NSMutableURLRequest timeout interval not taken into consideration for POST requests

Question

According to a post on the Apple developer forum, the minimum timeout interval for POST is 240 seconds. Any timeout interval shorter than that is ignored.

If you require a shorter timeout interval, use an async request along with a timer and call cancel on the NSURLConnection as needed.

link to thread: here

iOS 6 has fixed this issue.

NSMutableURLRequest *request = [NSMutableURLRequest 
                                requestWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:url] 
cachePolicy:NSURLRequestReloadIgnoringLocalCacheData timeoutInterval:20];

[request setHTTPMethod:method];
[request setHTTPBody:requestBody];
NSLog(@"%f", [request timeoutInterval]); 
//20.0 in iOS 6
//240.0 in iOS 4.3, 5.0, 5.1

Fixed with Clay Chambers's suggestion: with a custom timer Added a timer in a subclass of NSURLConnection

if (needsSeparateTimeout){

    SEL sel = @selector(customCancel);

    NSMethodSignature* sig = [self methodSignatureForSelector:sel];

    NSInvocation* invocation = [NSInvocation invocationWithMethodSignature:sig];

    [invocation setTarget:self];

    [invocation setSelector:sel];

    NSTimer *timer = [NSTimer timerWithTimeInterval:WS_REQUEST_TIMEOUT_INTERVAL invocation:invocation repeats:NO];

    [[NSRunLoop mainRunLoop] addTimer:timer forMode:NSDefaultRunLoopMode];

}

In the custom cancel method the connection is cancelled

[super cancel];     

It looks like problem described here is still facing iOS 7.1 (or reappeared). Fortunately it looks like setting timeoutIntervalForResource property on the configuration on the NSURLSession can fix this.

EDIT

According to @XiOS observations this works for timeouts shorter than (around) 2 minutes.