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Introduction
Your Web server thinks that there has been too long an interval
of time between 1) the establishment of an IP connection (socket) between the
client (e.g. your Web browser or our CheckUpDown robot) and the server and 2)
the receipt of any data on that socket, so the server has dropped the
connection. The socket connection has actually been lost - your Web server has
'timed out' on that particular socket connection. The request from the client
must be repeated - in a timely manner.
408 errors in the HTTP cycle
Any client (e.g. your Web browser or our CheckUpDown robot) goes
through the following cycle:
- Obtain an IP address from the IP name of your site (your site
URL without the leading 'http://'). This lookup (conversion of IP name to IP
address) is provided by domain name servers (DNSs).
- Open an IP socket connection to that IP address.
- Write an HTTP data stream through that socket.
- Receive an HTTP data stream back from your Web server in
response. This data stream contains status codes whose values are determined by
the HTTP protocol. Parse this data stream for status codes and other useful
information.
This error occurs in the final step above when the client
receives an HTTP status code that it recognises as '408'.
Resolving 408 errors - general
408 errors are often difficult to resolve. They typically
involve one-off variations in system workload or operations.
If you see persistent 408 errors, the first thing to consider is
the workload on your Web server - particularly around the time the 408 errors
were generated. If this is light, then you also need to consider workload on
the client system. If the computer systems on both ends of the socket
connection seem to be running normally, then temporary Internet surges may be
to blame.
Resolving 408 errors - CheckUpDown
This error is highly unlikely to occur on your CheckUpDown
account, because there is usually only a tiny interval of time (milliseconds)
between our 1) opening of the socket and 2) writing the HTTP data stream
through that socket. In exceptional circumstances, this interval may increase
because of some operations on our computer systems e.g. we temporarily suspend
an executing process and this happens immediately after the socket was created.
Or the two steps may follow quickly on our systems, but the second step
encounters an unreasonable delay on the Internet. The acceptable interval
between the two steps could also be set very low on your Web server e.g. your
server is very busy, and has become a bit 'impatient' with attempted
connections it views as a bit slow.
Any of these conditions may generate an 408 error. But they are
all fairly unlikely to occur. In normal IP communications, the time interval
between the two steps should be much less than 10 seconds, which should be
completely acceptable to your Web server. Please contact us (email preferred)
if you see persistent 408 errors, so that we can agree the best way to resolve
them. |
 We monitor your site for errors like 408.
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