Adjusting HttpWebRequest Connection Timeout in C#

user_161052 0
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I believe after lengthy research and searching, I have discovered that what I want to do is probably better served by setting up an asynchronous connection and terminating it after the desired timeout... But I will go ahead and ask anyway!

Quick snippet of code:

HttpWebRequest webReq = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create(url);
webReq.Timeout = 5000;
HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)webReq.GetResponse(); 
// this takes ~20+ sec on servers that aren't on the proper port, etc.

I have an HttpWebRequest method that is in a multi-threaded application, in which I am connecting to a large number of company web servers. In cases where the server is not responding, the HttpWebRequest.GetResponse() is taking about 20 seconds to time out, even though I have specified a timeout of only 5 seconds. In the interest of getting through the servers on a regular interval, I want to skip those taking longer than 5 seconds to connect to.

So the question is: "Is there a simple way to specify/decrease a connection timeout for a WebRequest or HttpWebRequest?"

timeout httpwebrequest c#
5 Answers

Something I found later which helped, is the .ReadWriteTimeout property. This, in addition to the .Timeout property seemed to finally cut down on the time threads would spend trying to download from a problematic server. The default time for .ReadWriteTimeout is 5 minutes, which for my application was far too long.

So, it seems to me:

.Timeout = time spent trying to establish a connection (not including lookup time) .ReadWriteTimeout = time spent trying to read or write data after connection established

More info: HttpWebRequest.ReadWriteTimeout Property

Edit:

Per @KyleM's comment, the Timeout property is for the entire connection attempt, and reading up on it at MSDN shows:

Timeout is the number of milliseconds that a subsequent synchronous request made with the GetResponse method waits for a response, and the GetRequestStream method waits for a stream. The Timeout applies to the entire request and response, not individually to the GetRequestStream and GetResponse method calls. If the resource is not returned within the time-out period, the request throws a WebException with the Status property set to WebExceptionStatus.Timeout.

(Emphasis mine.)

user_1610520

From the documentation of the HttpWebRequest.Timeout property:

A Domain Name System (DNS) query may take up to 15 seconds to return or time out. If your request contains a host name that requires resolution and you set Timeout to a value less than 15 seconds, it may take 15 seconds or more before a WebException is thrown to indicate a timeout on your request.

Is it possible that your DNS query is the cause of the timeout?

user_102230
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