HTTPClient::ConnectTimeoutError while using 'fb_graph' gem

Question

I have one rails project and two machinges. One is running Ubuntu 10.04 and the other 12.04 beta. I'm using the 'fb_graph' gem on the 10.04 machine all works fine, but when I do on the 12.04 machine things like

me = FbGraph::User.me(token).fetch

I get

HTTPClient::ConnectTimeoutError: execution expired
from /home/jan/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@ece/gems/httpclient-2.2.4/lib/httpclient/session.rb:300:in `connect'
from /home/jan/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@ece/gems/httpclient-2.2.4/lib/httpclient/session.rb:300:in `ssl_connect'
from /home/jan/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@ece/gems/httpclient-2.2.4/lib/httpclient/session.rb:739:in `block in connect'
from /home/jan/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@ece/gems/httpclient-2.2.4/lib/httpclient/session.rb:731:in `connect'
from /home/jan/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@ece/gems/httpclient-2.2.4/lib/httpclient/session.rb:594:in `query'
from /home/jan/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@ece/gems/httpclient-2.2.4/lib/httpclient/session.rb:161:in `query'
from /home/jan/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@ece/gems/httpclient-2.2.4/lib/httpclient.rb:1060:in `do_get_block'
from /home/jan/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@ece/gems/httpclient-2.2.4/lib/httpclient.rb:869:in `block in do_request'
from /home/jan/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@ece/gems/httpclient-2.2.4/lib/httpclient.rb:956:in `protect_keep_alive_disconnected'
from /home/jan/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@ece/gems/httpclient-2.2.4/lib/httpclient.rb:868:in `do_request'
from /home/jan/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@ece/gems/httpclient-2.2.4/lib/httpclient.rb:756:in `request'
from /home/jan/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@ece/gems/httpclient-2.2.4/lib/httpclient.rb:661:in `get'
from /home/jan/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@ece/gems/fb_graph-2.4.10/lib/fb_graph/node.rb:49:in `block in get'
from /home/jan/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@ece/gems/fb_graph-2.4.10/lib/fb_graph/node.rb:122:in `handle_response'
from /home/jan/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@ece/gems/fb_graph-2.4.10/lib/fb_graph/node.rb:48:in `get'
from /home/jan/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@ece/gems/fb_graph-2.4.10/lib/fb_graph/node.rb:18:in `fetch'
from (irb):10
from /home/jan/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@ece/gems/railties-3.2.0/lib/rails/commands/console.rb:47:in `start'
from /home/jan/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@ece/gems/railties-3.2.0/lib/rails/commands/console.rb:8:in `start'
from /home/jan/.rvm/gems/ruby-1.9.2-p290@ece/gems/railties-3.2.0/lib/rails/commands.rb:41:in `<top (required)>'
from script/rails:6:in `require'
from script/rails:6:in `<main>'

I have no idea why this happen nor how I could solve it. Any ideas? Thanks!

Jan

Answer 1

Reasons it could be happening are hardware performance of the machine, and network performance.

Try it again a couple times. Sometimes the network needs time to load routing information, but once it's loaded it goes faster the next times. That may not be a good production solution, but it could diagnose if the problem is freshening the network routing.

This could be a true network performance issue. That might not help you, if you cannot tune your network.

If re-trying helps, you could put a re-try loop around your code.

(0..2).each do
  begin
    ... #your code goes here
    break
  rescue HTTPClient::ConnectTimeoutError
  end
end

Answer 2

The HTTP request is timing out between the server and FB. See this github issue for an explanation of how to configure the HTTP client's timeout option.