What causes "timeout must be positive" in ruvnet/RuView?

Set a positive timeout in the expected unit (seconds), e.g. 5.0

ruvnet/RuView · error · ValueError

timeout must be positive

Error message

timeout must be positive

What it means

CSIExtractor._validate_config rejects config['timeout'] <= 0 with ValueError('timeout must be positive'). The timeout bounds reads/connections, and zero or negative would make every read a non-blocking poll, so it is rejected up front at construction.

Source

Thrown at archive/v1/src/hardware/csi_extractor.py:482

            config: Configuration to validate
            
        Raises:
            ValueError: If configuration is invalid
        """
        required_fields = ['hardware_type', 'sampling_rate', 'buffer_size', 'timeout']
        missing_fields = [field for field in required_fields if field not in config]
        
        if missing_fields:
            raise ValueError(f"Missing required configuration: {missing_fields}")
        
        if config['sampling_rate'] <= 0:
            raise ValueError("sampling_rate must be positive")
        
        if config['buffer_size'] <= 0:
            raise ValueError("buffer_size must be positive")
        
        if config['timeout'] <= 0:
            raise ValueError("timeout must be positive")
    
    async def connect(self) -> bool:
        """Establish connection to CSI hardware.
        
        Returns:
            True if connection successful, False otherwise
        """
        try:
            success = await self._establish_hardware_connection()
            self.is_connected = success
            return success
        except Exception as e:
            self.logger.error(f"Failed to connect to hardware: {e}")
            self.is_connected = False
            return False
    
    async def disconnect(self) -> None:
        """Disconnect from CSI hardware."""

View on GitHub (pinned to 4685618388)

Solutions

Set a positive timeout in the expected unit (seconds), e.g. 5.0
Pre-validate all numeric config fields before constructing CSIExtractor (see validationCode)
Keep one canonical config template with valid values for every required field

Example fix

# before
config = {'hardware_type': 'esp32', 'sampling_rate': 100, 'buffer_size': 1024, 'timeout': 0}

# after
config = {'hardware_type': 'esp32', 'sampling_rate': 100, 'buffer_size': 1024, 'timeout': 5.0}

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

if 'timeout' not in config or not isinstance(config['timeout'], (int, float)) or config['timeout'] <= 0:
    raise ValueError('timeout must be a positive number (seconds)')

Type guard

def is_positive_number(value) -> bool:
    return isinstance(value, (int, float)) and not isinstance(value, bool) and value > 0

Try / catch

try:
    extractor = CSIExtractor(config)
except ValueError as e:
    raise SystemExit(f'extractor config invalid: {e}') from e

Prevention

Express timeouts in seconds as positive floats (e.g. 5.0); avoid int-casting loaders that turn 0.5 into 0
Validate timeout with the same positive-number check used for sampling_rate
0 meaning 'no timeout' in other tools does not apply here — substitute a real bound

When it happens

Trigger: timeout: 0 copied from a non-blocking prototype config; a negative value; a unit mismatch where a millisecond value of 0 (or a fraction configured as 0 by an int-casting loader) reaches the extractor.

Common situations: Timeouts specified in the wrong unit or cast to int too early; configs migrated from tools that allow 0 to mean 'no timeout'; per-environment overrides never validated.

Understand the failure class

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

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of ruvnet/RuView@4685618388 (2026-08-16). Data as JSON: /api/errors/7af3d8dea49d1bb3. Report an issue: GitHub.