Requests with timeout still hand indefinitely

[MillionIntegrals]

I have w project where I make tens of thousands of requests to a backend service, scraping some API. I don't control the backend. To make the process fast, I post the requests in chunks, in parallel.

Sometimes, though, the backend just hangs indefinitely on a request. For that I'd like to have a timeout and just resend new request. Here is the code that I use for that purpose (I'm using the ES7 async/await functionality):

while(true) {
    try {
        let response = await axios.get(url, {timeout: timeout});
        return response.data;
    } catch (e) {
        if (!silent) {
            console.log(`Exception caught: ${JSON.stringify(e)}`);
        }
    }
}

The problem is, even with the timeout settings some of the requests above hang indefinitely - by average 1 per 3000.

To check if the problem is with my code, or with the library I've implemented similar functionality using superagent:

while(true) {
    try {
        let promise = new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
            superagent.get(url).timeout(timeout).end((error, response) => {
                if (error) {
                    reject(error);
                } else {
                    resolve(response);
                }
            })
        });
        let response = await promise;
        return response.body;
    } catch (e) {
        if (!silent) {
            console.log(`Exception caught: ${JSON.stringify(e)}`);
        }
    }
}

And the above code works as expected.

[MillionIntegrals]

I did some digging in the code, and from what I see is that axios is handling request timeout by issuing the req.abort() function (https://github.com/mzabriskie/axios/blob/master/lib/adapters/http.js#L92):

  // Handle request timeout
  req.setTimeout(config.timeout, function () {
    req.abort();
  });

While superagent is doing a bit more (https://github.com/visionmedia/superagent/blob/5a320d7d3222935718bfde91cae91ade4b371826/lib/node/index.js#L833):

  if (timeout && !this._timer) {
    debug('timeout %sms %s %s', timeout, this.method, this.url);
    this._timer = setTimeout(function(){
      var err = new Error('timeout of ' + timeout + 'ms exceeded');
      err.timeout = timeout;
      err.code = 'ECONNABORTED';
      self.abort();
      self.callback(err);
    }, timeout);
  }

Both aborting the request and fulfilling the callback at the same time.

[mzabriskie]

IIRC aborting the request should put it into the on error handler. I'll check again to verify.

[WoLfulus]

This is also happening for me.

[Elyx0]

@mzabriskie This is still happening at least in React-Native

axios.post(`/create/`, Qs.stringify(payload),{timeout: 1000})
    .then(json => {}).catch(e => {}).

My request is sent, the result is there before timeout runs out and the .then() is not called if I add the timeout parameter.

[amithgc]

any update on this issue? I have the same problem in some of the android devices (React Native), Timeout doesn't happen at all.

[mattb-prg]

@amithgc still having this issue. running on android too(emulator)

[frevib]

This workaround works (for React-Native):
#647 (comment)

[milewski]

the same is happening for me... after a bunch of request... one will hang forever... :( ... using nodejs

[1c7]

happening to me too, using React Native 0.52 for Android

[kdomagal]

happens in nodejs as well. Why is this issue closed @mzabriskie ?

[emilyemorehouse]

From what I can gather, the original issue is solved. Timeouts are working properly for me:

Is this just an issue when many requests are being sent? If someone can provide code to reproduce the issue, I'm happy to look into it.

[kdomagal]

ok actually issue is not the timeout I think. Simply try to do couple of hundreds of requests in a loop. It will hang after few.

[emilyemorehouse]

Hm. I tried with 1000 requests and it didn't trip it up for me. 😞

[yankeeinlondon]

Using the following code -- which overly verbose in error handling -- I'd expect there be no way to not get a message to stdout from the Axios get call but indeed at random intervals it fails and just hangs. I rerun from where I left off and the endpoint which failed almost always works only to have it fail randomly somewhere else. I would strongly support this being a real issue.

try {
    content = await axios.create().get<string>(url, {timeout: 5000});
    console.log(chalk.grey('- axios content returned from endpoint'));
    
    if(content.status !== 200) {
      console.log(chalk.red(`- Returned status from ${url} was ${chalk.bold.yellow(String(content.status))}}`));
      problemsCaching.push(business);
      return business;
    }
    if(!content.data) {
      console.log(chalk.red(`- Axios responded correctly but payload is empty (${url})`));
      problemsCaching.push(business);
      return business;
    }
  } catch (e) {
    console.log(chalk.red(`- Problems loading "${url}" for ${business.name}`));
    problemsCaching.push(business);
    return business;
  }

[ericdraken]

It's still an issue in 2020.

[aedelstein]

I'm seeing this too. Here's my sample code which I'm running on serverless:

import axios from 'axios';

class MyHandler {
  constructor(event, context, callback) {
    this.callback = callback;
  }

  async myFunction() {
    const apiClient = axios.create();

    await apiClient.get('', {
      baseURL: 'http://www.keyboardsmash-woeuroweuoweuowiueoreureor.com',
      timeout: 24000,
    }).catch((exception) => {
      console.log(`Saw exception ${exception}`);
    });

    this.callback(null, {});
  }
}

export const handle = (event, context, callback) => {
  new MyHandler(event, context, callback).myFunction();
};

If I invoke the code from the command line with serverless invoke local --function myfunc --data='{"httpMethod": "GET"}', it will print

Saw exception Error: getaddrinfo ENOTFOUND www.keyboardsmash-woeuroweuoweuowiueoreureor.com www.keyboardsmash-woeuroweuoweuowiueoreureor.com:80
{}

and then hang for about 23 seconds before returning control back to the shell.

If I hack a clearTimeout(timer); timer = null; in to the req.on('error', ... code in axios/lib/adapters/http.js, then the code completes promptly.