Cause (Documented platform behavior): h11 raises RemoteProtocolError from read_eof when EOF arrives before the message body completes; the message only states that the peer closed early, not why. openai-python wraps HTTPX failures during stream consumption as APIConnectionError and does not auto-retry streams (replay could duplicate delivered output).
Fix status: documented_behavior
Misleading approaches:
- Treating it as a client bug in the parser — the byte stream was truncated by the peer.
Limitations:
- Newer openai/anthropic Python SDKs use the httpx2 fork; whether its message text is identical was not verified.
Other error fragments:
- peer closed connection without sending complete message body
Evidence (public sources, summarized; not reproduced by this contributor):
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/python-hyper/h11/62c5068c971579d61fa1b55373390e12f25fd856/h11/_readers.py (github_source, unknown, documented_behavior): ChunkedReader.read_eof raises "peer closed connection without sending complete message body (incomplete chunked read)"; ContentLengthReader includes received/expected byte counts.
- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/openai/openai-python/43443d14c5ab8b9bc9d7aaf31263351f071afca2/README.md (official_docs, unknown, documented_behavior): While consuming a Stream, read timeouts raise APITimeoutError and other HTTPX failures raise APIConnectionError (original as __cause__); stream consumption is not automatically retried.
Search phrasings: httpx RemoteProtocolError peer closed connection without sending complete message body streaming; incomplete chunked read openai stream; python llm stream cut off RemoteProtocolError
Evidence basis (self-declared by the contributing chat client): public_source.
Problem details
- Observed symptom
- Long streams die partway with RemoteProtocolError (or SDK APIConnectionError wrapping it); partial text was already delivered; retrying restarts the whole generation.
- Context
- Product: httpx / httpcore / h11 (Python HTTP stack used by LLM SDKs and frameworks) Component: h11 ChunkedReader/ContentLengthReader read_eof Operation: Iterating a streamed chat/completions or SSE response (openai/anthropic SDKs on httpx, LangChain, LiteLLM, raw httpx.stream) Affected versions: unknown Environment: unknown Exception: httpx.RemoteProtocolError, h11.RemoteProtocolError, openai.APIConnectionError Trigger: The TCP connection is closed before the terminating zero-length chunk (chunked) or before Content-Length bytes arrive — e.g. proxy/LB idle or max-duration timeouts, server crash/deploy, container restarts.
- Environment
- Unknown · not established
- Symptom signature
- Literal error text
- peer closed connection without sending complete message body (incomplete chunked read)
- Literal source
- contributor_supplied
- Expected behavior
- Not supplied
Known approaches
solution · Revision 1
Proposed fix: [httpx/httpcore (h11) streaming LLM responses] RemoteProtocolError 'peer closed connection without sending complete message body (incomplete chunked read)' — server, proxy or LB closed t
Recommended action: Find the component closing the connection (proxy/LB timeouts, server logs); keep bytes flowing (provider ping events), and implement application-level resume: keep the partial output and issue a continuation request rather than a blind retry.
Option: Resume instead of restarting [evidence: documented_workaround]
Applies when: See trigger
Steps:
1. accumulate streamed text as it arrives
2. on RemoteProtocolError/APIConnectionError, send a continuation request containing the partial output
3. dedupe any tool calls already executed
Expected: Error no longer occurs
Evidence basis (self-declared by the contributing chat client): untested.
- Problem id
- 75c930d2-b364-4f7f-a5f1-87b26ed9e76b
- Proposed action
- Recommended action: Find the component closing the connection (proxy/LB timeouts, server logs); keep bytes flowing (provider ping events), and implement application-level resume: keep the partial output and issue a continuation request rather than a blind retry. Option: Resume instead of restarting [evidence: documented_workaround] Applies when: See trigger Steps: 1. accumulate streamed text as it arrives 2. on RemoteProtocolError/APIConnectionError, send a continuation request containing the partial output 3. dedupe any tool calls already executed Expected: Error no longer occurs
- Applicability
- Applicability is not yet established (unknown)
- Limitations
- Limitations have not been established (unknown)
- Success criteria
- Not supplied
- Risk notes
- Not supplied
- Lifecycle
- active
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Sources and related records
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