ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT: What It Means & How to Fix It

What Is ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT?

ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT is the error Chrome and other Chromium browsers show when they can't get any answer from a website's server. The page reads "This site can't be reached. example.com took too long to respond." Internally it's Chromium net error -118: "a connection attempt timed out."

To open a connection, your computer sends the server a TCP connection request, a SYN packet, and waits for a reply. Normally the reply arrives within milliseconds. When no reply comes back, the operating system resends the SYN a few more times with growing gaps, and eventually the browser gives up and shows this error.

Silence is the key detail. A server that is up but has nothing listening answers immediately with a refusal. With a timeout, nobody answered at all: the packets were dropped somewhere, or they were sent to an address where nothing exists.

ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT vs ERR_TIMED_OUT

Chrome has two similar-looking timeout errors, and they fail at different stages:

• ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT (-118): the connection was never established, because the server didn't answer the initial SYN. Look at the network path, firewalls, DNS and whether the server is online.

• ERR_TIMED_OUT (-7): a more general timeout. Chrome reports it when its own time limit runs out, for example when the TCP connection opened but the HTTPS handshake stalled for 30 seconds, or when an open connection stops getting replies. That usually points to a slow or stuck server, or a proxy that stalls.

The fixes below apply to both. ERR_TIMED_OUT more often turns out to be the website's problem, while ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT is more often a network path or firewall problem.

What Causes ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT?

Fix 1: Check Whether the Site Is Up for Everyone

If the server is down, nothing on your side will help, so check this first:

• Open the site on your phone using mobile data (Wi-Fi off). If it loads, the problem is your device or your network.

• Run a [Ping Test](/ping) from DNS Robot. A reply means the server machine is online. No reply can mean it's down, or that it blocks ping, which many servers do, so treat this as a hint rather than proof.

• Test the web port with the [Port Checker](/port-checker). Check port 443 (HTTPS) and 80 (HTTP). "Open" from our servers while your browser times out means something on your path is dropping the traffic. "Filtered" for us too means the server's firewall or the server itself is the problem.

• Run a [traceroute](/traceroute) to see how far packets get. If the trace dies at the last hops, the site's hosting network is dropping them.

Fix 2: Flush Your DNS Cache (and Chrome's)

When a site moves to a new server, your computer can keep using the old IP address until its cache expires. If the old server is switched off or firewalled, every attempt times out. Flush the operating system cache and Chrome's own host cache:

# Windows (Command Prompt)
ipconfig /flushdns

# macOS
sudo dscacheutil -flushcache; sudo killall -HUP mDNSResponder

# Linux with systemd-resolved
resolvectl flush-caches

# Chrome: open chrome://net-internals/#dns and click "Clear host cache"

To confirm the cache was the problem, compare the IP your computer resolves (nslookup example.com) with the answer from DNS Robot's DNS Lookup. If they differ, your resolver is serving an outdated record. The flush DNS guide covers every browser and operating system.

Fix 3: Check the Hosts File

The hosts file overrides DNS for any name listed in it. Developers, ad blockers and some malware add entries, and a leftover line that maps the domain to an old or private IP will time out every time, on that one computer only.

• Windows: open Notepad as administrator, then open C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc\hosts.

• macOS / Linux: run sudo nano /etc/hosts in Terminal.

Look for a line containing the domain that fails. Delete it, or add # at the start to disable it, save, and flush DNS again.

Fix 4: Turn Off Proxy, VPN and Firewall as a Test

If every site times out, a proxy or VPN that has stopped working is the usual cause, because all traffic is sent to a dead end.

• Windows 11 proxy: Settings → Network & internet → Proxy → under Manual proxy setup, turn Use a proxy server off.

• macOS proxy: System Settings → Network → your connection → Details… → Proxies → turn them off.

• VPN: disconnect completely and reload. If the site works without the VPN, change the VPN server or contact the provider.

• Firewall / antivirus: pause the third-party firewall briefly and reload. If that fixes it, add an exception for the browser instead of leaving the firewall off.

Fix 5: Switch to a Public DNS Resolver

Some ISP resolvers are slow to update, and some send blocked domains to an address that never answers. Switching to a public resolver such as Cloudflare (1.1.1.1), Google (8.8.8.8) or Quad9 (9.9.9.9) rules that out. Our DNS Speed Test shows which is fastest from your location.

If your DNS server itself is failing, you may see different errors, covered in DNS server not responding and DNS server unavailable.

Fix 6: Reset the Network Stack and Restart the Router

Restart the router and modem: unplug them for 30 seconds, then give them two or three minutes to reconnect. On Windows, also reset the TCP/IP stack from an administrator Command Prompt:

netsh winsock reset
netsh int ip reset
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
ipconfig /flushdns
:: Restart the PC to finish the reset

On a Mac, turn Wi-Fi off and on, or remove and re-add the network under System Settings → Network. You can also run Windows Network Diagnostics (the link on Chrome's error page) and let Windows repair the adapter.

Fix 7: Test the Port From Your Own Computer

This tells you in a few seconds whether your machine can open a connection to the site at all, without the browser involved:

# Windows PowerShell
Test-NetConnection example.com -Port 443
# TcpTestSucceeded : False  -> nothing answered from your network

# macOS / Linux
nc -vz -w 5 example.com 443
# "timed out" -> dropped; "Connection refused" -> server rejected it

If the test fails from your computer but DNS Robot's Port Checker shows the port open, something on your network is blocking it: your router, workplace firewall, ISP, or a hotel or school Wi-Fi filter. Try another network, or ask the network administrator.

Fix ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT on Android and iPhone

• Switch networks: try mobile data instead of Wi-Fi, or the other way round. Captive portals on public Wi-Fi time out until you accept their login page.

• Android Private DNS: Settings → Network & internet → Private DNS → Automatic. A custom hostname that can't be reached breaks every lookup. See our Private DNS guide.

• Turn off VPN and ad-blocking apps, since many run as a local VPN.

• Reset network settings: on iPhone, Settings → General → Transfer or Reset iPhone → Reset → Reset Network Settings. On Android, Settings → System → Reset options → Reset Bluetooth & Wi-Fi (and Reset Mobile Network Settings if mobile data also fails).

For Website Owners: Why Visitors Time Out

If your site times out for everyone, the packets are being dropped before they reach your web server. Check these in order:

• Is anything listening? On the server, sudo ss -tlnp | grep -E ':(80|443) ' should show nginx, Apache or your app. If it shows nothing, start the service. Note that a stopped service usually produces refused rather than timed out, unless a firewall drops the packets first.

• Does the firewall allow 80 and 443? Run sudo ufw status verbose on Ubuntu or sudo firewall-cmd --list-all on RHEL-family systems. A default DROP policy is exactly what produces timeouts.

• Cloud firewalls are separate. AWS Security Groups, Google Cloud firewall rules, Azure NSGs and many VPS providers' panel firewalls deny inbound traffic by default. Allow TCP 80 and 443 from 0.0.0.0/0 (and ::/0 for IPv6).

• Does DNS point to this server? After a migration, check the A and AAAA records with DNS Lookup. An AAAA record pointing to an address the server doesn't actually serve on can cause slow loads or time-outs for visitors on IPv6 networks.

• Is the server overloaded? If the connection backlog fills up under heavy load, new connection attempts are dropped and time out. Check CPU, memory and connection counts while it happens.

# Ubuntu: allow web traffic through ufw
sudo ufw allow 80/tcp
sudo ufw allow 443/tcp
sudo ufw status verbose

# Confirm from outside (another machine):
nc -vz -w 5 yourdomain.com 443

Timed Out vs Refused vs Reset: How to Tell Them Apart

A firewall set to drop traffic produces a timeout; one set to reject it produces a refusal. Detailed guides: ERR_CONNECTION_REFUSED, ERR_CONNECTION_RESET and ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED.