TimeoutError in Python — What It Means and How to Fix It

What Python's TimeoutError exception means and how to resolve it.

Published October 29, 2026

TimeoutError is raised when a system function times out waiting for an operation to complete.

Key points

  • Catch it specifically with "except TimeoutError:" when you want to handle this exact case rather than a bare except

Example

Commonly seen with network or socket operations that exceed a configured timeout
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