Many 401 errors in server log for /inbox

I looked at my nginx logs yesterday and saw many, many 401 messages like "POST /inbox HTTP/1.1" 401 from multiple other instances. If I filter through the logs a bit I can see where the same servers eventually get 200 status for the same URL, but I can’t see any rhyme or reason why one server would be getting repeated 401 statuses while another would get 200 status at essentially the same time.

Is there a queue variable I can turn up somewhere or is this a sign that the database isn’t responsive enough and the inbox queue is just going to be full regardless?