What causes "LSP initialized notification timed out" in Hmbown/CodeWhale?

Check the server process is alive and reading stdin (e.g. ps, strace)

LSP initialized notification timed out

Error message

LSP initialized notification timed out

What it means

spawn_with_timeout sent the LSP 'initialized' notification after the initialize response but the handshake future did not complete within the initialize_wait budget; the server accepted initialize but never finished startup in time, so initialization aborts.

Solutions

Check the server process is alive and reading stdin (e.g. ps, strace)
Increase the initialize_wait timeout
Look at server stderr for crash output right after initialize
Ensure no other code holds the transport writer lock

Example fix

// before
.map_err(|_| anyhow!("LSP initialized notification timed out"))??;
// after
.map_err(|_| anyhow!("LSP initialized notification timed out; server may have exited after initialize"))
    .with_context(|| format!("server cmd {:?}", server_cmd)))?;

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Try / catch

timeout(initialize_wait, send_message(&tx, &json!({"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"initialized","params":{}})))
    .await
    .map_err(|_| anyhow!("initialized notification timed out; is the server still running?"))??;

Prevention

Monitor the server process during startup and fail fast if it exits
Give initialize_wait headroom on cold starts
Capture server stderr from spawn so crash reasons are visible

When it happens

Trigger: The `initialized` notification write times out — the server's stdin pipe is full/blocked, the process died right after initialize, or the writer lock is contended.

Common situations: Server crashed immediately after initialize; extremely slow server startup under load; pipe backpressure because the server is not reading stdin.

Understand the failure class

Background: Request timed out: what client-side request timeouts mean across libraries (Request timed out, TIMED_OUT, APITimeoutError) — this error's family across 39 libraries.

Timeouts: ETIMEDOUT, deadlines, and hung requests — what actually expires when a request times out.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of Hmbown/CodeWhale@73e0f67d83 (2026-09-22). Data as JSON: /api/errors/eb8cf4fae78cfcf3. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at crates/tui/src/lsp/client.rs:308

            ));
        }
        if result
            .pointer("/capabilities/positionEncoding")
            .is_some_and(|encoding| encoding.as_str() != Some("utf-16"))
        {
            return Err(anyhow!("LSP server must use UTF-16 positions"));
        }
        timeout(
            initialize_wait,
            send_message(
                &transport.tx_outbound,
                &json!({
                    "jsonrpc": "2.0", "method": "initialized", "params": {}
                }),
            ),
        )
        .await
        .map_err(|_| anyhow!("LSP initialized notification timed out"))??;
        Ok(transport)
    }
}

impl Drop for StdioLspTransport {
    fn drop(&mut self) {
        for task in &self.tasks {
            task.abort();
        }
        if let Ok(mut child) = self.child.try_lock()
            && let Some(child) = child.as_mut()
        {
            let _ = child.start_kill();
        }
        // If shutdown/dispatcher currently owns the child, abort releases
        // its local Child and kill_on_drop remains the final fallback.
    }
}

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