Internet Explorer error "connection timed out" when server does not respond within five minutes (181050)

Important This article contains information about how to modify the registry. Make sure to back up the registry before you modify it. Make sure that you know how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For more information about how to back up, restore, and modify the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

256986 Description of the Microsoft Windows registry

SYMPTOMS

When you connect to a Web site that runs for a period of time before it returns information to Internet Explorer, you may receive one of the following error messages.

Message 1

Microsoft Internet Explorer error 10060 connection timed out.

Message 2

Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site <Web address>. The operation timed out.

Message 3

The page cannot be displayed. Cannot find server or DNS Error.

CAUSE

By design, Internet Explorer imposes a time-out limit for the server to return data. The time-out limit is five minutes for versions 4.0 and 4.01 and is 60 minutes for versions 5.x and 6. As a result, Internet Explorer does not wait endlessly for the server to come back with data when the server has a problem.

RESOLUTION

In general, if a page does not return within a few minutes, many users perceive that a problem has occurred and stop the process. Therefore, design your server processes to return data within 5 minutes so that users do not have to wait for an extensive period of time.

You can usually break down long processes into smaller pieces, or the server can return status data to update users (and Internet Explorer) on the process status. In addition, you can create a long server process with a messages-based or asynchronous approach so that it returns immediately to the client after the job is submitted and notifies users when the long process is done.

MORE INFORMATION

Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk.

Although Microsoft does not encourage this approach, you can change the default time-out setting for Internet Explorer. To do this in Internet Explorer 4.01 Service Pack 1 or later, follow these steps:

Add a ReceiveTimeout DWORD value with a data value of (<number of seconds>)*1000 in the following registry key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Internet Settings
For example, if you want the timeout duration to be 8 minutes, set the ReceiveTimeout data value to 480000 (<480>*1000).
Restart your computer.

Note This setting does not work on versions of Internet Explorer that are before Internet Explorer 4.0 SP1.

REFERENCES

For more information about developing Web-based solutions for Microsoft Internet Explorer, visit the following Microsoft Web sites:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/ie/

http://support.microsoft.com/iep