What causes "Timeout must be less than 3600 seconds" in nautechsystems/nautilus_trader?

Set timeout to a value between 1 and 3600 seconds

nautechsystems/nautilus_trader · error · anyhow::Error

Timeout must be less than 3600 seconds

Error message

Timeout must be less than 3600 seconds

What it means

Config validation in the InteractiveBrokers client configuration: the timeout value exceeds the 3600-second upper bound. Very long timeouts would leave the gateway connection effectively hung, so the config is rejected at startup.

Source

Thrown at crates/adapters/interactive_brokers/src/config.rs:364

                &value[0..1],
                "*".repeat(value.len() - 2),
                &value[value.len() - 1..]
            )
        }
    }

    /// Validate configuration.
    ///
    /// # Errors
    ///
    /// Returns an error if validation fails.
    pub fn validate(&self) -> anyhow::Result<()> {
        if self.timeout == 0 {
            anyhow::bail!("Timeout must be greater than 0");
        }

        if self.timeout > 3600 {
            anyhow::bail!("Timeout must be less than 3600 seconds");
        }

        if let Some(port) = self.vnc_port
            && (!(5900..=5999).contains(&port))
        {
            anyhow::bail!("VNC port must be between 5900 and 5999");
        }

        Ok(())
    }
}

impl Default for DockerizedIBGatewayConfig {
    fn default() -> Self {
        Self::builder()
            .maybe_username(std::env::var("TWS_USERNAME").ok().map(SecretString::from))
            .maybe_password(std::env::var("TWS_PASSWORD").ok().map(SecretString::from))
            .build()

View on GitHub (pinned to 18893faf8b)

Solutions

Set timeout to a value between 1 and 3600 seconds
If you intended 3600000 ms, specify 3600 (the field is seconds)
If longer waits are needed, use retry logic instead of an oversized timeout

Example fix

// before
let config = IbAccountConfig { timeout: 3_600_000, ..base }; // ms mistake
// after
let config = IbAccountConfig { timeout: 3_600, ..base }; // seconds

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

assert!((1..=3600).contains(&config.timeout), "timeout must be 1..=3600 seconds");

Try / catch

if let Err(e) = config.validate() {
    if e.to_string().contains("less than 3600") {
        eprintln!("timeout too large; field is in seconds, max 3600");
    }
    anyhow::bail!(e);
}

Prevention

Remember the timeout unit is seconds, cap 3600
Use retries for long-running waits rather than inflating timeout
Check for ms/second unit confusion when porting configs

When it happens

Trigger: Calling validate() with timeout > 3600, e.g. users setting timeout: 9999 or converting milliseconds (3600000) into a seconds field.

Common situations: Confusing milliseconds with seconds when porting configs; deliberately setting a huge timeout to 'never time out'; misreading the field's unit.

Understand the failure class

Background: "value must be between 0 and 1" / "out of range" / "must not be negative" errors: fixing range-validation failures across open-source libraries — this error's family across 42 libraries.

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

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of nautechsystems/nautilus_trader@18893faf8b (2026-09-08). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a21648da299c4bdc. Report an issue: GitHub.