Understanding and Resolving Function Timeout Errors

When running scoring functions in experiments, you may encounter timeout errors with the message "Function timed out after 30000ms". This article explains what causes these errors and how to resolve them.

Timeout Limits

There are several important timeout limits to be aware of:

• Scoring functions have a 30-second (30000ms) execution timeout

• The proxy service has a 45-second timeout limit

• The overall stack has a hard limit of 1 minute for function execution

Common Causes

The most common cause of timeout errors is rate limiting from downstream LLM (Language Model) providers being called within your scoring function. When the LLM provider throttles requests, it can cause your function to exceed the timeout limits.

How to Resolve

To resolve timeout errors, try these approaches:

1. Optimize your scoring function to complete execution more quickly

2. Implement retry logic with backoff for LLM API calls

3. Consider breaking up complex scoring operations into smaller functions

4. Check your LLM provider's rate limits and adjust your usage accordingly