nautechsystems/nautilus_trader · error

Failed to execute eth call RPC request: {e}

Error message

Failed to execute eth call RPC request: {e}

What it means

execute_rpc_call_with_timeout sends a JSON-RPC request via send_rpc_request and wraps any transport-level failure (connection error, HTTP failure, timeout) with this message. It fires before response parsing, meaning the node never returned usable bytes. The original error text is embedded in the message.

Source

Thrown at crates/adapters/blockchain/src/rpc/http.rs:160

    ) -> anyhow::Result<T> {
        self.execute_rpc_call_with_timeout(rpc_request, None).await
    }

    /// Executes an Ethereum JSON-RPC call with an optional per-request timeout and deserializes
    /// the response into the specified type T.
    ///
    /// # Errors
    ///
    /// Returns an error if the HTTP RPC request fails or the response cannot be parsed.
    pub async fn execute_rpc_call_with_timeout<T: DeserializeOwned>(
        &self,
        rpc_request: serde_json::Value,
        timeout_secs: Option<u64>,
    ) -> anyhow::Result<T> {
        let bytes = self
            .send_rpc_request(rpc_request, timeout_secs)
            .await
            .map_err(|e| anyhow::anyhow!("Failed to execute eth call RPC request: {e}"))?;
        let parsed =
            serde_json::from_slice::<RpcNodeHttpResponse<T>>(bytes.as_ref()).map_err(|e| {
                let raw_response = String::from_utf8_lossy(bytes.as_ref());
                let preview = rpc_response_preview(&raw_response);
                anyhow::anyhow!("Failed to parse eth call response: {e}\nRaw response: {preview}")
            })?;

        // Check for non-standard rate limit error (e.g., Infura)
        // These responses have code/message at top level without jsonrpc field
        if parsed.jsonrpc.is_none()
            && let (Some(code), Some(message)) = (parsed.code, parsed.message)
        {
            anyhow::bail!("RPC provider error {code}: {message}");
        }

        if let Some(error) = parsed.error {
            anyhow::bail!("RPC error {}: {}", error.code, error.message);
        }

View on GitHub (pinned to 18893faf8b)

Solutions

  1. Read the embedded inner error to identify the root cause (DNS, TLS, HTTP status, or timeout).
  2. Verify the RPC URL and API key in your client configuration are correct and the node is reachable (curl the endpoint).
  3. Increase the timeout_secs parameter or retry with backoff for slow archive-node eth_calls.
  4. Switch to a backup RPC provider or add failover endpoints for reliability.
Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Validate before calling

// preflight: verify the endpoint is reachable and key valid before heavy use
let body = reqwest::Client::new().post(rpc_url)
    .json(&serde_json::json!({"jsonrpc":"2.0","id":1,"method":"eth_chainId","params":[]}))
    .send().await?;
if !body.status().is_success() { return Err(format!("RPC endpoint unhealthy: {}", body.status())); }

Try / catch

match execute_rpc_call(&client, req).await {
    Ok(v) => Ok(v),
    Err(e) if e.to_string().contains("Failed to execute eth call RPC request") => {
        // transient transport failure: retry with backoff or failover endpoint
        retry_with_backoff(|| execute_rpc_call(&client, req)).await
    }
    Err(e) => Err(e),
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Calling execute_rpc_call or get_balance_with_timeout when the underlying HTTP request fails — unreachable RPC URL, TLS error, HTTP 4xx/5xx body from the provider, or the request exceeding the configured timeout.

Common situations: Wrong or expired RPC endpoint/API key in configuration; provider rate limiting returning HTML error pages; node downtime; network egress blocked in the deployment environment; timeout_secs set too low for heavy eth_call payloads.

Understand the failure class

Background: 'Something went wrong' / 'Request failed (500)' / 'HTTP error! status: 404' — what failed HTTP requests actually mean and how to find the real cause — this error's family across 28 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of nautechsystems/nautilus_trader@18893faf8b (2026-09-08). Data as JSON: /api/errors/5da9509b704d3c16. Report an issue: GitHub.