Python 3.3+Exceptionsexception

subprocess.TimeoutExpired

module exceptions

Raised when a child process does not finish within the timeout given to run, call, check_output or Popen.wait/communicate.

Syntax

except subprocess.TimeoutExpired as e:  # e.cmd, e.timeout, e.output, e.stderr

run() kills the child before raising it, but Popen.wait(timeout) and communicate(timeout) do not: the process keeps running, and you must call proc.kill() and then communicate() to reap it. The output/stderr attributes hold bytes even with text=True. It is not a subclass of the built-in TimeoutError, so except TimeoutError lets it through.

Examples

import subprocess, sys
cmd = [sys.executable, '-c', 'import time; time.sleep(5)']
try:
    subprocess.run(cmd, timeout=0.5)
except subprocess.TimeoutExpired as e:
    print(round(e.timeout, 1))  # → 0.5 — до 3.13 здесь лежало прошедшее время
print(issubclass(subprocess.TimeoutExpired, TimeoutError))  # → False

import subprocess, sys
p = subprocess.Popen([sys.executable, '-c', 'import time; time.sleep(5)'])
try:
    p.wait(timeout=0.3)
except subprocess.TimeoutExpired:
    print(p.poll())  # → None — процесс ещё жив
    p.kill()
    p.wait()

See also

Common errors

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