Timeout error when loading Xml from URL

Question

I am doing task of loading the live xml file (from live url) to XmlDataDocument, but every time I am getting error:

The operation has timed out

The code is as follows, The url containing the xml feeds , I want to load it into xmlDoc.

XmlDataDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDataDocument();
xmlDoc.Load("http://www.globalgear.com.au/productfeed.xml");

Please suggest any solution.

Answer 1

Don't use the Load method of the XmlDataDocument class directly; you have little to no way of influencing the behaviour when it comes to long running HTTP requests.

Instead, use the HttpWebRequest and HttpWebResponse classes to do the work for you, and then load the subsequent response into your document.

For example:

    HttpWebRequest rq = WebRequest.Create("http://www.globalgear.com.au/productfeed.xml") as HttpWebRequest;
    //60 Second Timeout
    rq.Timeout = 60000;
    //Also note you can set the Proxy property here if required; sometimes it is, especially if you are behind a firewall - rq.Proxy = new WebProxy("proxy_address");
    HttpWebResponse response = rq.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse;


    XmlTextReader reader = new XmlTextReader(response.GetResponseStream());

    XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
    doc.Load(reader);

I've tested this code in a local app instance and the XmlDocument is populated with the data from your URL.

You can also substitute in XmlDataDocument for XmlDocument in the example above - I prefer to use XmlDocument as it's not (yet) marked as obsolete.

I've wrapped this in a function for you:

public XmlDocument GetDataFromUrl(string url)
{
    XmlDocument urlData = new XmlDocument();
    HttpWebRequest rq = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);

    rq.Timeout = 60000;

    HttpWebResponse response = rq.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse;

    using (Stream responseStream = response.GetResponseStream())
    {
        XmlTextReader reader = new XmlTextReader(responseStream);
        urlData.Load(reader);
    }

    return urlData;

}

Simply call using:

XmlDocument document = GetDataFromUrl("http://www.globalgear.com.au/productfeed.xml");

Answer 2

To my knowledge there is no easy way to adjust the timeout with the method you are using.

The easiest change would be to use the webclient class and set the timeout property. This is described here http://w3ka.blogspot.co.uk/2009/12/how-to-fix-webclient-timeout-issue.html. Then use downloadfile on the webclient. Then load the saved file in the XMLDocument.

Answer 3

Set a timeout for your web request:

using System;
using System.Net;
using System.Xml;

namespace Shelver
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            WebRequest requ = WebRequest.Create("http://www.globalgear.com.au/productfeed.xml");
            requ.Timeout = 10 * 60 * 1000; // 10 minutes timeout and not 100s as the default.
            var resp = requ.GetResponse();

            Console.WriteLine("Will download {0:N0}bytes", resp.ContentLength);
            var stream = resp.GetResponseStream();
            XmlDocument doc = new XmlDocument();
            doc.Load(stream);

        }
    }
}

This example will set it to 10 minutes.

Answer 4

In addition to the previous answers, which should be the first step towards fixing this, I continued to get this exception despite having already loaded the response and closing the connections.

The solution for me: the Load() and LoadXml() methods would throw their own Timeout exception if the value provided wasn't actually XML. Checking to verify that the response content was XML worked in our case (this will require that the host you are getting your response from actually sets content types).

Building upon dash's answer:

public XmlDocument GetDataFromUrl(string url)
{
    XmlDocument urlData = new XmlDocument();
    HttpWebRequest rq = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);

    rq.Timeout = 60000;

    HttpWebResponse response = rq.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse;

    // New check added to dash's answer.
    if (response.ContentType.Contains("text/xml")
    {
        using (Stream responseStream = response.GetResponseStream())
        {
            XmlTextReader reader = new XmlTextReader(responseStream);
            urlData.Load(reader);
        }
    }

    return urlData;

}