Title: [WP 3.5.1] WordPress error code: http_request_failed – name lookup timed out Last modified: August 21, 2016 --- # [WP 3.5.1] WordPress error code: http_request_failed – name lookup timed out * Resolved [darkiko](https://wordpress.org/support/users/darkiko/) * (@darkiko) * [13 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-351-wordpress-error-code-http_request_failed-name-lookup-timed-out/) * Hi there, i installed today this plug-in in my blog, set up the settings but when i use the shortcode [rotatingtweets screen_name=’xxx’] using the correct user name instead of xxx i get this error (rotating in three frames): Problem retrieving data from Twitter Wordpress error code: http_request_failed – name lookup timed out Please check your PHP and server settings. * Any idea why? * Thanks! * [http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/rotatingtweets/](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/rotatingtweets/) Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 28 total) 1 [2](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-351-wordpress-error-code-http_request_failed-name-lookup-timed-out/page/2/?output_format=md) [→](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-351-wordpress-error-code-http_request_failed-name-lookup-timed-out/page/2/?output_format=md) * Plugin Author [Martin Tod](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mpntod/) * (@mpntod) * [13 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-351-wordpress-error-code-http_request_failed-name-lookup-timed-out/#post-3690808) * This means that the set-up you are testing your site on (Linux/Apache/MySQL/PHP/ Wordpress) isn’t connecting to the internet properly when WordPress asks it to. * I’m not sure why that would be the case, but it’s a server/Wordpress problem, not a Rotating Tweets problem. * Rotating Tweets doesn’t connect directly, but uses the WordPress connection to the net. * Do you have the latest version of WordPress? * There is some discussion of potential solutions [here](http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugins-update-failure?replies=5#post-947582). * The HTTP module on [the Core Control plug-in](http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/core-control/) may also help. * Plugin Author [Martin Tod](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mpntod/) * (@mpntod) * [13 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-351-wordpress-error-code-http_request_failed-name-lookup-timed-out/#post-3690905) * As a quick PS, are you able to download plug-ins and updates directly into WordPress? * Thread Starter [darkiko](https://wordpress.org/support/users/darkiko/) * (@darkiko) * [13 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-351-wordpress-error-code-http_request_failed-name-lookup-timed-out/#post-3690916) * Hi, yes i can download, upload and update plug-ins directly from the plug-in section. WP is 3.5.1 and Core Control tells me: Manage Transports Transport Status cURL Available PHP Streams Available PHP fsockopen() Available * HTTP Related Constants WP_HTTP_BLOCK_EXTERNAL Undefined WP_ACCESSIBLE_HOSTS Undefined WP_PROXY_HOST Undefined WP_PROXY_PORT Undefined WP_PROXY_USERNAME Undefined WP_PROXY_PASSWORD Undefined WP_PROXY_BYPASS_HOSTS Undefined * HTTP Related Filters http_request_timeout 5 http_request_redirection_count 5 http_request_version ‘1.0’ http_headers_useragent ‘WordPress/3.5.1; [http://www.etcetc’](http://www.etcetc’); block_local_requests false use_fsockopen_transport true use_streams_transport true use_curl_transport true https_local_ssl_verify true https_ssl_verify true * You see something strange? If it can helps, i’ve 2 other plug-in active, one for facebook and one for Pinterest, both working correctly. Thank you so much for your help! * Thread Starter [darkiko](https://wordpress.org/support/users/darkiko/) * (@darkiko) * [13 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-351-wordpress-error-code-http_request_failed-name-lookup-timed-out/#post-3690917) * Ok i don’t know if it was the right thing to do but i disabled cURL and now everything seems to work correctly (and the plug-in is great!). Thanks a lot * Plugin Author [Martin Tod](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mpntod/) * (@mpntod) * [13 years, 1 month ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-351-wordpress-error-code-http_request_failed-name-lookup-timed-out/#post-3690933) * Cool! That’s potentially useful to know for other people too. * Thank you! * [Jeremy Quinton](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jeremyq/) * (@jeremyq) * [12 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-351-wordpress-error-code-http_request_failed-name-lookup-timed-out/#post-3691121) * By disabling curl also got the plugin working for me. * This is rather odd. * I might do some further debugging and post the results here. * Plugin Author [Martin Tod](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mpntod/) * (@mpntod) * [12 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-351-wordpress-error-code-http_request_failed-name-lookup-timed-out/#post-3691122) * That would be appreciated. * Martin * [Jeremy Quinton](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jeremyq/) * (@jeremyq) * [12 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-351-wordpress-error-code-http_request_failed-name-lookup-timed-out/#post-3691126) * The short answer. * The plugin is using internal wordpress functions which rely on curl. Have a look at the wp-includes/class-http.php file. The request function line 1043 and the underlying code the timeout is set to 5 seconds. Therefore when curl does a request and it takes longer than 5 seconds you will get this issue. * A possible solution would be to override the wordpress defaults but Im not sure how to do that. * The long answer. * I did some debugging and was able to work out the following. * The problem on my development machine locally was that name-server lookups were taking forever. Im using centos 6.3 but generally Linux uses /etc/resolv.conf where nameservers can be specified. That was set to a nameserver that was slow in responding. The underlying bits of Curl use this name server lookup configuration. * I changed it to 8.8.8.8 which is googles dns servers and that solved the problem. * What you can do to debug curl locally is the following. * ``` // create curl resource $ch = curl_init(); // set url curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "google.com"); //return the transfer as a string curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); // $output contains the output string $output = curl_exec($ch); //get the info of the last request $info = curl_getinfo($ch); print_r($info); // close curl resource to free up system resources curl_close($ch); ``` * For me the output looked like this before I changed the nameserver. namelookup_time is the culprit. * ``` [url] => http://google.com [content_type] => text/html; charset=UTF-8 [http_code] => 301 [header_size] => 321 [request_size] => 49 [filetime] => -1 [ssl_verify_result] => 0 [redirect_count] => 0 [total_time] => 5.102859 [namelookup_time] => 5.0526 [connect_time] => 5.071828 [pretransfer_time] => 5.071922 [size_upload] => 0 [size_download] => 219 [speed_download] => 42 [speed_upload] => 0 [download_content_length] => 219 [upload_content_length] => 0 [starttransfer_time] => 5.102791 [redirect_time] => 0 [certinfo] => Array ( ) [primary_ip] => 173.194.34.66 [redirect_url] => http://www.google.com/ ``` * after changing the nameserver the debugging info looked as follows * ``` Array ( [url] => http://google.com [content_type] => text/html; charset=UTF-8 [http_code] => 301 [header_size] => 321 [request_size] => 49 [filetime] => -1 [ssl_verify_result] => 0 [redirect_count] => 0 [total_time] => 0.079125 [namelookup_time] => 0.02969 [connect_time] => 0.049101 [pretransfer_time] => 0.049123 [size_upload] => 0 [size_download] => 219 [speed_download] => 2767 [speed_upload] => 0 [download_content_length] => 219 [upload_content_length] => 0 [starttransfer_time] => 0.079049 [redirect_time] => 0 [certinfo] => Array ( ) [primary_ip] => 173.194.34.128 [redirect_url] => http://www.google.com/ ) ``` * Have a look at the difference in the two outputs between namelookup_time it is significantly reduced in the second output. * Hope this helps someone. * Plugin Author [Martin Tod](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mpntod/) * (@mpntod) * [12 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-351-wordpress-error-code-http_request_failed-name-lookup-timed-out/#post-3691127) * That’s helpful, although perhaps it suggests one fix could be to increase the timeout in line 26 of `lib/wp_twitteroauth.php` from * ``` public $timeout = 3; ``` * to * ``` public $timeout = 5.5; ``` * ?! * [Jeremy Quinton](https://wordpress.org/support/users/jeremyq/) * (@jeremyq) * [12 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-351-wordpress-error-code-http_request_failed-name-lookup-timed-out/#post-3691128) * That would be a better solution for sure. I have been doing PHP for 10 years but have only been working with Word Press a couple weeks so probably should have taken a closer look at the plugin. * Maybe a setting for the plugin called http timeout would help which people could up if the needed to. * Anyways thanks for the plugin otherwise it works really well for me. * Plugin Author [Martin Tod](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mpntod/) * (@mpntod) * [12 years, 11 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-351-wordpress-error-code-http_request_failed-name-lookup-timed-out/#post-3691129) * Hmmm. That could be a good idea and quite easy to do as well. * I’ll see if there’s an API-able way to switch off cURL as well… * Martin * [eriktv365](https://wordpress.org/support/users/eriktv365/) * (@eriktv365) * [12 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-351-wordpress-error-code-http_request_failed-name-lookup-timed-out/#post-3691137) * I have tried the information given in this thread and am still having issues getting this twitter widget to work. * My site located at [http://www.eriktv365.com](http://www.eriktv365.com) * Plugin Author [Martin Tod](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mpntod/) * (@mpntod) * [12 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-351-wordpress-error-code-http_request_failed-name-lookup-timed-out/#post-3691138) * I’ve updated [the development version of the plug-in](http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/rotatingtweets.zip) to let you customise the timeout for the connection from your website to Twitter on the settings page. * Does it solve the problem if you increase it to 7 seconds? * [eriktv365](https://wordpress.org/support/users/eriktv365/) * (@eriktv365) * [12 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-351-wordpress-error-code-http_request_failed-name-lookup-timed-out/#post-3691139) * I used the dev version, and still receive the same error after setting the 7 seconds. * Any other ideas? * Plugin Author [Martin Tod](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mpntod/) * (@mpntod) * [12 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-351-wordpress-error-code-http_request_failed-name-lookup-timed-out/#post-3691140) * Have any of the solutions at [http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugins-update-failure?replies=5#post-947582](http://wordpress.org/support/topic/plugins-update-failure?replies=5#post-947582) helped? * Using the [Core Control plug-in](http://wordpress.org/plugins/core-control/) to investigate the problem and (usually) disable cURL has worked for some people. Viewing 15 replies - 1 through 15 (of 28 total) 1 [2](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-351-wordpress-error-code-http_request_failed-name-lookup-timed-out/page/2/?output_format=md) [→](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-351-wordpress-error-code-http_request_failed-name-lookup-timed-out/page/2/?output_format=md) The topic ‘[WP 3.5.1] WordPress error code: http_request_failed – name lookup timed out’ is closed to new replies. * ![](https://s.w.org/plugins/geopattern-icon/rotatingtweets.svg) * [Rotating Tweets (Twitter widget and shortcode)](https://wordpress.org/plugins/rotatingtweets/) * [Frequently Asked Questions](https://wordpress.org/plugins/rotatingtweets/#faq) * [Support Threads](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/rotatingtweets/) * [Active Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/rotatingtweets/active/) * [Unresolved Topics](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/rotatingtweets/unresolved/) * [Reviews](https://wordpress.org/support/plugin/rotatingtweets/reviews/) * 28 replies * 5 participants * Last reply from: [Martin Tod](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mpntod/) * Last activity: [12 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/wp-351-wordpress-error-code-http_request_failed-name-lookup-timed-out/page/2/#post-3691153) * Status: resolved