HTTP request not responding

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Adjusting HttpWebRequest Connection Timeout in C#

In my code, I am calling a live chat api to get list of operators in the following format:

            HttpWebRequest request
                = WebRequest.Create("url-here") as HttpWebRequest;
            request.Credentials
                = new NetworkCredential(
                    username,
                    password
                    );

            using (HttpWebResponse response = request.GetResponse() as HttpWebResponse)
            {
                StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream());

           //dowhatever
            }

Today the live chat api went down and because of the our site also went down. In this case the api request went on spinning and was in 'not responding' state.

How to fix this? I do not want continue waiting until the api responds. because it will cause my page also go on spinning. Is there way like timeout - or wait for 2 seconds then skip the live chat request part?

Thanks for the help!

Answer 1

You can use the WebRequest.Timeout property to set how long you'd like your code to wait before timing out:

var request = WebRequest.Create("url-here") as HttpWebRequest;
request.Credentials = new NetworkCredential(username, password);
request.Timeout = 30 * 1000; // wait for 30 seconds (30,000 milliseconds)