Couldn't get query results for "${pagePath}" in ${(initialWa

Error message

Couldn't get query results for "${pagePath}" in ${(initialWaitForMs / 1000).toFixed(3)}s.

What it means

After waiting initialWaitForMs (default 15s) for the page query to finish running and for page-data to flush, results are still unavailable, and the fallback stale read from disk also failed; Gatsby gives up and throws with the elapsed seconds.

Source

Thrown at packages/gatsby/src/utils/get-page-data.ts:100

          // callback in same tick and `mett` will run this callback (because it will happen before current callback finishes
          // and `mett` doesn't guarantee it will only run callbacks registered before message was emitted)
          process.nextTick(() =>
            resolve(
              doGetPageData(
                pagePath,
                Math.max(remainingTime - RETRY_INTERVAL / 5, 0),
                initialWaitForMs
              )
            )
          )
        }
      }
    })
  } else {
    // not ideal ... but try to push results we might have (stale)
    // or fail/reject
    return readPageData(pagePath).catch(() => {
      throw new Error(
        `Couldn't get query results for "${pagePath}" in ${(
          initialWaitForMs / 1000
        ).toFixed(3)}s.`
      )
    })
  }
}

async function readPageData(pagePath): Promise<IPageDataWithQueryResult> {
  const { program } = store.getState()

  try {
    return await readPageDataUtil(
      path.join(program.directory, `public`),
      pagePath
    )
  } catch (err) {
    throw new Error(

View on GitHub (pinned to 8b06340921)

Solutions

Increase the wait budget (pass a larger waitForMS to getPageData).
Optimize the page query (narrow filters, paginate, reduce node volume).
Inspect running query jobs for stuck workers; restart the dev server.
Reduce data volume or split the page into slices.

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Validate before calling

// Pass a larger wait budget for known-slow pages
const data = await getPageData(pagePath, 60_000 /* ms */)

Try / catch

try {
  return await getPageData(pagePath, waitForMS)
} catch (err) {
  if (/Couldn't get query results/.test(err.message)) {
    // log, optimize the query, and surface a meaningful error to the user
    throw new Error(`Page query timed out for ${pagePath}; optimize or increase waitForMS`)
  }
  throw err
}

Prevention

Profile slow page queries and narrow filters / paginate large result sets.
Pass an explicit, larger waitForMS for pages known to be heavy.
Monitor query-runner worker pool saturation under load.

When it happens

Trigger: A page query that runs longer than the wait budget; the query runner stalled; dev server under heavy load; circular dependencies between queries.

Common situations: Heavy page queries on large datasets; worker pool exhaustion; slow plugins; very large images; machine under load.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of gatsbyjs/gatsby@8b06340921 (2026-08-13). Data as JSON: /api/errors/374ac4730a40934e. Report an issue: GitHub.