttled, i literally cant buy a higher tier unless i pay for enterprise deals. What should my complaint be?
I dont think the limit has to do with 5 Hours.. i think its like (simplified) - X questions every 5 hours. you started a minute ago, but asked all those X questions-> you are blocked for 5 hours minus that minute.
another example would be, started 3 hours ago, used that maximum X questions again- you are blocked for 2 hours from that moment.
having said that. its not ask X questions every 5 hours.. its a lot more complicated. (probably compute cost or something). ill just add that this is terrible.. ive been blocked multiple times these past few days and sometimes i didnt even ask that many questions (yes, the questions all have multiple questions/segments in them) but ive been blocked for almost asking nothing. its insane.
It has everything to do with 5 hours... They call it session. A session is 5 hours from the first prompt. You send a prompt, it starts a timer for 5 hours, within that 5 hours? You can use whatever tier you pay for. IF you go over that? You get throttled until the 5 hours has passed...
This has been a thing since day 1 i bought it, so months. https://support.anthropic.com/en/articles/11145838-using-claude-code-with-your-pro-or-max-plan
This needs to get fixed remove this 5 hour limit or as you see above we all are going to stop paying .. Silly 44mins did not even ask much at all .. Get more on free chatgpt and I'm paying something stinks here..
Ok? Stop paying? They lose more money by letting everyone use free compute 24/7... Every single tool on the industry is extremely underpriced... The bubble is about to collapse and its going to be a lot worse for every tool and every user.
It's just frustrating, that's all. I think the thing that bothers me is that we're paying for chat context length and for compacting when contexts get too long. I've mitigated hitting the limit somewhat by keeping a project status doc and starting new chats frequently, but that's quite awkward. Really, these seem to me to be business costs, associated with running the service, so they're kinda not our problem, as customers.
I do understand that, in some sense, LLMs are far too cheap to be realistic as a business, at this point, and this is the whole tension within the industry. But from a simple product perspective, this isn't the customer's problem to solve, it's a business model issue. At the end of the day, they're just selling a product, and the experience really isn't great because we've been sold a miracle experience that's being negatively impacted by what just appears to be poor product execution.
I sometimes feel like I'd rather have slower overall execution and fewer of these hard stops... or at least, that might be a nicer "feeling" customer experience. Of course, there are some bonuses to the current design, since it forces me to "unplug", which can help with keeping other aspects of a project moving forward (i.e., it prevents a full-on rabbit hole day on one thing). But the fact that the limit causes a hard-stop, often right in the middle of working through something, is what I think makes it particularly painful and aggravating.
It's just frustrating, that's all. I think the thing that bothers me is that we're paying for chat context length and for compacting when contexts get too long. I've mitigated hitting the limit somewhat by keeping a project status doc and starting new chats frequently, but that's quite awkward. Really, these seem to me to be business costs, associated with running the service, so they're kinda not our problem, as customers.
I do understand that, in some sense, LLMs are far too cheap to be realistic as a business, at this point, and this is the whole tension within the industry. But from a simple product perspective, this isn't the customer's problem to solve, it's a business model issue. At the end of the day, they're just selling a product, and the experience really isn't great because we've been sold a miracle experience that's being negatively impacted by what just appears to be poor product execution.
I sometimes feel like I'd rather have slower overall execution and fewer of these hard stops... or at least, that might be a nicer "feeling" customer experience. Of course, there are some bonuses to the current design, since it forces me to "unplug", which can help with keeping other aspects of a project moving forward (i.e., it prevents a full-on rabbit hole day on one thing). But the fact that the limit causes a hard-stop, often right in the middle of working through something, is what I think makes it particularly painful and aggravating.
Im curious. What else would you be paying for? Every input and output is text? Text = Token. In any scenario? What is the difference? I hate compaction same as the next guy but in relation to this? Either you compact and pray it remembers something useful and in that accept a "token loss". OR You feed the same information you already have and avoid the automatic compaction by doing a manual one, such as /clear or /exit. In both scenarios? You are going to have to feed those same tokens back it to for relevance and context, arguably more by starting fresh.
I keep finding every semantic and mental gymanstics about the economics part so odd, how is it not a user cost? For you to get a reply, it takes compute, compute costs money. If you compute 1 vs 10, there is going to be a price difference. Thats like going to the supermarket and asking them to trim off the dry aged or the fat because you dont like it...? And in this case the product they are selling is the API access, not claude code... You are not buying claude code when you pay for your subscription, thats a tool that is included. You can use a number of tools or your own.
Far as the product experience? Its an unsustainable business that is starting to hit bubble levels. Expect everything to triple in price over the next 12-18 months.
Look, I completely get your perspective. And you're right; in reality, it is already far too cheap, according to the cost of providing the product. This is a typical race-to-the-bottom, very much like music streaming when it first appeared. Artists are the one's who ultimately got screwed by that evaporation of value in the face of what could actually sell (and it's kinda the same in Gen AI, tbh, wrt to artists/creatives). So yes, you're right.
But it is also just a business selling something. To be honest, the product offering was made far too early, given the progress of the underlying product and the cost of running it. Hence the bubble.
Look, I completely get your perspective. And you're right; in reality, it is already far too cheap, according to the cost of providing the product. This is a typical race-to-the-bottom, very much like music streaming when it first appeared. Artists are the one's who ultimately got screwed by that evaporation of value in the face of what could actually sell (and it's kinda the same in Gen AI, tbh, wrt to artists/creatives). So yes, you're right.
But it is also just a business selling something. To be honest, the product offering was made far too early, given the progress of the underlying product and the cost of running it. Hence the bubble.
Im in no way defending the price or the bubble. But half the people in this thread is saying a lot of wild things from theft to your own "seems like a business cost"...
What do you actually mean? What is it that you think are paying for? And what do people expect to get from it? Free unlimited usage? Just take mobile carrier data. Why isnt that unlimited use too? Surely, its just a "business cost" for the mobile operator?
Do you see what im getting at?
"What do you actually mean? What is it that you think are paying for? And what do people expect to get from it?"
To be blunt, premature over-investment in Transformers and the idiotic "scaling will save the world" philosophy led to a product that has a dependency on context tokens that is unrealistic given both the way the product is sold/marketed in a broad sense, and consumer expectations. If you're just a user with no interest whatsoever in AI, then it should "just work", and "context" is really just meaningless tech jargon. So context is Anthropic's problem to manage, not the customer's. That's the brutal truth of the industry. And I've been "in it" pretty deeply since (long) before Transformers were even a thing, so I have some idea what I'm talking about. It's very impressive from an academic standpoint, but not so much a product standpoint.
The context thing is not so different to "distance" in early EVs. Distance is still a key metric, but in the early days it was a huge issue and sticking-point for consumers, and the EV industry just had to suck it up... Context is what they need to make the model work basically as advertised. So it's their issue, not ours.
I see my comment was removed when i showed the bug and today it was in my favor straight after i posted i got you have reached the 5 hour limit very funny lol
Same just happened to me in less than one hour. Just purchased a subscription. Ridiculous, ill be expecting a refund. conveniently the "get help" button is ALSO broken, i wonder why.
Garbage.
