How to set the connection and read timeout with Jersey 2.x?

You may also specify a timeout per request :

public static void main(String[] args) {
    Client client = ClientBuilder.newClient();
    WebTarget target = client.target("http://1.2.3.4:8080");

    // default timeout value for all requests
    client.property(ClientProperties.CONNECT_TIMEOUT, 1000);
    client.property(ClientProperties.READ_TIMEOUT,    1000);

    try {
        Invocation.Builder request = target.request();

        // overriden timeout value for this request
        request.property(ClientProperties.CONNECT_TIMEOUT, 500);
        request.property(ClientProperties.READ_TIMEOUT, 500);

        String responseMsg = request.get(String.class);
        System.out.println("responseMsg: " + responseMsg);
    } catch (ProcessingException pe) {
        pe.printStackTrace();
    }
}

Starting from jersey 2.26 (which uses JAX-RS 2.1) there are new methods for that:

ClientBuilder builder = ClientBuilder.newBuilder()
        .connectTimeout(5000, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS)
        .readTimeout(5000, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
        //some more calls if necesary, e.g.
        //.register(LoggingFilter.class);
            
        Client restClient = builder.build();

The code below works for me in Jersey 2.3.1 (inspiration found here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/19541931/1617124)

public static void main(String[] args) {
    Client client = ClientBuilder.newClient();

    client.property(ClientProperties.CONNECT_TIMEOUT, 1000);
    client.property(ClientProperties.READ_TIMEOUT,    1000);

    WebTarget target = client.target("http://1.2.3.4:8080");

    try {
        String responseMsg = target.path("application.wadl").request().get(String.class);
        System.out.println("responseMsg: " + responseMsg);
    } catch (ProcessingException pe) {
        pe.printStackTrace();
    }
}