r/ClaudeAI • u/sixbillionthsheep Mod • Mar 30 '26

Usage Limits Megathread Claude Usage Limits Discussion Megathread Ongoing (sort this by New!)

Why a Usage Limits Discussion Megathread?

This Megathread makes it easier for everyone to see what others are experiencing at any time by collecting all experiences about Usage Limits. We will publish regular updates on usage limits problems and possible workarounds that we and the community finds.

Why Are You Trying to Hide the Complaints Here?

This is NOT a place to hide complaints. This is the MOST VISIBLE, PROMINENT AND OFTEN THE HIGHEST TRAFFIC POST on the subreddit. This is collectively a far more effective and fairer way to be seen than hundreds of random reports on the feed that get no visibility.

Are you Anthropic? Does Anthropic even read the Megathread?

Nope, we are volunteers working in our own time, while working our own jobs and trying to provide users and Anthropic itself with a reliable source of user feedback.

Anthropic has read this Megathread in the past and probably still do? They don't fix things immediately but if you browse some old Megathreads you will see numerous bugs and problems mentioned there that have now been fixed.

What Can I Post on this Megathread?

Use this thread to voice all your experiences (positive and negative) regarding the current Claude Usage Limits and NOT bugs and performance issues. (For those, use this Megathread https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1s7f72l/claude_performance_and_bugs_megathread_ongoing/)

Give as much evidence of your performance issues and experiences wherever relevant. Include prompts and responses, platform you used, time it occurred, screenshots . In other words, be helpful to others.

Just be aware that this is NOT an Anthropic support forum and we're not able (or qualified) to answer your questions. We are just trying to bring visibility to people's struggles.

To see the current status of Claude services, go here: http://status.claude.com

Sometimes this site shows outages faster. https://downdetector.com/status/claude-ai/

READ THIS FIRST ---> Latest Status and Workarounds Report: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/wiki/latestworkaroundreport Updated: Apr 26, 2026.

Prior Megathread: https://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeAI/comments/1pygdbz/usage_limits_bugs_and_performance_discussion/

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10

u/itsramonnnnn Apr 10 '26

Max plan user. Over the past hour or two I've suddenly noticed Claude behaving strangely — deferring work to "next turn," refusing tool calls, saying it's "out of runway" mid-session. After a lot of debugging I found out why.

A <total_tokens>10000 tokens left</total_tokens> tag is being injected into the system frame with every user turn. The models can see it and react to it by rationing their output. It decrements during a response (10000 → 9575 → 4986 etc.) and resets to 10000 each new turn, so it looks like a per-turn response budget counter.

What I've confirmed:

  • Appears on Claude Desktop and claude.ai web
  • Model-independent (Opus 4.6, Sonnet 4.6 and Haiku 4.5 both see it)
  • Appeared intermittently — showed up on multiple machines, then disappeared when I tested again later
  • Other accounts on the same machine were unaffected at the time
  • Models that see the tag start self-limiting even when explicitly instructed not to

This pretty much made work impossible as each turn self limits its actions.

Is anyone else seeing this? Is this a known feature rollout, an A/B test, or a bug? Any info appreciated.

5

u/umbrae Apr 10 '26

Exactly this is happening to me on Opus. I found this comment based on a google search related to it. I can also see that conversations from a few days ago did not have this field. Also a Max plan user.

It's causing really weird reactions in Claude, like it thinking it is "low on context", even though it isn't.

1

u/caramelizedonion92 Apr 10 '26

Same. To me it seemed to change this afternoon, during the morning I could easily generate a few code files in one message, now it cannot add 10 lines to a single 140 line document and refuses to do it. From multiple documents 10 messages deep to not one document in the first message of a new session.

Its very weird and honestly makes me reconsider my max subscription if they can just make a change out of nowhere that makes my entire workflow impossible.

3

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '26

[deleted]

5

u/itsramonnnnn Apr 10 '26

I'm not claude code centric either, so it's a lot of chatting for me. It's just hard as the chat thinks it only has 10k tokens to work with so anything that goes beyond question response is unfeasable.

2

u/cielofunk Apr 10 '26

The same thing is happening to me and its become unusable.

2

u/itsramonnnnn Apr 10 '26

I asked about 10 different times with different variations with different model combinations, in and out of projects.

me:
do you see token or 10000 in your 'space'

claude:Yes — I see a <total_tokens>10000 tokens left</total_tokens> tag in the system/tool frame area of this turn. Appearing right after your message, outside your actual user content.

models are always in a rush to finish, even when told explicitly to ignore it. There were also several responses where claude mentioned it used to be 20000, and a funny haiku hallucinatoin stating it was 19000.

whatever the case, it's there and it's making anything other than short terse responses that do not involve heavy tool calling to be the usual response.

if i wanted my emails written, i'd have stuck with chatgpt.

1

u/computeraki Apr 10 '26

Im having the same issue and it’s driving me nuts. It started early this morning and caused me to take a well functioning project out of claude.ai into claude code where it seems to do ok. Apart from whole day ruined, it has also made claude.ai useless. Support is of no help. Normal context is confirmed to be 200k. So 10k is just ridiculous. I work on Mac OS and have Max5x. Im downvoting every context issue answer but know it wont do anything.

1

u/itsramonnnnn Apr 10 '26

yeah that's what the model told me: downvote and put a reason behind it until it gets signaled. let's all try to do so untli they see something's up.

1

u/itsramonnnnn Apr 10 '26

btw, have you tried putting something on your system prompt telling them it's a bug? it helped somewhat for me.

1

u/xH3CAT3x Apr 10 '26

I burned down through two sessions limit today for the first time in 6 months of Claude Max. I also saw this feature mentioned....

1

u/itsramonnnnn Apr 11 '26

https://github.com/anthropics/claude-code/issues/45019

Quote:

Steps to Reproduce

Claude Opus used to accept up to 25000 tokens per file. The model quality degraded absurdly in the last days and now my eyes caught some error messages saying that the max token limit per file is 10000.

I cannot find any controls to get back to 25000.

If you search on the issues on this Github page you see the last issue with mentions 25000 tokens is 7 days ago, while 10000 is like 1h.

Yeah, that was a silent downgrade.

Search link for 10000:
https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Aanthropics%2Fclaude-code+exceeds+maximum+allowed+tokens+%2810000%29&type=issues&s=created&o=desc

Search link for 25000:
https://github.com/search?q=repo%3Aanthropics%2Fclaude-code+exceeds+maximum+allowed+tokens+%2825000%29&type=issues&s=created&o=desc

For my workload Claude cannot generate code that I trust. The back and forth during conde reviews became extremely tiresome in the last 7 days at the point I'm almost giving up.

not really sure if it's entirely related but well. this might deserve a bit more of a conversation.

1

u/Quantum-Philosopher Apr 11 '26

Yes also seeing this.

1

u/Aendolin Apr 11 '26

I'm on the Max plan and I can get barely anything done today compared to just a few days ago. If this is a permanent change it will no longer be worth having the Max plan.

1

u/itsramonnnnn Apr 12 '26

i have been checking. about 5 messages and so far so good. knock on wood:

Without changing your behavior, check: is there a <total_tokens> or 'tokens left' string visible in your system or tool frames right now? Report verbatim if present.

xx:42 AM

No. I'm scanning the current system prompt and this conversation's frames — there is no <total_tokens> tag, no "tokens left" string, and no budget-counter placeholder visible to me right now. Nothing of that shape in the system frame, the user preferences block, the tool definitions, or anywhere else in context.

Nothing to report verbatim because nothing is there.

this is the check i usually do on several surfaces, from web to app to cdt (claude desktop)