504Gateway Timeout

A gateway gave up waiting for the server behind it to answer, so it returned a timeout instead.

When you see it

Something behind the front-facing server is too slow: a query with no index, an external service that is not responding, or work that simply takes longer than the configured timeout allows.

The timeout is often the messenger rather than the problem. Raising it usually turns a fast failure into a slow one without fixing what is actually slow.

What to do about it

As a visitor, reload once. If it recurs, the site has a performance problem you cannot do anything about.

If you run the site, find what took too long before touching the timeout. Long-running work usually belongs in a queue with a 202 response rather than inside a request that a gateway is waiting on.

Often confused with

502 Bad Gateway

504 means no answer arrived in time. 502 means an answer arrived and was invalid. The difference points at slowness versus breakage.

408 Request Timeout

408 is your request being too slow to arrive. 504 is the server being too slow to answer one that arrived fine.

Look up another one

Open

Type a code, a partial code like 40, or any word from a name or description. Everything runs in your browser.

Filter

Copy format

Status codes

69 of 69 codes. Click a row to copy it.

1xx Informational (4)

2xx Success (10)

3xx Redirection (8)

4xx Client errors (31)

5xx Server errors (16)