What is Timeout?
A maximum time something may take before it is stopped.
Where Timeout goes wrong in real apps
Each of these is a short scenario built from a real failure in an app made with AI. Read the answer here, or walk through it yourself in about four minutes.
Launch day · 4 minutes · Pro
The 504 at second 60
Generating a long AI report works on your laptop. In production, where the route's time limit is set to 60 seconds, big reports fail with '504 Gateway Timeout'.
Read the fixWhy do I get a 504 timeout only in production?
Hosted serverless functions stop at a set time limit, while your laptop has none. Long AI calls, imports or file processing exceed it and return 504 Gateway Timeout. Streaming improves the wait but still counts toward the limit; move long tasks to a background job that reports progress.
Related terms
- Endpoint
- One specific address on your server that does one job, like /api/invoices. Each one needs its own safety checks.
- Request
- A message your browser (or any program) sends to a server asking for something: 'give me invoice 105' or 'save this profile'.
- Response
- The server's reply to a request: the data, plus a status code saying whether it worked.
- Production
- The real, live version of your app that customers use, as opposed to the copy on your laptop.
- Serverless function
- A piece of server code that starts for each request and stops soon after. You pay per use, and it has time and size limits.
- Cron job
- Work that runs on a schedule or in the background, instead of while someone waits for a page.