Why do I have a socket.timeout with python-bitcoinlib?

Question

I am using a small script and get a timeout from python. This is my script:

import bitcoin
import bitcoin.rpc
from bitcoin.rpc import RawProxy
p = RawProxy()
hash = '0000000000000001b6b9a13b095e96db41c4a928b97ef2d944a9b31b2cc7bdc4'
infoblock = p.getblock(hash)
print(infoblock['difficulty'])

This is my error:

bitcoin@raspberrypi ~/.bitcoin/BuchSkripte $ python3 49_rpc_example.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "49_rpc_example.py", line 11, in <module>
    infoblock = p.getblock(hash)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/bitcoin/rpc.py", line 306, in <lambda>
    f = lambda *args: self._call(name, *args)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/bitcoin/rpc.py", line 236, in _call
    response = self._get_response()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/bitcoin/rpc.py", line 261, in _get_response
    http_response = self.__conn.getresponse()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/http/client.py", line 1198, in getresponse
    response.begin()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/http/client.py", line 297, in begin
    version, status, reason = self._read_status()
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/http/client.py", line 258, in _read_status
    line = str(self.fp.readline(_MAXLINE + 1), "iso-8859-1")
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/socket.py", line 576, in readinto
    return self._sock.recv_into(b)
socket.timeout: timed out

When using the same method getblock via bitcoin-cli it takes 120 seconds to finish on my Raspberry. If the timeout is related to this duration, can I increase it in the script?

I read that the socket timeout can be set but I wonder if I can do this if I use a library for the connection.

Answer 1

Change the timeout inside the file bitcoin.conf or when you start the bitcoind,

This is an example

##
## bitcoin.conf configuration file. Lines beginning with # are comments.
##
# On client-side, you add the normal user/password pair to send commands:
rpcuser=alice
rpcpassword=bob
rpcclienttimeout=200

or you can run the bitcoind with this command bitcoind -rpcuser=alice -rpcpassword=bob -rpcclienttimeout=200

Or you can change the setting lib to the code, try this example

from bitcoin.rpc import RawProxy

# Create a connection to local Bitcoin Core node
p = RawProxy(None, None, None, 120)

# Run the getblockchaininfo command, store the resulting data in info
info = p.getblockchaininfo()

# Retrieve the 'blocks' element from the info
print(info['blocks'])

Answer 2

I had to change the timeout variable that is used inside the method of the library by giving a value to it when calling the method.