python socket Errno 10060

Question

I'm using python socket to connect to a server but sometimes I get this:

error: [Errno 10060] A connection attempt failed because the connected party did not properly respond after a period of time, or established connection failed because connected host has failed to respond

when I call the socket.connect method

s= socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
s.bind((self._ipv4address, host_port))
try:
    s.connect((dest_ip, dest_port))
except:
    raise

Why am I seeing this error? And how do I solve the problem?

Answer 1

You don't need to bind the socket (unless the remote server has an expectation of incoming socket) - it is extremely rare that this would actually be a requirement to connect.

Instead of using sockets to open a website, use urllib2 or mechanize if you need to twiddle forms. They manage cookies, sessions, page state, etc.. Much easier.

Also, if you fail to to connect.. don't give up! Try again, some sites can be pokey to respond. Some may not respond for a while depending - handle it better. Instead of just raising the error, wrap your connection method with an exponential backoff decorator.