Question

WebSocket idle connection timeout on App Platform

I set up a websocket server that’s similar to the Digital Ocean tutorial here.

After about 1-2 minutes of inactivity, the websocket is closed with a 1006 code. No error is thrown in the websocket.

Is this a by-product of Digital Ocean’s internal reverse proxy? Would sending messages or pings at a short interval (~30 seconds) alleviate the issue or should the client reconnect frequently?


Submit an answer


This textbox defaults to using Markdown to format your answer.

You can type !ref in this text area to quickly search our full set of tutorials, documentation & marketplace offerings and insert the link!

Sign In or Sign Up to Answer

These answers are provided by our Community. If you find them useful, show some love by clicking the heart. If you run into issues leave a comment, or add your own answer to help others.

Jon Friesen
DigitalOcean Employee
DigitalOcean Employee badge
January 12, 2023

Hi jmp12,

It’s not uncommon for HTTP/1.1 to close idle connections after 30-120 seconds. Using a ping/pong method that you describe should do the trick.

Here’s some more documentation on long lived connections with websockets.

Try DigitalOcean for free

Click below to sign up and get $200 of credit to try our products over 60 days!

Sign up