How to set HttpResponse timeout for Android in Java

Question

In my example, two timeouts are set. The connection timeout throws java.net.SocketTimeoutException: Socket is not connected and the socket timeout java.net.SocketTimeoutException: The operation timed out.

HttpGet httpGet = new HttpGet(url);
HttpParams httpParameters = new BasicHttpParams();
// Set the timeout in milliseconds until a connection is established.
// The default value is zero, that means the timeout is not used. 
int timeoutConnection = 3000;
HttpConnectionParams.setConnectionTimeout(httpParameters, timeoutConnection);
// Set the default socket timeout (SO_TIMEOUT) 
// in milliseconds which is the timeout for waiting for data.
int timeoutSocket = 5000;
HttpConnectionParams.setSoTimeout(httpParameters, timeoutSocket);

DefaultHttpClient httpClient = new DefaultHttpClient(httpParameters);
HttpResponse response = httpClient.execute(httpGet);

If you want to set the Parameters of any existing HTTPClient (e.g. DefaultHttpClient or AndroidHttpClient) you can use the function setParams().

httpClient.setParams(httpParameters);

To set settings on the client:

AndroidHttpClient client = AndroidHttpClient.newInstance("Awesome User Agent V/1.0");
HttpConnectionParams.setConnectionTimeout(client.getParams(), 3000);
HttpConnectionParams.setSoTimeout(client.getParams(), 5000);

I've used this successfully on JellyBean, but should also work for older platforms ....

HTH

If your are using Jakarta's http client library then you can do something like:

        HttpClient client = new HttpClient();
        client.getParams().setParameter(HttpClientParams.CONNECTION_MANAGER_TIMEOUT, new Long(5000));
        client.getParams().setParameter(HttpClientParams.SO_TIMEOUT, new Integer(5000));
        GetMethod method = new GetMethod("http://www.yoururl.com");
        method.getParams().setParameter(HttpMethodParams.SO_TIMEOUT, new Integer(5000));
        method.getParams().setParameter(HttpMethodParams.RETRY_HANDLER,
        int statuscode = client.executeMethod(method);

If you're using the default http client, here's how to do it using the default http params:

HttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient();
HttpParams params = client.getParams();
HttpConnectionParams.setConnectionTimeout(params, 3000);
HttpConnectionParams.setSoTimeout(params, 3000);

Original credit goes to http://www.jayway.com/2009/03/17/configuring-timeout-with-apache-httpclient-40/

For those saying that the answer of @kuester2000 does not work, please be aware that HTTP requests, first try to find the host IP with a DNS request and then makes the actual HTTP request to the server, so you may also need to set a timeout for the DNS request.

If your code worked without the timeout for the DNS request it's because you are able to reach a DNS server or you are hitting the Android DNS cache. By the way you can clear this cache by restarting the device.

This code extends the original answer to include a manual DNS lookup with a custom timeout:

//Our objective
String sURL = "http://www.google.com/";
int DNSTimeout = 1000;
int HTTPTimeout = 2000;

//Get the IP of the Host
URL url= null;
try {
     url = ResolveHostIP(sURL,DNSTimeout);
} catch (MalformedURLException e) {
    Log.d("INFO",e.getMessage());
}

if(url==null){
    //the DNS lookup timed out or failed.
}

//Build the request parameters
HttpParams params = new BasicHttpParams();
HttpConnectionParams.setConnectionTimeout(params, HTTPTimeout);
HttpConnectionParams.setSoTimeout(params, HTTPTimeout);

DefaultHttpClient client = new DefaultHttpClient(params);

HttpResponse httpResponse;
String text;
try {
    //Execute the request (here it blocks the execution until finished or a timeout)
    httpResponse = client.execute(new HttpGet(url.toString()));
} catch (IOException e) {
    //If you hit this probably the connection timed out
    Log.d("INFO",e.getMessage());
}

//If you get here everything went OK so check response code, body or whatever

Used method:

//Run the DNS lookup manually to be able to time it out.
public static URL ResolveHostIP (String sURL, int timeout) throws MalformedURLException {
    URL url= new URL(sURL);
    //Resolve the host IP on a new thread
    DNSResolver dnsRes = new DNSResolver(url.getHost());
    Thread t = new Thread(dnsRes);
    t.start();
    //Join the thread for some time
    try {
        t.join(timeout);
    } catch (InterruptedException e) {
        Log.d("DEBUG", "DNS lookup interrupted");
        return null;
    }

    //get the IP of the host
    InetAddress inetAddr = dnsRes.get();
    if(inetAddr==null) {
        Log.d("DEBUG", "DNS timed out.");
        return null;
    }

    //rebuild the URL with the IP and return it
    Log.d("DEBUG", "DNS solved.");
    return new URL(url.getProtocol(),inetAddr.getHostAddress(),url.getPort(),url.getFile());
}   

This class is from this blog post. Go and check the remarks if you will use it.

public static class DNSResolver implements Runnable {
    private String domain;
    private InetAddress inetAddr;

    public DNSResolver(String domain) {
        this.domain = domain;
    }

    public void run() {
        try {
            InetAddress addr = InetAddress.getByName(domain);
            set(addr);
        } catch (UnknownHostException e) {
        }
    }

    public synchronized void set(InetAddress inetAddr) {
        this.inetAddr = inetAddr;
    }
    public synchronized InetAddress get() {
        return inetAddr;
    }
}

An option is to use the OkHttp client, from Square.

Add the library dependency

In the build.gradle, include this line:

compile 'com.squareup.okhttp:okhttp:x.x.x'

Where x.x.x is the desired library version.

Set the client

For example, if you want to set a timeout of 60 seconds, do this way:

final OkHttpClient okHttpClient = new OkHttpClient();
okHttpClient.setReadTimeout(60, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
okHttpClient.setConnectTimeout(60, TimeUnit.SECONDS);

---

ps: If your minSdkVersion is greater than 8, you can use TimeUnit.MINUTES. So, you can simply use:

okHttpClient.setReadTimeout(1, TimeUnit.MINUTES);
okHttpClient.setConnectTimeout(1, TimeUnit.MINUTES);

For more details about the units, see TimeUnit.