The way everyone is writing this off as so obvious is annoying. Have you guys never found a bug that in retrospect was glaringly obvious, but all the symptoms looked bizarre until you found what made them all connected? This is a fun story the same way the "500 mile email limit" story is a fun story. Yeah the idea of "your timeout is so low that it times out unless you're sending a very local request, about 500 miles" is obvious and somewhat boring in retrospect too, but that twist is what makes them both fun stories/facts.