diff --git a/packages/social/src/x/fetch.js b/packages/social/src/x/fetch.js
index 16e1887..0b653ae 100644
--- a/packages/social/src/x/fetch.js
+++ b/packages/social/src/x/fetch.js
@@ -109,16 +109,34 @@ export async function fetchXSource(feed, opts) {
       { sessions, onEvent, signal: opts.signal },
     );
   } catch (error) {
-    // A rate limit is a schedule instruction, not evidence about the account.
-    // Returning it as `throttled` routes it to `markThrottled`, which moves
-    // `next_fetch_at` and leaves every health column alone — the same treatment
-    // an ordinary publisher's 429 gets, and for the same reason (§16).
-    if (error?.name === 'XRateLimited') {
-      return { ok: false, throttled: true, retryAfter: error.retryAfter ?? null, error: 'rate-limited' };
+    // **Exactly one kind of failure is about the source.** A deleted, suspended
+    // or protected account is a fact about the account; everything else — a rate
+    // limit, a provider outage, a dead session, no provider configured at all —
+    // is a fact about us or about the upstream, and recording it against the
+    // account is how a directory deletes itself.
+    //
+    // The arithmetic, because it is what makes this urgent rather than tidy:
+    // `markCrawlFailure` retires a feed at ten consecutive failures, and an X
+    // source polls on a five-minute floor. Ten strikes is **fifty minutes**. So
+    // switching X on before a provider is reachable — which is the ordinary
+    // order of operations, since the flag is how you find out — would quietly
+    // mark every X source dead within the hour, and nothing in the logs would
+    // say "no provider configured" rather than "these accounts are broken".
+    //
+    // Returning `throttled` routes to `markThrottled`, which moves
+    // `next_fetch_at` and leaves `status`, `error_count`, `last_error` and
+    // `last_success_at` exactly as they were — the same treatment an ordinary
+    // publisher's 429 gets, and for the same reason (§16, §40).
+    if (error?.name === 'XNoSuchSource') {
+      return { ok: false, error: String(error?.message ?? 'no-such-source').slice(0, 200) };
     }
-    // A deleted, suspended or protected account is the one failure that is
-    // genuinely about the source, so it is the one that counts against it.
-    return { ok: false, error: String(error?.message ?? 'x-fetch-failed').slice(0, 200) };
+
+    return {
+      ok: false,
+      throttled: true,
+      retryAfter: retryAfterFor(error),
+      error: String(error?.message ?? 'x-fetch-failed').slice(0, 200),
+    };
   }
 
   const posts = result.posts ?? [];
@@ -149,6 +167,30 @@ export async function fetchXSource(feed, opts) {
   };
 }
 
+/**
+ * How long to wait before trying this source again, by what went wrong.
+ *
+ * The three intervals are three different guesses about when the situation
+ * changes. A rate limit usually names its own; a provider outage is minutes;
+ * and "no provider is configured" is a deployment that has not happened yet, so
+ * asking again in ten minutes is a thousand pointless wake-ups a day across the
+ * directory and answers no sooner than asking in an hour.
+ *
+ * @param {Error & { retryAfter?: number|null }} error
+ * @returns {number} seconds
+ */
+function retryAfterFor(error) {
+  if (error?.name === 'XRateLimited') {
+    return Number(error.retryAfter) > 0 ? Number(error.retryAfter) : ANOMALY_MINUTES * 60;
+  }
+  // Nothing is set up to collect with. Distinguished by message rather than by
+  // type because `XUnavailable` covers both this and a provider that is merely
+  // down, and the two deserve very different patience.
+  if (/no X provider is configured/i.test(String(error?.message ?? ''))) return 3600;
+
+  return ANOMALY_MINUTES * 60;
+}
+
 /**
  * The per-source toggles of §6.3, with the PRD's defaults.
  *
diff --git a/packages/social/test/providers.test.js b/packages/social/test/providers.test.js
index f15fa3a..d14a2db 100644
--- a/packages/social/test/providers.test.js
+++ b/packages/social/test/providers.test.js
@@ -445,3 +445,74 @@ test('a source whose ref we cannot read fails loudly rather than crawling nothin
   assert.equal(result.ok, false);
   assert.equal(result.error, 'invalid-x-ref');
 });
+
+/* --------------------------------------------- what a failure may cost a source */
+
+/*
+ * `markCrawlFailure` retires a feed at ten consecutive failures and an X source
+ * polls on a five-minute floor, so ten strikes is fifty minutes. That arithmetic
+ * is why exactly one of the four errors may reach it.
+ */
+
+/** @param {Error} error */
+async function failWith(error) {
+  const registry = new XRegistry({
+    env: { X_PRIMARY_PROVIDER: 'rsshub', X_FALLBACK_PROVIDERS: '' },
+    providers: { rsshub: fake('rsshub', [error]) },
+  });
+
+  return fetchXSource(
+    { social_ref: 'x:user:openai', feed_url: 'https://x.com/OpenAI', item_count: 5 },
+    { runtime: { registry, sessions: null, onEvent: () => {} } },
+  );
+}
+
+test('only a missing account counts against the source', async () => {
+  const gone = await failWith(new XNoSuchSource('no such account'));
+  assert.equal(gone.ok, false);
+  assert.equal(gone.throttled, undefined, 'a deleted account is a fact about the account');
+});
+
+test('a provider outage reschedules rather than blaming the account', async () => {
+  const down = await failWith(new XUnavailable('rsshub: upstream-502'));
+  assert.equal(down.ok, false);
+  assert.equal(down.throttled, true);
+  assert.ok(down.retryAfter > 0);
+});
+
+test('a dead session reschedules — it is our credential, not their account', async () => {
+  const dead = await failWith(new XAuthFailed('auth-failed-401'));
+  assert.equal(dead.throttled, true);
+});
+
+test('X switched on before a provider exists must not retire the directory', async () => {
+  // The ordinary order of operations: the flag is how you find out whether the
+  // provider is reachable. With no provider configured the registry refuses
+  // outright, and that refusal must never look like a broken account.
+  const registry = new XRegistry({
+    env: { X_PRIMARY_PROVIDER: 'rsshub', X_FALLBACK_PROVIDERS: '' },
+    providers: {
+      rsshub: { ...fake('rsshub', [[]]), configured: () => false },
+    },
+  });
+
+  const result = await fetchXSource(
+    { social_ref: 'x:user:openai', feed_url: 'https://x.com/OpenAI', item_count: 5 },
+    { runtime: { registry, sessions: null, onEvent: () => {} } },
+  );
+
+  assert.equal(result.ok, false);
+  assert.equal(result.throttled, true, 'no provider configured is a deployment state, not a dead account');
+  // An hour, not ten minutes: nothing changes until somebody deploys something.
+  assert.equal(result.retryAfter, 3600);
+});
+
+test('a rate limit still carries the interval the server named', async () => {
+  const limited = await failWith(new XRateLimited('429', { retryAfter: 90 }));
+  assert.equal(limited.throttled, true);
+  assert.equal(limited.retryAfter, 90);
+
+  // And falls back to something sane when it named none.
+  const bare = await failWith(new XRateLimited('429'));
+  assert.ok(bare.retryAfter > 0);
+});