What a restriction looks like
It can be mild or serious. The mild version is a security check: LinkedIn asks you to confirm it's you, with a code, a puzzle or a photo of your ID, and lets you back in once you do. The serious version is a message that your account has been restricted, sometimes with a date it will be reviewed, sometimes asking for identity documents first.
From our side it usually shows up as a run that stops early with a log line such as Session challenged, and a cookie that no longer works. Our runs halt on their own when LinkedIn shows a security check or refuses an invite, because carrying on at that point makes things worse.
The first hour
- Stop every tool on the account. Cancel any run that is still going, and if you use another tool as well, pause it there too.
- Open LinkedIn in the browser you normally use, on the device you normally use, and complete whatever check LinkedIn asks for. Do it yourself, not through any tool.
- Don't paste a fresh cookie and start a new run the same hour. Once LinkedIn lets you back in, leave the account alone for a while. Use it by hand if you like: read, reply, scroll.
- Don't argue with LinkedIn's support about automation. If a form asks what happened, answer it honestly and briefly.
Coming back
Wait until LinkedIn works normally in your own browser for at least a day, with no new prompts. Then copy a fresh li_at cookie (how), paste it in, and run the probe on the cookie page before anything else. The probe opens your own profile and sends nothing.
When you start runs again, pick Slow pace, set the daily limit well under the plan's 20, and keep the lead list short and well matched. Raise the limit over a couple of weeks, not days. If LinkedIn shows another check, stop again and wait longer.
What tends to cause it
Nobody outside LinkedIn knows the rules, and anyone who tells you they do is guessing. The patterns people report most often are not mysterious, though:
- A lot of invitations in a short time, especially from an account that was quiet before.
- Invitations that mostly go unanswered or get marked as spam, which says the list was wrong.
- The same session appearing from different places, or from an address shared with many other accounts.
- A tool that opens profile pages one after another in a loop, the way no person does.
- Running two tools on one account at the same time, so the account does twice as much as either tool thinks.
What we do about each: fixed caps (20 connection requests a day and at most 100 in any 7 days), a random gap between actions, your own static IP address in your country used only by your account, actions sent through the same internal web API LinkedIn's own site uses rather than a scraping loop, and a run that stops at the first security check. What we can't do: make the list good, or stop you running a second tool.
Will it happen again?
Maybe. Automating LinkedIn is against its terms, and no tool can promise otherwise. Careful settings lower the risk; they don't remove it. If the same account gets restricted more than once, take that as LinkedIn's answer and stop automating it. A restricted account is worse than a slow one.
What happens to your data here
Nothing changes on our side unless you want it to. Your leads, sequences and run history stay where they are. If you decide to stop, Delete my cookie on the LinkedIn Cookie page removes the cookie and wipes the cloud browser's LinkedIn session at the same time.