diff --git a/headphones/exceptions.py b/headphones/exceptions.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..d591edff
--- /dev/null
+++ b/headphones/exceptions.py
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+def ex(e):
+    """
+    Returns a string from the exception text if it exists.
+    """
+    
+    # sanity check
+    if not e.args or not e.args[0]:
+        return ""
+
+    e_message = e.args[0]
+    
+    # if fixStupidEncodings doesn't fix it then maybe it's not a string, in which case we'll try printing it anyway
+    if not e_message:
+        try:
+            e_message = str(e.args[0])
+        except:
+            e_message = ""
+    
+    return e_message
+    
+
+class HeadphonesException(Exception):
+    "Generic Headphones Exception - should never be thrown, only subclassed"
+
+class NewzbinAPIThrottled(HeadphonesException):
+    "Newzbin has throttled us, deal with it"
diff --git a/headphones/searcher.py b/headphones/searcher.py
index 00cbfeb0..c2070ee9 100644
--- a/headphones/searcher.py
+++ b/headphones/searcher.py
@@ -4,7 +4,7 @@ from xml.dom import minidom
 from xml.parsers.expat import ExpatError
 import os, re, time
 
-import headphones
+import headphones, exceptions
 from headphones import logger, db, helpers, classes, sab
 
 class NewzbinDownloader(urllib.FancyURLopener):
@@ -31,11 +31,9 @@ class NewzbinDownloader(urllib.FancyURLopener):
                 #raise exceptions.AuthException("Newzbin account not premium status, can't download NZBs")
                 logger.info("Newzbin error 402")
 
-            logger.info("Newzbin throttled our NZB downloading, pausing for " + result.group(1) + "seconds")
-
+            logger.info("Newzbin throttled our NZB downloading, pausing for " + result.group(1) + " seconds")
             time.sleep(int(result.group(1)))
-
-            #raise exceptions.NewzbinAPIThrottled()
+            raise exceptions.NewzbinAPIThrottled()
 
 #this should be in a class somewhere
 def getNewzbinURL(url):
@@ -459,6 +457,12 @@ def getresultNZB(result):
             nzb = urllib.urlopen(url, data=params).read()
         except urllib2.URLError, e:
             logger.warn('Error fetching nzb from url: %s. Error: %s' % (url, e))
+        except exceptions.NewzbinAPIThrottled:
+            #TODO: This has created a potentially infinite loop? As long as they keep throttling we keep trying.
+            logger.info("Done waiting for Newzbin API throttle limit, starting downloads again")
+            getresultNZB(result)
+        except AttributeError:
+            logger.warn("AttributeError in getresultNZB.")
     else:
         try:
             nzb = urllib2.urlopen(result[2], timeout=30).read()