Issues with Data Downloads - "Server did not respond"

Analysis and Data
1

Hello,

I am having issues downloading Motus detections / updating my local Motus database through RStudio, using the tagme() function.

It seems to work intermittently - I downloaded data last week and it worked fine, but today I am trying to download new data and am met with the error “The server did not respond within 120s. Trying again…”, although the code is the same as last week.

After waiting longer, I get the console message "‘The server is not responding, please try again later.’: and the script stops running.

Has anyone else had similar issues? I am having trouble diagnosing the problem, I have no idea whether it’s on my end or Motus server. I have access to a reliable internet connection via ethernet.

I’ve tried the following troubleshooting methods to no avail:

  • Deleting my existing .motus database and running tagme() with new = TRUE
  • Updating R to the latest version (4.4.2)
  • Rolling back R to version 4.3.1
  • Reinstalling the motus package
  • Disabling my Windows Defender firewall
2

Hi Callum, this is almost certainly related to issues on the Motus server end. Unfortunately, server timeouts are not uncommon, usually caused by a large influx of incoming data or other processes that create a temporary backlog.

There is an option to increase the timeout with teh srvTimeout() function. You can read about that here:

3

Hi Josh,

Thanks a lot for the reply, it’s good to know its most likely a server issue and I’m not going crazy!

4

I have been having the exact same issue! I thought I was going crazy. Glad to know that it’s not just me. Using a longer srvTimeout() did not work for me yet, but maybe eventually?