I’m working with a Zapier automation that pulls information from a trigger, builds an XML payload for a SOAP API call, and posts it to our CRM system.
Most of the time everything works perfectly, but occasionally I run into this timeout issue:
Error log:
2018-03-20T13:23:24.876Z d851674c-2c41-11e8-a905-954c98b7d8f5 Task timed out
after 10.01 seconds
What causes this timeout problem and what are some ways to resolve it? I have a premium Zapier account if that matters for available solutions.
Had this exact problem six months ago with a SOAP integration. Turned out to be connection pooling on our CRM - randomly took 8-12 seconds for new connections during peak hours. Fixed it with retry logic using Zapier’s delay feature. Set up a filter to catch timeout errors and rerun the zap after 30 seconds. Works 90% of the time on retry. Also check your XML structure - we were sending redundant parent nodes that added 2-3 seconds processing time. Premium gives you more task history for troubleshooting patterns, but doesn’t extend that 10-second limit.
yeah, super annoying… i’ve hit this before and it’s usually just the CRM server having a slow day. what worked for me was throwing webhook.site (or something similar) in the middle - zapier hits that first, then it handles the SOAP call without worrying about timeouts. also worth checking if you can cache repetitive data lookups when building your XML - usually saves a few seconds.
The 10 second timeout is a hard limit - Zapier won’t budge on this, even with premium accounts. I’ve hit this same wall with slow SOAP endpoints. Usually it’s either your target API being sluggish or network lag. Here’s what actually worked for me: trim down your XML payload by cutting unnecessary fields and send smaller batches instead of dumping everything at once. Also check if your CRM has bulk import endpoints - they’re usually way faster. If you’re feeling ambitious, set up a queue system where Zapier hits an intermediate service that handles the SOAP calls async. More work upfront but solves the timeout issue. Have you tested that same SOAP call outside Zapier? Curious how long it normally takes to respond.
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