Error: application timeout message from ConfD

I have a ConfD action command that looks something like

move log-file-name to flash:

I call this command via maapi after opening a CLI session with ConfD. The command handler is external to ConfD and is in a C file that performs the action (moving a log file at the provided path to another location). When I run this command, I occasionally see a response that says “Error: application timeout”. Could you help me understand what this problem is about and how to get around this? Is there a timeout value I can add if you think the error message could be due to the move operation taking too long in the external application (because the log file is huge)?

Here is one of the answers to this common question/issue:

@cohult, Thanks. But what confuses me is that mine is an action command (meaning the command does not fetch operational information but rather asks an external application to perform an action). In other words, it is not a “show…” command. Is it still called an “Oper” command in ConfD parlance?

Also, I tried putting a sleep in the external application that causes a delay of more than 10 mins in responding to the command and that did not trigger this response message for the command. This tells me that it is not a timeout issue. Is this message generated by ConfD internally? Under what circumstances does ConfD return this message? (Error: application timeout)?

@cohult, did you get a chance to look into this?

Yes, DP API. See confd.conf(5) man page for details on the timeout. See also the confd_lib_dp(3) man page on how to override and set the timeout from the action daemon/code.

The timeout log entry would be seen in for example the developer log.
The timeout trigger if the application doesn’t extend it.