googleapis/mcp-toolbox · error

invalid queryTimeout %q: %w

Error message

invalid queryTimeout %q: %w

What it means

The MySQL source's Initialize accepts a queryTimeout string that is parsed with time.ParseDuration and applied as the driver config's ReadTimeout. When the configured string is not a valid Go duration literal, initialization fails with this error naming the bad value and the parse error.

Source

Thrown at internal/sources/mysql/mysql.go:207

	defer span.End()

	config := driver.NewConfig()
	config.Addr = fmt.Sprintf("%s:%s", host, port)
	config.Net = "tcp"
	if user != "" {
		config.User = user
		// password will require user
		if pass != "" {
			config.Passwd = pass
		}
	}
	if dbname != "" {
		config.DBName = dbname
	}
	if queryTimeout != "" {
		timeout, err := time.ParseDuration(queryTimeout)
		if err != nil {
			return nil, fmt.Errorf("invalid queryTimeout %q: %w", queryTimeout, err)
		}
		config.ReadTimeout = timeout
	}

	// Custom user parameters
	params := map[string]string{"parseTime": "true"}
	for k, v := range queryParams {
		if v == "" {
			continue // skip empty values
		}
		params[k] = v
	}
	config.Params = params

	userAgent, err := util.UserAgentFromContext(ctx)
	if err != nil {
		return nil, err
	}

View on GitHub (pinned to 8cc6e09de2)

Solutions

1. Use a valid Go duration string: '500ms', '30s', '5m', '1h30m'.
2. If you meant seconds, change queryTimeout: 30 to queryTimeout: 30s.
3. Check the YAML type — an unquoted 30 parses as an integer, not a duration string.
4. See time.ParseDuration documentation for the accepted unit suffixes (ns, us, ms, s, m, h).

Example fix

// before
sources:
  my-mysql:
    kind: mysql
    queryTimeout: 30
// after
sources:
  my-mysql:
    kind: mysql
    queryTimeout: 30s

func validateQueryTimeout(s string) error {
    if s == "" {
        return nil // optional field
    }
    if _, err := time.ParseDuration(s); err != nil {
        return fmt.Errorf("queryTimeout %q is not a valid Go duration (use e.g. 30s, 5m): %w", s, err)
    }
    return nil
}
// Call before building the tools.yaml / starting the server:
// if err := validateQueryTimeout(cfg.QueryTimeout); err != nil { return err }

When it happens

Trigger: Configuring the mysql source (via tools.yaml kind or CLI --prebuilt flag config) with a queryTimeout like '30', '30s/m', 'thirty seconds', or '30sec' instead of a Go duration such as '30s' or '1m30s'.

Common situations: Users writing plain integers (expecting seconds) into queryTimeout, copying timeout formats from other tools that use ms suffixes, or YAML values quoted/unquoted incorrectly ('30s' vs 30).

Understand the failure class

Background: "invalid duration" / "failed to parse duration": why your timeout, interval, or TTL string is rejected and which formats each library accepts — this error's family across 32 libraries.

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

Related errors

• unable to parse Timeout string as time.Duration: %s
• `introspectionEndpoint` is not allowed when `mcpEnabled` is
• `introspectionMethod` is not allowed when `mcpEnabled` is fa
• `introspectionParamName` is not allowed when `mcpEnabled` is
• error parsing argument: %w

AI-assisted analysis of googleapis/mcp-toolbox@8cc6e09de2 (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/96484eb35e61c068. Report an issue: GitHub.