FreshRSS endpoint api/fever.php getting an HTTP 503 error

[jhoover75]

I am self-hosting an instance of FreshRSS. It's being fronted with an internal nginx reverse proxy. When I curl -ikL https://freshrss.internal:6443 I get HTML content back.

However, when I run freshrss_to_karakeep.py I get

WARNING  | freshrss_api.freshrss_api:_call:163 - API request failed, retrying in 2s: 503 Server Error: Service Unavailable for url: https://freshrss.internal:6443/api/fever.php?api=

Why is this? I am running FreshRSS 1.26.3 and freshrss-api 2.0.2

[thiswillbeyourgithub]

Hi!

Is it possible to try without the nginx by directly using for example 127.0.0.1 and give me your exact python code along with the error trace?

[jhoover75]

Sure, here it is.

uv run --env-file .env python freshrss_to_karakeep.py
2025-08-10 18:03:18.592 | INFO     | __main__:main:64 - Starting FreshRSS to Karakeep transfer
2025-08-10 18:03:18.592 | INFO     | freshrss_api.freshrss_api:_call:125 - API request: http://192.168.1.101:8082/api/fever.php
2025-08-10 18:03:18.592 | INFO     | freshrss_api.freshrss_api:_call:126 - Query parameters: {'api': ''}
2025-08-10 18:03:18.603 | WARNING  | freshrss_api.freshrss_api:_call:163 - API request failed, retrying in 2s: 503 Server Error: Service Unavailable for url: http://192.168.1.101:8082/api/fever.php?api=
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/jason/freshrss_to_karakeep_uv/freshrss_to_karakeep/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/freshrss_api/freshrss_api.py", line 140, in _call
    response.raise_for_status()
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^
  File "/home/jason/freshrss_to_karakeep_uv/freshrss_to_karakeep/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/requests/models.py", line 1026, in raise_for_status
    raise HTTPError(http_error_msg, response=self)
requests.exceptions.HTTPError: 503 Server Error: Service Unavailable for url: http://192.168.1.101:8082/api/fever.php?api=

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/jason/freshrss_to_karakeep_uv/freshrss_to_karakeep/freshrss_to_karakeep.py", line 162, in <module>
    main()
    ~~~~^^
  File "/home/jason/freshrss_to_karakeep_uv/freshrss_to_karakeep/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/click/core.py", line 1442, in __call__
    return self.main(*args, **kwargs)
           ~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/jason/freshrss_to_karakeep_uv/freshrss_to_karakeep/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/click/core.py", line 1363, in main
    rv = self.invoke(ctx)
  File "/home/jason/freshrss_to_karakeep_uv/freshrss_to_karakeep/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/click/core.py", line 1226, in invoke
    return ctx.invoke(self.callback, **ctx.params)
           ~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/jason/freshrss_to_karakeep_uv/freshrss_to_karakeep/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/click/core.py", line 794, in invoke
    return callback(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/home/jason/freshrss_to_karakeep_uv/freshrss_to_karakeep/freshrss_to_karakeep.py", line 71, in main
    freshrss_client = FreshRSSAPI(verbose=True)
  File "/home/jason/freshrss_to_karakeep_uv/freshrss_to_karakeep/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/freshrss_api/freshrss_api.py", line 89, in __init__
    self._check_auth()
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^
  File "/home/jason/freshrss_to_karakeep_uv/freshrss_to_karakeep/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/freshrss_api/freshrss_api.py", line 93, in _check_auth
    response = self._call("api")
  File "/home/jason/freshrss_to_karakeep_uv/freshrss_to_karakeep/.venv/lib/python3.13/site-packages/freshrss_api/freshrss_api.py", line 169, in _call
    raise APIError(f"API request failed after retry: {str(e)}")
freshrss_api.utils.errors.APIError: API request failed after retry: 503 Server Error: Service Unavailable for url: http://192.168.1.101:8082/api/fever.php?api=

[jhoover75]

I think I found part of my problem. I hadn't yet enabled API access for my FreshRSS instance. Following this helped.

[jhoover75]

Adding a note to the README to turn on API access for FreshRSS would help future newbies like me in the future ;)

[thiswillbeyourgithub]

Alright thank you very much! I'll add this as soon as I have access to a computer!

[thiswillbeyourgithub]

It's done so 2.0.3 is out for this. Thanks again and have a nice day.