Background
If an Applet uses Polling Triggers, it performs Trigger checks every five minutes on the Pro and Pro+ plans, and every hour on the Free plan. A Trigger check is when the Applet asks the Trigger Service’s API whether any new Trigger Events have occurred since the last check to determine if the Applet should run.
For reference:
Trigger Event: A Trigger Event is the thing that causes a given Trigger to fire. For example, a Trigger Event for the Twitter - New tweet by you Trigger would be your Twitter account posting a new tweet.
Trigger Check: A Trigger Check is when IFTTT checks for new Trigger Events.
Sometimes you may see a Trigger error in your activity feed that says “service took too long to respond.”
This article explains why that error occurs and what it means for your Applet.
What the error means
A “service took too long to respond” error appears when IFTTT checks a service for new Trigger Events, but the service’s API does not respond in time. In other words, the request times out.
Timeouts can happen for several reasons, such as high traffic on the service’s API, temporary downtime, or other delays.
This error does not necessarily mean your Applet missed an event or failed to run. It simply means IFTTT could not confirm whether the Applet should have run at that moment. The next scheduled Trigger check will still occur, and any new events since the last successful check will be picked up at that time.
Will my Applet still run?
If a Trigger error occurs due to a timeout, but a new event has happened since the last successful check, your Applet will still run on the next successful check. It might be slightly delayed, but the event will not be missed.
If no new Trigger events occurred since the last successful check, the Applet will not run because there is nothing for it to act on. The failed check still appears in your activity feed to show that IFTTT was not able to check at that time.
These timeout errors are usually rare. For example, a Polling Applet on Pro or Pro+ performs 288 checks per day, so most of the time an occasional failed check will not affect your Applet’s performance.
See below for examples showing how timeouts affect Applets when there is a new Trigger Event and when there is not. These examples illustrate how Trigger checks work in practice.
Example timeline: New RSS Trigger Event
This example shows what happens when a Polling Applet with an RSS Feed Trigger encounters a timeout. In this Applet, the Trigger Event is a new entry being added to the RSS feed, and the Action sends a notification via the IFTTT app.
10:00 AM - The Applet performs a routine Trigger check. The RSS feed responds normally, and no new entries have been added. Nothing matches the Trigger conditions, so the Applet does not run, and no activity item is created.
10:05 AM - Another routine Trigger check. Still no new entries, so nothing happens.
10:07 AM - A new entry is added to the RSS feed. This is the Trigger Event the Applet will act on after completing the next successful check.
10:10 AM - IFTTT performs the next scheduled Trigger check. In this instance, the RSS service does not respond in time, so the check fails. A “service took too long to respond” item appears in the activity feed and the Applet's action does not run.
10:15 AM - IFTTT performs the next scheduled Trigger check. The RSS feed responds normally and shows the new entry from 10:07 AM. The Applet runs and sends a notification via the IFTTT app. This successful run appears in the activity feed.
What this shows
Even though the 10:10 AM check failed, the Applet still detected the new RSS entry (the Trigger Event) at the next successful check and ran as expected, albeit slightly delayed.
Additional example: No new Trigger Events during a failed check
This example uses the same Applet as the previous example. In this instance, no new entries were added to the RSS feed between 10:00 AM and 10:15 AM, so there are no new Trigger Events for the Applet to act on.
10:00 AM - IFTTT performs a routine Trigger check. No new entries in the RSS feed, so no Trigger Event occurs and no activity item is created.
10:05 AM - Another routine Trigger check. Still no new entries, so nothing happens.
10:10 AM - The next Trigger check times out. A “service took too long to respond” item appears in the activity feed.
10:15 AM - IFTTT performs the next Trigger check. The RSS feed responds normally and checks for new events since 10:05 AM, but no new entries have been added since the last successful check. No Trigger Event occurs, so the Applet does not run.
What this shows
The timeout at 10:10 AM did not affect the Applet because there were no new Trigger Events. The failed check is shown in the activity feed for transparency, but the Applet continued checking normally.
Contacting Support
If your Applet may have missed a Trigger Event, you can share the timestamp of the missed event along with your Applet ID with the IFTTT support team. For guidance on how to do this, follow this link: When do I contact support?