Ruby error Net::ReadTimeout

Question

I am making a series of API calls using httparty. The first two API calls succeed, but the third one fails. It pauses for about 60 seconds (default timeout period) and then returns this error:

/Users/luigi/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/protocol.rb:158:in `rescue in rbuf_fill': Net::ReadTimeout (Net::ReadTimeout)
    from /Users/luigi/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/protocol.rb:152:in `rbuf_fill'
    from /Users/luigi/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/protocol.rb:134:in `readuntil'
    from /Users/luigi/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/protocol.rb:144:in `readline'
    from /Users/luigi/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/http/response.rb:39:in `read_status_line'
    from /Users/luigi/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/http/response.rb:28:in `read_new'
    from /Users/luigi/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/http.rb:1406:in `block in transport_request'
    from /Users/luigi/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/http.rb:1403:in `catch'
    from /Users/luigi/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/http.rb:1403:in `transport_request'
    from /Users/luigi/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/http.rb:1376:in `request'
    from /Users/luigi/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/http.rb:1369:in `block in request'
    from /Users/luigi/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/http.rb:852:in `start'
    from /Users/luigi/.rvm/rubies/ruby-2.0.0-p247/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/http.rb:1367:in `request'
    from /Users/luigi/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p247@pdf/gems/httparty-0.12.0/lib/httparty/request.rb:93:in `perform'
    from /Users/luigi/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p247@pdf/gems/httparty-0.12.0/lib/httparty.rb:486:in `perform_request'
    from /Users/luigi/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p247@pdf/gems/httparty-0.12.0/lib/httparty.rb:423:in `get'
    from /Users/jmccann/.rvm/gems/ruby-2.0.0-p247@pdf/gems/httparty-0.12.0/lib/httparty.rb:518:in `get'

My question is why is this happening? Is this error indicative of an error with the API, or is there something I could do to cause it?

My code:

This is the call that works:

url = HTTParty.get("https://dev.test.com#{call}",
    :basic_auth => auth,
    :headers => {'Accept' => 'application/json' } )

This is the call that doesn't work:

url = HTTParty.get("https://dev.test.com#{call}",
    :basic_auth => auth,
    :headers => {'Accept' => 'application/json' } )

The only thing that changes at all is the actual call, but they are both valid calls according to the API Documentation.

Answer 1

From the Ruby docs: http://ruby-doc.org/stdlib-2.1.2/libdoc/net/http/rdoc/Net/HTTP.html

Number of seconds to wait for one block to be read (via one read(2) call). Any number may be used, including Floats for fractional seconds. If the HTTP object cannot read data in this many seconds, it raises a Net::ReadTimeout exception. The default value is 60 seconds.

What is call? Are the service endpoints different? Are you paging through records? APIs often rate limit callers to prevent DDOS attacks. You can try wrapping your api calls in some retry logic or adding some sleep code.