# Does a search request timeout include time in queue?

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-a-search-request-timeout-include-time-in-queue/172436>\
**Category:** Elasticsearch\
**Created:** [March 14, 2019, 10:02pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-a-search-request-timeout-include-time-in-queue/172436 "2019-03-14T22:02:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![maxshortzp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce73a5/32.png) [@maxshortzp](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/maxshortzp)\
**Post date:** [March 14, 2019, 10:02pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-a-search-request-timeout-include-time-in-queue/172436/1 "2019-03-14T22:02:16Z")

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Hi,

I saw a search request take far longer than the `timeout` value set (multiple minutes). I understand that the timeout is imprecise but that seems a bit high.

One thing I thought of -- does this timeout include time spent in queue or just time once the request starts executing?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![maxshortzp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce73a5/32.png) [@maxshortzp](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/maxshortzp)\
**Post date:** [March 19, 2019, 4:33pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-a-search-request-timeout-include-time-in-queue/172436/2 "2019-03-19T16:33:28Z")

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For more context, I'm trying to figure out whether the timeout by itself is an effective way to prevent queue backup or if we need to explicitly set the the queue size too.

Any thoughts here?

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**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 4:33pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/does-a-search-request-timeout-include-time-in-queue/172436/3 "2019-04-16T16:33:43Z")

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