How to check the connectivity for a URL in python

Question

My requirement is almost same as Requests — how to tell if you're getting a success message?

But I need to print error whenever I could not reach the URL..Here is my try..

# setting up the URL and checking the conection by printing the status

url = 'https://www.google.lk'

try:
    page = requests.get(url)
    print(page.status_code)
except requests.exceptions.HTTPError as err:
    print("Error")

The issue is rather than printing just "Error" it prints a whole error msg as below.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "testrun.py", line 22, in <module>
    page = requests.get(url)
  File "/root/anaconda3/envs/py36/lib/python3.6/site-packages/requests/api.py", line 76, in get
    return request('get', url, params=params, **kwargs)
  File "/root/anaconda3/envs/py36/lib/python3.6/site-packages/requests/api.py", line 61, in request
    return session.request(method=method, url=url, **kwargs)
  File "/root/anaconda3/envs/py36/lib/python3.6/site-packages/requests/sessions.py", line 530, in request
    resp = self.send(prep, **send_kwargs)
  File "/root/anaconda3/envs/py36/lib/python3.6/site-packages/requests/sessions.py", line 643, in send
    r = adapter.send(request, **kwargs)
  File "/root/anaconda3/envs/py36/lib/python3.6/site-packages/requests/adapters.py", line 516, in send
    raise ConnectionError(e, request=request)
requests.exceptions.ConnectionError: HTTPSConnectionPool(host='learn.microsoft.com', port=443): Max retries exceeded with url: /en-us/microsoft-365/enterprise/urls-and-ip-address-ranges?view=o365-worldwide (Caused by NewConnectionError('<urllib3.connection.VerifiedHTTPSConnection object at 0x7ff91a543198>: Failed to establish a new connection: [Errno 110] Connection timed out',))

Can someone show me how should I modify my code to just print "Error" only if there is any issue? Then I can extend it to some other requirement.

Welcome to Stack Overflow. You need to specify exactly the error it indicates. i.e. ```requests.exceptions.ConnectionError```. Or ```except Exceptions as err``` but I suppose that is too generic? — ewokx, Sep 26 '22 at 10:02

score 0 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 26 '22 at 10:03

You need to either use a general exception except or catch all exceptions that requests module might throw, e.g. except (requests.exceptions.HTTPError, requests.exceptions.ConnectionError).

For full list see: Correct way to try/except using Python requests module?

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Sep 26 '22 at 10:04

You're not catching the correct exception.

import requests


url = 'https://www.googlggggggge.lk'

try:
    page = requests.get(url)
    print(page.status_code)
except (requests.exceptions.HTTPError, requests.exceptions.ConnectionError):
    print("Error")

you can also do except Exception, however note that Exception is too broad and is not recommended in most cases since it traps all errors

Kecz · Answer 3 · 2023-04-13T09:20:40.793

For those who want to check if URL is accessible for POST request but don't want to send any actual data to the API I recommend using the following approach:

import requests

url = 'https://www.example.com'

try:
    response = requests.options(url)
    if response.ok:   # alternatively you can use response.status_code == 200
         print("Success - API is accessible.")
    else:
        print(f"Failure - API is accessible but sth is not right. Response codde : {response.status_code}")
except (requests.exceptions.HTTPError, requests.exceptions.ConnectionError) as e:
    print(f"Failure - Unable to establish connection: {e}.")
except Exception as e:
    print(f"Failure - Unknown error occurred: {e}.)

Using GET request to check if POST Endpoint exists would result in HTTP 405 – Method Not Allowed, which is a bit problematic, while using requests.options() returns HTTP 200.

How to check the connectivity for a URL in python

3 Answers3