all Python 3http.clientexception

http.client.IncompleteRead

exceptions

The response body ended earlier than Content-Length or chunked encoding promised. The part received so far is in the partial attribute.

Syntax

except http.client.IncompleteRead as e: e.partial, e.expected

It usually means the server or a proxy dropped the connection mid-response. The data is not entirely lost: e.partial holds the bytes read so far and e.expected how many were missing. Retrying is safe only for idempotent methods (GET, HEAD), not for POST. Unlike RemoteDisconnected, the headers did arrive; it is the body that was cut off.

Examples

import http.client
import socket
server, client = socket.socketpair()
server.sendall(b'HTTP/1.1 200 OK\r\nContent-Length: 10\r\n\r\nabc')
server.close()
resp = http.client.HTTPResponse(client)
resp.begin()
try:
    resp.read()
except http.client.IncompleteRead as e:
    print(e)  # → IncompleteRead(3 bytes read, 7 more expected)
    print(e.partial, e.expected)  # → b'abc' 7
client.close()

See also

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