Are you a true keyboard warrior and a great content writer on WordPress? Are your friends constantly impressed with your writing skills and the subjects you have in your online articles? If the answer is ‘yes’ to these questions, it means that the odds are pretty high that you’ve stumbled upon the ‘err_connection_timed_out’ error that appears for many of those who have blogs on WordPress.
The aforementioned error will appear when the browser can’t establish a connection to the website that the user is trying to reach. The error usually indicates that the request to the server lasted too long to complete, meaning that the connection timed out before a response was received.
Luckily, there’s more than just one way to try to get rid of the “err_connection_timed_out” error. Feel free to try each of them at a time, and see if the problem goes away:
Check the internet connection
As simple and ridiculous as it may sound, checking the internet connection is perhaps the first thing you need to do when the pesky error mentioned above kicks in. If your internet connection isn’t stable, try to fix it by unplugging your router and plugging it back in after 10 minutes.
Check the website’s status
If the website itself is down, it means that it’s not your fault. You can check if that’s the case by using online services such as IsItDownRightNow or DownDetector. In this way, you will see if you’re the only one who’s having trouble with the specific website or not.
Clear cache and cookies
Sometimes, cached data or corrupted cookies could cause connectivity problems. This means that you should head over to the settings menu of the browser you use and clear that cache and cookies.
Flush the DNS Cache
To flush the DNS cache, you have to do it like a pro through the command prompt (CMD). Therefore, feel free to open the CMD as an administrator and enter the following command:
ipconfig / flushdns
The next step is to simply hit the ‘enter’ button. If the problem still persists, feel free to move on to the next step.
Disable the Proxy Settings
If you’re using a proxy server, it’s best to shut it down temporarily to see if it’s causing the error or not. This means that you need to adjust those proxy settings or even reach the network administrator for help if you need it.
Perform a restart of your PC
Simply restarting the PC may also sound ridiculous, but such an act can sometimes get you rid of issues related to the network. Therefore, feel free to restart your laptop/desktop PC and see if the “err_connection_timed_out” error is still there. If not, there’s no use starting to despair. Simply head over to the next method!
Verify the firewall and antivirus settings
Believe it or not, but in some cases, it’s either your own antivirus or the firewall that can cause connectivity issues. If that’s the case for you, it means you should temporarily disable those apps and check if the pesky error still persists. If your problem has been solved, it means you need to adjust your security settings or add exceptions for the specific website.
If the “err_connection_timed_out” error still hasn’t gone away after applying the methods described above, it could mean that the problem lies with the server of the website itself. In this case, there’s nothing to do but wait and hope that the administrator of the website will fix the problem. After all, that would be in his best interest, so try to be patient and try accessing the website again after a few hours!
Tim M. Hill helped bring Digital-Overload from a weekly newsletter to a full-fledged news site by creating a new website and branding. He continues to assist in keeping the site responsive and well organized for the readers. As a writer to Digital-Overload, Tim mainly covers mobile news and gadgets.
