Timeout for python requests.get entire response

Question

Set the timeout parameter:

r = requests.get(w, verify=False, timeout=10) # 10 seconds

Changes in version 2.25.1

The code above will cause the call to requests.get() to timeout if the connection or delays between reads takes more than ten seconds. See: https://docs.python-requests.org/en/master/user/advanced/#timeouts

What about using eventlet? If you want to timeout the request after 10 seconds, even if data is being received, this snippet will work for you:

import requests
import eventlet
eventlet.monkey_patch()

with eventlet.Timeout(10):
    requests.get("http://ipv4.download.thinkbroadband.com/1GB.zip", verify=False)

UPDATE: https://requests.readthedocs.io/en/master/user/advanced/#timeouts

In new version of requests:

If you specify a single value for the timeout, like this:

r = requests.get('https://github.com', timeout=5)

The timeout value will be applied to both the connect and the read timeouts. Specify a tuple if you would like to set the values separately:

r = requests.get('https://github.com', timeout=(3.05, 27))

If the remote server is very slow, you can tell Requests to wait forever for a response, by passing None as a timeout value and then retrieving a cup of coffee.

r = requests.get('https://github.com', timeout=None)

---

My old (probably outdated) answer (which was posted long time ago):

There are other ways to overcome this problem:

1. Use the TimeoutSauce internal class

From: https://github.com/kennethreitz/requests/issues/1928#issuecomment-35811896

import requests from requests.adapters import TimeoutSauce

class MyTimeout(TimeoutSauce):
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        connect = kwargs.get('connect', 5)
        read = kwargs.get('read', connect)
        super(MyTimeout, self).__init__(connect=connect, read=read)

requests.adapters.TimeoutSauce = MyTimeout

This code should cause us to set the read timeout as equal to the connect timeout, which is the timeout value you pass on your Session.get() call. (Note that I haven't actually tested this code, so it may need some quick debugging, I just wrote it straight into the GitHub window.)

2. Use a fork of requests from kevinburke: https://github.com/kevinburke/requests/tree/connect-timeout

From its documentation: https://github.com/kevinburke/requests/blob/connect-timeout/docs/user/advanced.rst

If you specify a single value for the timeout, like this:

r = requests.get('https://github.com', timeout=5)

The timeout value will be applied to both the connect and the read timeouts. Specify a tuple if you would like to set the values separately:

r = requests.get('https://github.com', timeout=(3.05, 27))

kevinburke has requested it to be merged into the main requests project, but it hasn't been accepted yet.

timeout = int(seconds)

Since requests >= 2.4.0, you can use the timeout argument, i.e:

requests.get('https://duckduckgo.com/', timeout=10)

---

Note:

timeout is not a time limit on the entire response download; rather, an exception is raised if the server has not issued a response for timeout seconds ( more precisely, if no bytes have been received on the underlying socket for timeout seconds). If no timeout is specified explicitly, requests do not time out.

To create a timeout you can use signals.

The best way to solve this case is probably to

1. Set an exception as the handler for the alarm signal
2. Call the alarm signal with a ten second delay
3. Call the function inside a try-except-finally block.
4. The except block is reached if the function timed out.
5. In the finally block you abort the alarm, so it's not singnaled later.

Here is some example code:

import signal
from time import sleep

class TimeoutException(Exception):
    """ Simple Exception to be called on timeouts. """
    pass

def _timeout(signum, frame):
    """ Raise an TimeoutException.

    This is intended for use as a signal handler.
    The signum and frame arguments passed to this are ignored.

    """
    # Raise TimeoutException with system default timeout message
    raise TimeoutException()

# Set the handler for the SIGALRM signal:
signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM, _timeout)
# Send the SIGALRM signal in 10 seconds:
signal.alarm(10)

try:    
    # Do our code:
    print('This will take 11 seconds...')
    sleep(11)
    print('done!')
except TimeoutException:
    print('It timed out!')
finally:
    # Abort the sending of the SIGALRM signal:
    signal.alarm(0)

There are some caveats to this:

1. It is not threadsafe, signals are always delivered to the main thread, so you can't put this in any other thread.
2. There is a slight delay after the scheduling of the signal and the execution of the actual code. This means that the example would time out even if it only slept for ten seconds.

But, it's all in the standard python library! Except for the sleep function import it's only one import. If you are going to use timeouts many places You can easily put the TimeoutException, _timeout and the singaling in a function and just call that. Or you can make a decorator and put it on functions, see the answer linked below.

You can also set this up as a "context manager" so you can use it with the with statement:

import signal
class Timeout():
    """ Timeout for use with the `with` statement. """

    class TimeoutException(Exception):
        """ Simple Exception to be called on timeouts. """
        pass

    def _timeout(signum, frame):
        """ Raise an TimeoutException.

        This is intended for use as a signal handler.
        The signum and frame arguments passed to this are ignored.

        """
        raise Timeout.TimeoutException()

    def __init__(self, timeout=10):
        self.timeout = timeout
        signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM, Timeout._timeout)

    def __enter__(self):
        signal.alarm(self.timeout)

    def __exit__(self, exc_type, exc_value, traceback):
        signal.alarm(0)
        return exc_type is Timeout.TimeoutException

# Demonstration:
from time import sleep

print('This is going to take maximum 10 seconds...')
with Timeout(10):
    sleep(15)
    print('No timeout?')
print('Done')

One possible down side with this context manager approach is that you can't know if the code actually timed out or not.

Sources and recommended reading:

• The documentation on signals
• This answer on timeouts by @David Narayan. He has organized the above code as a decorator.