Connection timed out. Please try again. If you see frequent timeouts, please try a different network connection

Anki Syncing & AnkiWeb
1

I’m unable to sync my decks with ankiweb on linux desktop. I created several decks and uploaded them from AnkiDroid successfully, but desktop Anki times out every time I try to sync. “Connection timed out. Please try again. If you see frequent timeouts, please try a different network connection. Error Details:”
(no details are given)

I have tried:

  1. Several VPN endpoints
  2. No VPN
  3. Cellular hotspotting

I am able to ping all the urls listed in the FAQ page: ankiweb dot net, sync dot ankiweb dot net, and sync2 dot ankiweb dot net

On desktop the sync has never worked. Ankidroid does it fine though.

Anki 25.02.6 (a60e2b3b) (src)
Python 3.13.5 Qt 6.9.1 PyQt 6.9.1
Platform: Linux-6.15.2-arch1-1-x86_64-with-glibc2.41

2

You can ping the urls but not connect to the urls from withhin anki? Do you use some sort of sandboxing or application firewall (like Opensnitch)?

Edit: Do other connections in your desktop anki work? E.g. try to include a remote image from some website in your card (without downloading it or pasting from the clipboard). Can Anki fetch the image?

3

No, I don’t have any sandboxing system set up.
It seems that it can fetch an image from the anki forum just fine.

image
image647×541 35.1 KB

4

Interesting. Would it be possible for you to install anki with a different method, e.g. flatpak, and test if syncing works there?

(Also: The system hid your message from me claiming it had been flagged by the community. In case that happens again and I don’t react 24h after you commented, feel free to ping me)

5

Thanks for the ideas. From flathub I installed net dot ankiweb dot Anki and was finally able to sync.

I guess technically that resolves my issue but I would really like to understand why the official Anki release doesn’t sync. I’ve never used flatpaks/flathub before and I don’t think I trust it in the long term.

(I foolishly attached an image after making an account; now I know better than to do that unless absolutely necessary. Also, I think my account is too new to send PMs. I appreciate your helpfulness, though )

2 Likes
6

Please do attach images whenever needed! I don’t know why our little bot helper flagged that as spam, but don’t let it dissuade you. It’s easy for us to push the post through when we see the flag is wrongly applied [and especially when I recognize it as a picture of a picture (of a picture) from my own collection! :sweat_smile:].

1 Like
7

Flatpak uses a sandbox to run anki. So if it works there, I’m thinking that something on your machine must be the culprit. No idea why only syncing would be affected though, and only from that specific binary. And considering you can ping those servers just fine, it makes it less likely that your system is misconfigured (except, of course, if you used e.g. opensnitch to block syncing only for this specific anki process).

Maybe you can try the latest stable release (Release 25.02.7 · ankitects/anki · GitHub) or even the latest beta (Release 25.06b7 · ankitects/anki · GitHub)?

If the issues persist, maybe capturing the network with wireguard or tcpdump might be of use – though my knowledge is basically zero in that regard.

I see. You can mention me by writing my user name like this: @Anon_0000. E.g. if I write @spimpy , you should get a mention in your inbox.

8

You can send PMs to new user. Once a thread is created, the other person can send you PMs freely.