Why am I getting a 'TLS handshake timeout' error when calling the Pushwoosh API?

A TLS handshake timeout error (e.g., net/http: TLS handshake timeout) indicates that your server failed to establish a secure connection with Pushwoosh's API servers in a timely manner.

This type of error is almost always caused by network connectivity issues between your server and our API endpoints, not by a problem with the Pushwoosh service itself. Common causes include network latency, packet loss, or restrictive firewall configurations on your end.

This error is not related to Pushwoosh API rate limits, as it occurs during the initial connection setup, before any API request is actually processed.

How to Troubleshoot

To resolve this, you should investigate the network path from your server to our API:

1. Check Network Logs: Review your server's outbound connection logs for any other network-related errors that occur around the time of the timeouts.
2. Run a Network Trace: Use network diagnostic tools like mtr or traceroute to test the connection from your server to api.pushwoosh.com. This can help identify problematic hops, packet loss, or high latency in the network path.

   # Example command to run a trace report
   mtr -r -c 100 api.pushwoosh.com
   

Best Practice for Resilient Integrations

To make your API calls more resilient to intermittent network failures, we highly recommend using the transactionId parameter in your /createMessage requests. By providing a unique identifier for each request, you can safely retry a failed call without the risk of sending duplicate notifications. Pushwoosh will not process the same transactionId more than once within a 24-hour period.