Troubleshooting when fetcher for host HOST times out after X seconds

Owned by Robin Gierse
Last updated: Dec 11, 2023 by Matthew Hierholzer
1 min read

This article helps troubleshoot the "Fetcher for host" timeout error within Checkmk.

LAST TESTED ON CHECKMK 2.0.0P1

Table of Contents

Problem

You receive error messages like the following.

Fetcher for host "$HOST" times out after X seconds

Background

Read this section about helper processes in Checkmk to understand the following.

There are several reasons why a fetcher might time out. Below is a listing of some typical reasons.

Plugins

Sometimes a plugin needs a very long time to provide data or will not provide data at all.
Depending on your Microcore timeout - which defaults to 60 seconds - you reach the timeout and receive the error message from above.

Solution

Find possible solutions below based on the possible problem.

Plugins

Plugin never finishes

If the plugin throws errors or never finishes, you must learn how to fix this.

The plugin finishes after a long time

In case the plugin finished but needs longer than the Microcore timeout, you can run the plugin asynchronously.