Python telegram bot timeout issue when sending periodic notifications

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1

I’m working on a monitoring system for my server that tracks system temperature and sends alerts through a telegram bot. The bot checks the temperature every minute and should send a warning message when it goes above a certain limit. To avoid spam, I want it to wait 15 minutes before sending another alert. However, I keep getting timeout errors when trying to send the second message after the waiting period. Here’s my current implementation:

telegram_bot = telepot.Bot(API_KEY)
telegram_bot.message_loop(message_handler)

while True:
    if ((check_system_temp() > 35.0) and should_send_alert()):
        alert_text = "System temp: " + str(check_system_temp()) + " degrees"
        telegram_bot.sendMessage(chat_ids[0], alert_text)
    time.sleep(60)

The should_send_alert() function manages the 15-minute cooldown period. I’m getting a ReadTimeoutError from urllib3 when the bot tries to send the message after waiting. Has anyone encountered this before?

2

I’ve hit this same timeout issue with my telegram monitoring scripts. The HTTP connection stays open too long between requests - when your bot waits 15 minutes, the connection goes stale or the server drops it. Add a timeout parameter when you initialize your bot and catch the exception to retry. I used telegram_bot = telepot.Bot(API_KEY, timeout=30) and it worked. Also wrap your sendMessage in try-except to catch ReadTimeoutError and retry once. Those long gaps between API calls are what’s breaking it.

3

Telepot has connection pooling issues when sitting idle for long periods. I ran into the same thing with my server monitoring setup. Fixed it by creating a new bot instance before each send instead of reusing a global one. Just do bot = telepot.Bot(API_KEY) right before bot.sendMessage() and you’ll get a fresh connection every time. The overhead’s tiny since you’re only sending occasional alerts. Works great for my temperature monitoring that runs on similar intervals.

4

yea, telepot does this constantly. switch to python-telegram-bot - telepot’s basically dead and full of connection bugs. use application.bot.send_message() instead. it handles connection pooling way better for periodic messages.