Timeout in web request doesn't seem to be honored

Question

I want my http get request to fail if it takes more than 10 seconds by timint out.

I have this:

var request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(myUrl);

request.Method = "GET";
request.Timeout = 1000 * 10; // 10 seconds

HttpStatusCode httpStatusCode = HttpStatusCode.ServiceUnavailable;

using (var webResponse = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse())
{
    httpStatusCode = webResponse.StatusCode;
}

It doesn't seem to timeout when I put a bad URL in the request, it just keeps going and going for a long time (seems like minutes).

WHy is this?

Here is a similar question with good answers: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1500955/adjusting-httpwebrequest-connection-timeout-in-c-sharp — Dmitry S., Jan 25 '13 at 20:40

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 25 '13 at 20:26

2

If you are doing it in a web project, make sure the debug attribute of the system.web/compilation tag in the Web.Config file is set to "false".

If it is a console application or such, compile it in "Release" mode.

A lot of timeouts are ignored in "Debug" mode.

answered Jan 25 '13 at 20:26

Dmitry S.

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just looked and the web config doesn't have it set to true (so it defautls to false from what I read. – loyalflow Jan 25 '13 at 20:35
ok I explicitly set it to false just in case, still it took over 2 minutes and then I just cancelled it. – loyalflow Jan 25 '13 at 20:37

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 25 '13 at 20:26

1

Your code is probably performing a DNS lookup on the bad URL which takes a minimum of 15 seconds.

According to the documentation for HttpWebRequest.Timeout

A Domain Name System (DNS) query may take up to 15 seconds to return or time out. If your request contains a host name that requires resolution and you set Timeout to a value less than 15 seconds, it may take 15 seconds or more before a WebException is thrown to indicate a timeout on your request.

You can perform a DNS Lookup using Dns.GetHostEntry but it looks like it will take 5 seconds by default.

answered Jan 25 '13 at 20:26

JoshVarty

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the hostname is fine, I just adding 'asdf234' to the end of a url to see if the timeout is working. like: www.example.com/somepageasdf234234 – loyalflow Jan 25 '13 at 20:31
Are you able to provide an exact URL you're using? – JoshVarty Jan 25 '13 at 20:35

Timeout in web request doesn't seem to be honored

2 Answers2