[tor-bugs] #21394 [Core Tor/Tor]: connection timeouts are affecting Tor Browser usability

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#21394: connection timeouts are affecting Tor Browser usability
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 Reporter:  arthuredelstein                      |          Owner:  (none)
     Type:  defect                               |         Status:  new
 Priority:  Very High                            |      Milestone:  Tor:
                                                 |  0.3.3.x-final
Component:  Core Tor/Tor                         |        Version:
 Severity:  Normal                               |     Resolution:
 Keywords:  tbb-performance, tbb-usability,      |  Actual Points:
  performance, tbb-needs                         |
Parent ID:                                       |         Points:
 Reviewer:                                       |        Sponsor:
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Comment (by arthuredelstein):

 Replying to [comment:24 teor]:

 > It depends on how it fails.
 > If the resolve times out at the exit, it also times out at the client,
 > If the resolve fails fast, a an error cell is sent to the client.
 > I don't think we can make this faster.

 OK, good to know a fast fail is reported by through the circuit. I only
 wonder if it's possible there could be a bug in sending or receiving that
 error that makes it fail sometimes.

 > Yes. Exits already check DNS at startup, and turn off exit traffic if it
 fails. I opened #24014 in 0.3.3 to make them check periodically.

 Excellent, thanks.

 > You could also have a slow guard, or a site that has slow DNS,

 I believe I've seen the same failure rate on a couple of different guards
 but I should investigate that further.

 > I would suggest that we find a way of monitoring this, so we can check
 if our fixes make a difference.
 > This might be a task for metrics, I'll leave it to you to open a ticket,
 because you know what needs to be done to test for timeouts.

 Good idea -- I opened #24018 for that.

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Ticket URL: <https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/ticket/21394#comment:25>
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