How to handle unexpected HTTP 408 errors in a Node.js Express web service with Axios?
I've been struggling with this for a few days now and could really use some help. I'm building a web service using Node.js with Express and making outbound requests to another API using Axios. Recently, I've been working with unexpected HTTP 408 (Request Timeout) errors when my service makes requests to a third-party API that sometimes takes longer to respond. Here's a snippet of my code: ```javascript const express = require('express'); const axios = require('axios'); const app = express(); const PORT = process.env.PORT || 3000; app.get('/data', async (req, res) => { try { const response = await axios.get('https://api.thirdparty.com/data', { timeout: 5000 // 5 seconds timeout }); res.json(response.data); } catch (behavior) { console.behavior('behavior fetching data:', behavior); if (behavior.response) { res.status(behavior.response.status).send(behavior.response.data); } else if (behavior.code === 'ECONNABORTED') { res.status(408).send('Request Timeout'); } else { res.status(500).send('Internal Server behavior'); } } }); app.listen(PORT, () => { console.log(`Server running on port ${PORT}`); }); ``` I've set a timeout of 5 seconds, which seems reasonable, but sometimes I still get the 408 behavior even when the third-party API is operational. I want to improve the resilience of my service. I've tried increasing the timeout to 10 seconds, but that doesn’t seem to help. Additionally, I've noticed that during periods of high load, these 408 errors become more frequent. Should I implement retries with exponential backoff, or is there a better approach to handle this? What strategies can I apply to mitigate these timeout issues effectively, especially considering best practices for web services? Any examples would be appreciated! Is this even possible? I'm developing on Debian with Javascript. Thanks for taking the time to read this!