Linked questions API call fails for frequently asked questions on Stack Overflow

Question

The Linked Questions API fails for some of the Frequently Asked Questions on Stack Overflow, maybe because of the sheer amount of linked questions they have.

As an example, take What is a NullPointerException, and how do I fix it?. Opening https://api.stackexchange.com/2.2/questions/218384/linked?order=desc&sort=activity&site=stackoverflow in a browser gives

{
  "error_id": 500,
  "error_message": "this error has been logged",
  "error_name": "internal_error"
}