Skip to content

Networking Errors and Timeouts

Common networking failures

Timeouts: server too slow
Connection errors: server down, wrong port
DNS errors: domain name can’t be resolved
HTTP errors: 4xx/5xx responses

requests exceptions

requests_errors.py

import requests
 
try:
    r = requests.get("https://httpbin.org/delay/10", timeout=2)
    r.raise_for_status()
    print(r.text[:100])
except requests.Timeout:
    print("Timed out")
except requests.ConnectionError:
    print("Connection error")
except requests.HTTPError as e:
    print("HTTP error:", e)
except requests.RequestException as e:
    print("Other request error:", e)

requests_errors.py

import requests
 
try:
    r = requests.get("https://httpbin.org/delay/10", timeout=2)
    r.raise_for_status()
    print(r.text[:100])
except requests.Timeout:
    print("Timed out")
except requests.ConnectionError:
    print("Connection error")
except requests.HTTPError as e:
    print("HTTP error:", e)
except requests.RequestException as e:
    print("Other request error:", e)

Add a timeout everywhere

Always set timeout=timeout=
Combine with retries if needed

Basic backoff idea

backoff.py

import time
import requests
 
url = "https://httpbin.org/status/503"
 
wait = 1
for attempt in range(4):
    try:
        r = requests.get(url, timeout=5)
        r.raise_for_status()
        print("success")
        break
    except requests.RequestException:
        print("failed, sleeping", wait)
        time.sleep(wait)
        wait *= 2

backoff.py

import time
import requests
 
url = "https://httpbin.org/status/503"
 
wait = 1
for attempt in range(4):
    try:
        r = requests.get(url, timeout=5)
        r.raise_for_status()
        print("success")
        break
    except requests.RequestException:
        print("failed, sleeping", wait)
        time.sleep(wait)
        wait *= 2

Tip

For production-grade retries, use a library or configure a session with retry adapters.

🧪 Try It Yourself

Exercise 1 – GET Request

Exercise 2 – POST with JSON

Exercise 3 – Handle Timeout

If this helped you, consider buying me a coffee ☕

Buy me a coffee