# Excel question: Can I add a timeout to a webquery?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question-can-i-add-a-timeout-to-a-webquery/542753>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [June 11, 2010, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question-can-i-add-a-timeout-to-a-webquery/542753 "2010-06-11T03:55:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![PokerAKQJT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b5ac83/32.png) [@PokerAKQJT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PokerAKQJT)\
**Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question-can-i-add-a-timeout-to-a-webquery/542753/1 "2010-06-11T03:55:23Z")

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The following query works ok, but it sometimes gets stuck and hangs for a long time. What can I add so that if the query gets stuck it will timeout and move on to the next query? I have noticed that when it does get stuck that it is on the line that reads .Refresh BackgroundQuery:=False

Sub wbquery()  
Dim n As Integer

For n = 1 To 100  
With ActiveSheet.QueryTables.Add(Connection:=“URL;” & “[Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/)” & n & “”, \_  
Destination:=ActiveSheet.Range(“A65000”).End(xlUp).Offset(1, 0))  
.Name = “myquery”  
.FieldNames = True  
.RowNumbers = False  
.FillAdjacentFormulas = False  
.PreserveFormatting = True  
.RefreshOnFileOpen = False  
.BackgroundQuery = True  
.RefreshStyle = xlInsertDeleteCells  
.SavePassword = False  
.SaveData = True  
.AdjustColumnWidth = True  
.RefreshPeriod = 0  
.WebSelectionType = xlEntirePage  
.WebFormatting = xlWebFormattingNone  
.WebPreFormattedTextToColumns = True  
.WebConsecutiveDelimitersAsOne = True  
.WebSingleBlockTextImport = False  
.WebDisableDateRecognition = False  
.WebDisableRedirections = False  
.Refresh BackgroundQuery:=False  
.Delete  
End With  
Next n  
End Sub

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**Author:** ![Engywook](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bc8723/32.png) [@Engywook](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Engywook)\
**Post date:** [June 11, 2010, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question-can-i-add-a-timeout-to-a-webquery/542753/2 "2010-06-11T19:08:51Z")

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There may be a more direct approach to doing this, but I wonder if you might be able to watch the readystate ?

Disclaimer: I’m not that good at VBA. Some of this is mine; some is boilerplate stuff I’ve been able to scrounge up. And I never was able to figure out event listeners in VBA, which would surely be a better way.

This works for browser windows… if the same thing can be applied to the (spreadsheet?) doing the query, I wonder if you can modify this hack:

```auto

Public Sub browserTimeout(browser)
' next two lines are new, looking for a long wait
    Dim tries as Int
    tries=0
    Debug.Print "monitoring readyState"
    Application.Wait (Now() + TimeValue("0:00:05"))
    While browser.readyState <> 4 And tries < 100
' increment the number of tries and check the readyState every second
        tries=tries+1
        Application.Wait (Now() + TimeValue("0:00:01"))
    Wend
End Sub

```

I’ll cheerfully admit that’s a hack, but I wonder if it might tell you that’s a productive direction to go in.

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**Author:** ![PokerAKQJT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b5ac83/32.png) [@PokerAKQJT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PokerAKQJT)\
**Post date:** [June 13, 2010, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/excel-question-can-i-add-a-timeout-to-a-webquery/542753/3 "2010-06-13T19:00:16Z")

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Yes, this is the direction I want to take, but I am unclear how to apply the browsers code to the Excel code.