How to Fix cURL error 28: Operation timed out after 5000 milliseconds with 0 bytes received (http_request_failed) on GoDaddy

This is an error I’ve seen occasionally and when you google it, there are many different recommended solutions. It seems that this is because there can be different causes. Today, I came across this error in the Site Health tab of WordPress on a new website on GoDaddy’s Linux Web Hosting plan (not Managed WordPress).

Usually when I have a cURL error I can’t edit my php files in WordPress, but this was not the case this time. This was an error only showing from Ryte, which is a service used by Yoast to check to see if your site is indexable. Using Screaming Frog, I checked first to make sure the site was indexable. It was, so this was an issue only with Ryte being able to run their script to check.

To fix this problem when your site uses cPanel:

1. Login to cPanel
2. Click on Select PHP Version
3. Click on Options
4. Update the max_input_time to 300
5. Look for the auto save confirmation message

This fixed the issue for me using GoDaddy Linux Web Hosting (Ultimate), WordPress 5.5 and Yoast 14.7.

If you are not using cPanel, or if you don’t have access to the php.ini file on your server, try contacting your web host to update this variable for you.