Skip to content
4xx Client Error Safe to retry

408 Request Timeout

The client took too long to send the complete request, so the server gave up.

What causes it

  • A slow upload on a poor connection.
  • An idle keep-alive connection being closed — browsers often show this after the fact.
  • A client that opened a connection and sent nothing.

How to fix it

  • Raise the server read timeout for endpoints that accept large uploads.
  • Retry is safe for idempotent requests.

At a glance

Class
4xx Client Error
Reference
RFC 9110 §15.5.9
Standardised
Yes
Retry the request?
Yes, with backoff

Other 4xx client error codes

Back to the full HTTP status code reference