Setting up proxy configuration for OpenAI API calls

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1

I’m having trouble configuring a proxy server for my OpenAI API integration. When I enable the proxy settings, the connection fails with an error. Without the proxy, everything works perfectly but I need the requests to go through a proxy server. Here’s my current setup:

const { Configuration, OpenAIApi } = require('openai');
const express = require('express');
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
const cors = require('cors');
const { HttpsProxyAgent } = require('https-proxy-agent');
require('dotenv').config();

const proxyAgent = new HttpsProxyAgent(process.env.PROXY_SERVER_URL);

const config = new Configuration({
  apiKey: process.env.OPENAI_KEY,
  baseOptions: {
    httpsAgent: proxyAgent
  }
});

const ai = new OpenAIApi(config);
const botId = process.env.BOT_ID;

const server = express();
const PORT = 3000;

server.use(cors({
  origin: ['http://localhost:5500'],
  methods: ['GET', 'POST'],
  credentials: true
}));

server.use(bodyParser.json());

server.post('/chat', async (req, res) => {
  res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'text/event-stream');
  res.setHeader('Cache-Control', 'no-cache');
  res.setHeader('Connection', 'keep-alive');

  try {
    console.log('User input:', req.body.text);
    
    const bot = await ai.retrieveAssistant(botId);
    console.log('Bot retrieved:', bot);
    
    const conversation = await ai.createThread();
    console.log('Thread created:', conversation);

    await ai.createMessage(conversation.id, {
      role: "user",
      content: req.body.text
    });
    console.log('User message added:', req.body.text);

    const stream = ai.createRun(conversation.id, {
      assistant_id: bot.id
    })
    .on('textCreated', (text) => {
      res.write(`data: \nbot > \n`);
    })
    .on('textDelta', (delta) => {
      const cleanText = delta.value.replace(/ /g, '&nbsp;').replace(/\n/g, '<br>');
      res.write(`data: ${cleanText}\n`);
      console.log('Text chunk:', delta);
    })
    .on('end', () => {
      res.end();
      console.log('Stream finished.');
    });

  } catch (err) {
    console.error('Request failed:', err);
    res.status(500).json({ error: "API request failed" });
  }
});

server.listen(PORT, () => {
  console.log(`Server running on port ${PORT}`);
});

When I comment out the httpsAgent line, the server works but doesn’t use the proxy. With the proxy enabled, I get this error:

User input: hello
Request failed: APIConnectionError: Connection error.
FetchError: request to https://api.openai.com/v1/assistants/asst_xyz failed, reason: Proxy connection ended before receiving CONNECT response

The proxy connection seems to close before getting a proper response. Has anyone solved this issue before?

2

This proxy connection issue usually happens when the OpenAI client can’t handle the proxy handshake properly. I hit the same problem setting up proxy support in a corporate environment. The newer OpenAI SDK versions changed how they handle HTTP connections. Don’t use httpsAgent in baseOptions - configure the proxy at the axios level instead since OpenAI uses axios under the hood. Create a custom axios instance with your proxy config and pass it to the OpenAI client. Also check if your proxy server supports the CONNECT method for HTTPS tunneling - lots of corporate proxies block this by default. Make sure your proxy URL format includes the protocol and any auth credentials are encoded correctly in the URL string.

3

Your proxy config looks right, but it’s probably an OpenAI client version issue. I hit the same proxy timeout problems and fixed it by adding explicit timeouts and retry logic. Set a longer timeout in your proxy agent - the default’s way too short for OpenAI responses. Also check if your proxy needs keep-alive disabled. I had to add keepAlive: false to my httpsAgent options to stop connections from hanging. One more thing - make sure your proxy handles streaming responses since you’re using server-sent events. Some proxies buffer everything which breaks streaming.

4

had the same issue b4 - try updating your https-proxy-agent version. check if your proxy needs auth too, sometimes the agent setup forgets username/password. adding timeout settings in baseOptions with httpsAgent worked for me.