Discord bot gif command becomes slow after period of inactivity

Other Questions Giphy
1

I’m working on a Discord bot that fetches and displays animated images using a command. The weird thing is that it works perfectly when I use it regularly, but if I don’t use the command for a while, it becomes really slow and sometimes doesn’t respond at all.

Here’s my current code:

@bot.command()
async def meme(ctx, *, search_term='funny'):
    giphy_token = 'my_api_token_here'
    client_api = giphy_client.DefaultApi()
    
    try:
        search_result = client_api.gifs_search_get(giphy_token, search_term, limit=5, rating='pg')
        results_list = list(search_result.data)
        chosen_gif = random.choice(results_list)
        
        embed_msg = discord.Embed(title=f"{ctx.author} searched for: {search_term}")
        embed_msg.set_image(url=f'https://media.giphy.com/media/{chosen_gif.id}/giphy.gif')
        
        await ctx.send(embed=embed_msg)
    except ApiException as error:
        await ctx.send("Something went wrong with the API")

I think it might be a timeout issue but I’m not sure. Would love to see how this could be rewritten using aiohttp instead since I want to learn that library.

2

Had this exact problem last year with a bot I built. It’s not just hosting - the Giphy client doesn’t handle connections well internally.

Here’s my aiohttp solution:

import aiohttp
import asyncio

# Create this once when bot starts
session = aiohttp.ClientSession(timeout=aiohttp.ClientTimeout(total=10))

@bot.command()
async def meme(ctx, *, search_term='funny'):
    url = 'https://api.giphy.com/v1/gifs/search'
    params = {
        'api_key': 'your_token',
        'q': search_term,
        'limit': 5,
        'rating': 'pg'
    }
    
    try:
        async with session.get(url, params=params) as response:
            data = await response.json()
            gif = random.choice(data['data'])
            
            embed = discord.Embed(title=f"{ctx.author} searched for: {search_term}")
            embed.set_image(url=gif['images']['original']['url'])
            await ctx.send(embed=embed)
    except asyncio.TimeoutError:
        await ctx.send("Request timed out, try again")
    except Exception:
        await ctx.send("Something went wrong")

Reuse that same session - don’t create new ones per request like tutorials show.

Add this when your bot shuts down:

await session.close()

Completely fixed my slowdown issues.

3

Your bot’s probably going to sleep due to inactivity - most free hosts like Heroku and Railway do this to save resources. When it wakes up, it has to reconnect everything and reload libraries, which causes those slow response times. I’ve hit this same problem with multiple bots I’ve deployed. The Giphy library might be creating fresh connections after sitting idle too, making it even slower. Try setting up a keep-alive ping to wake your bot regularly, or upgrade to paid hosting that doesn’t sleep your app. You’re right about aiohttp being better - it gives you way more control over connections and timeouts.

4

same thing happened to me. giphy’s client library sucks at connection pooling - it’s probly timing out on you. switch to aiohttp with async sessions. create one session when your app starts and reuse it instead of spinning up new connections each time. don’t forget to add timeout error handling.

5

Yes, the slowdown can result from issues with connection management. I’ve encountered similar problems when using Discord.py with external APIs. When your bot is idle, connections can be dropped by your hosting service and the API itself. Consequently, the next request must reconnect everything, leading to delays. For aiohttp, it’s advisable to establish an aiohttp.ClientSession when your bot initializes and incorporate custom timeout settings, such as connect_timeout and total_timeout. Implementing retry logic is also beneficial, as network issues with external APIs are common. Utilizing aiohttp will enhance performance due to its ability to maintain persistent connections and manage timeouts far better than the standard Giphy client.