Bug in MVC3 - requests never time out. Works fine for aspx pages in same project

Question

I\'m seeing this on our production site as well as a small test site I setup just to test this out...

Basically, it appears that requests handled by mvc never time out.

Answer 1

I found the cause for this, methinks:

This method is in the WrappedAsyncResult class, which the MvcHandler class uses via BeginProcessRequest:

public static IAsyncResult BeginSynchronous<TResult>(AsyncCallback callback, object state, Func<TResult> func, object tag)
{
    BeginInvokeDelegate beginDelegate = delegate (AsyncCallback asyncCallback, object asyncState) {
        SimpleAsyncResult result = new SimpleAsyncResult(asyncState);
        result.MarkCompleted(true, asyncCallback);
        return result;
    };
    EndInvokeDelegate<TResult> endDelegate = _ => func();
    WrappedAsyncResult<TResult> result = new WrappedAsyncResult<TResult>(beginDelegate, endDelegate, tag);
    result.Begin(callback, state, -1);
    return result;
}

where "Begin" is:

public void Begin(AsyncCallback callback, object state, int timeout)
{
    bool completedSynchronously;
    this._originalCallback = callback;
    lock (this._beginDelegateLockObj)
    {
        this._innerAsyncResult = this._beginDelegate(new AsyncCallback(this.HandleAsynchronousCompletion), state);
        completedSynchronously = this._innerAsyncResult.CompletedSynchronously;
        if (!completedSynchronously && (timeout > -1))
        {
            this.CreateTimer(timeout);
        }
    }
    if (completedSynchronously && (callback != null))
    {
        callback(this);
    }
}

EDIT: have come up with a ham-handed way of forcing MVC controller actions to "time out", although the mechanism is a bit brutish:

public class TimeoutController : Controller
{
    private bool _isExecuting = false;
    private int _controllerTimeout = 5000;
    private Thread _executingThread;
    private readonly object _syncRoot = new object();

    protected override void ExecuteCore()
    {
        _executingThread = Thread.CurrentThread;
        ThreadPool.QueueUserWorkItem(o =>
            {
                Thread.Sleep(_controllerTimeout);
                if (_isExecuting)
                {
                    _executingThread.Abort();
                }
            });
        base.ExecuteCore();
    }

    protected override void OnActionExecuting(ActionExecutingContext filterContext)
    {
        _isExecuting = true;
        base.OnActionExecuting(filterContext);
    }

    protected override void OnActionExecuted(ActionExecutedContext filterContext)
    {
        _isExecuting = false;                
        base.OnActionExecuted(filterContext);
    }

    public int ControllerTimeout
    {
        get
        {
            int retVal;
            lock(_syncRoot)
            {
                retVal = _controllerTimeout;
            }
            return retVal;
        }
        set
        {
            lock(_syncRoot)
            {
                _controllerTimeout = value;                    
            }
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

It should work when these conditions are met:

1) Domain name is not localhost (to test timeout you should use "YourComputerName" instead of "localhost").

2) Project is compiled in Release mode.

3) compilation debug="false"

if not look here for an alternative (ScriptTimeOut): ASP.NET MVC and httpRuntime executionTimeout

Greetings,
Daddy

Answer 3

Still happening for me in MVC 4. I have submitted this to microsoft as a bug:

https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/781171/asp-net-mvc-executiontimeout-does-not-work

Update:

Microsoft commented with the following:

The execution timeout feature is not advised to be used in MVC applications. You can instead set HttpContext.Server.ScriptTimeout to the desired timeout value. Despite the name, this is a per-request setting and should apply to any ASP.NET request (the name "script" is misleading)

.