How to Resolve Jsoup SocketTimeoutException: Read Timed Out Error When Parsing Multiple HTML Documents

What causes Jsoup's SocketTimeoutException during large HTML document parsing?

// Example of Jsoup connection with timeout settings
Document doc = Jsoup.connect("http://www.domain.com/url1.html")
                 .timeout(10000) // 10 seconds timeout
                 .get();  // Fetch the document

When working with Jsoup to parse multiple HTML documents, encountering a SocketTimeoutException often indicates that the given server is taking too long to respond. This issue often arises when numerous requests are made sequentially or when the target server is slow to respond.

// Adjusting timeout settings in Jsoup
Jsoup.connect("http://www.domain.com/url1.html")
     .timeout(Duration.ofSeconds(10))  // Adjust this value as needed
     .get();

Causes

• Network instability or slow internet connection.
• Server overload due to too many simultaneous requests.
• Default timeout settings are too low for the response time of the target server.
• Parsing a large volume of data without adequate pacing.

Solutions

• Increase the default timeout value in your Jsoup connection.
• Implement a delay between requests to avoid overwhelming the server.
• Handle exceptions gracefully by retrying failed requests after a brief pause.
• Optimize your code to parse multiple documents concurrently with limited threads.

Mistake: Setting the timeout too low without considering server response times.

Solution: Increase the timeout based on the average response time of the target server.

Mistake: Not handling SocketTimeoutException properly in the code.

Solution: Implement a retry mechanism for failed connections with exponential backoff.

Mistake: Neglecting to impose a delay between requests to the same server.

Solution: Use a sleep or delay function to space out HTTP requests.