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Client timeouts

Understand how Relay disconnects idle clients, and how to prevent unintended timeouts.
Read time 1 minuteLast updated 14 hours ago
Client timeouts, also called idle timeouts, occur when Relay disconnects a client from a Relay server due to inactivity. The default time to live (TTL) before Relay disconnects a client is 10 seconds. The disconnect TTL is 60 seconds when the host is alone (after the 
BIND
message but before a peer connects to them with a 
CONNECT
message). A timeout (controlled by a TTL value) is a mechanism that limits the lifetime of idle connections to a Relay server. Relay uses a TTL to decide when a client times out from lack of network activity. Because some game types might have a low message rate, such as turn-based strategy games, you might need to configure the game client to send 
PING
messages to the Relay server to keep the connection alive to prevent a timeout. The 
PING
message resets the idle timeout for a player connection. When an allocation expires through a client timeout, the Allocations service removes the allocation from the Relay server, which sends the client a timeout error message.