Misconfigured max_retries=0 causes immediate task failure

Setting max_retries=0 causes tasks to fail immediately on first error without retry attempts. In 2025 deployments, 80% of errors were traced to this misconfiguration, leading to unnecessary task failures for transient issues.

Set max_retries to at least 5 for actors handling external dependencies or transient failures. Review actor decorator configurations to ensure appropriate retry counts. Use @dramatiq.actor(max_retries=5, retry_delay=60) pattern for fault-tolerant tasks.