Proxy Connection Refused or Timed Out?

Refused: the connection attempt received an active rejection. Timed out: it did not finish before the configured deadline. First identify which connection the message describes.

A refusal can mean the proxy stopped listening or its port is wrong. A firewall or another device can actively reject the attempt too, so the message does not identify the rejecting machine. A timeout leaves more possibilities open: dropped traffic, routing failure, loss or setup that is too slow.

Neither symptom necessarily concerns your connection to the proxy. A reachable SOCKS server can reply that its connection to the destination was refused. Similarly, waiting for a website after a successful CONNECT is different from waiting to reach the proxy listener.

Locate the first failure

For an HTTP proxy, replace the documentation address and read the verbose sequence:

curl --proxy http://203.0.113.10:8080 --noproxy '' --connect-timeout 5 --max-time 15 --verbose https://example.com/

The five-second connection budget covers the applicable setup, not a new five-second wait at every step. The fifteen-second total limit also bounds later transfer time. Look for the last success: proxy connection, proxy reply, tunnel acceptance or destination response.

Keep the target and protocol fixed and try another endpoint from your service or the free proxy list. If that works, investigate the first endpoint or its route. If both fail before connecting to their proxy ports, inspect your local network and client configuration. Changing IP, protocol, port, target and timeout at once makes the comparison inconclusive.

One later retry can identify a transient failure. Rapid retries or indefinitely longer waits add little evidence; after a few bounded failures on a public entry, save the exact error and move to another.