PHP SOAP extension sometime returns “[HTTP] Error Fetching http headers” when using PHP SoapClient to call the SOAP webservice. The reason for this error is the SOAP webservice took more time to respond than expected.

Solution

To fix this error, we can increase the either increase the socket timeout “default_socket_time” in php.ini or add the connection_timeout parameter in the parameter array passed to the constructor of the SoapClient. These parameter are in seconds.

1. In php.ini

default_socket_timeout = 120

Alternatively, you can change from code

ini_set('default_socket_timeout', 120);

Note: The default socket timeout in php is 60 seconds.

2. “connection_timeout” parameter in SoapClient constructor

$client = new SoapClient($wsdl, array('connection_timeout' => 120));

Hope this will save your time.