Repl Keeps Timing Out When Deploying Flask App Anyone Found a Workaround?

Deployments
1

Hey Replit community!

I’m Mark Pousee, and I’ve been building a Flask app on Replit that integrates with a small SQLite database. Everything works great when I test it locally, but the minute I deploy, it keeps timing out during POST requests. The GET endpoints are okay, but any form submission ends up hanging or throwing a 504 error after a minute.

Here’s what I’ve already tried:

  • Increased the repl’s timeout settings in the .replit config (didn’t help much).

    Added sleep() debugging statements to isolate where it’s hanging—it’s timing out at the DB write step.

    Tested on a fresh Python repl with just Flask + SQLite and still see the issue.

    Confirmed that the request functions completely fine in local dev (outside Replit).

It feels like the deployment environment isn’t letting the DB write complete in time. Have any of you run into this before?

Some questions I’d love your insights on:

  1. Is there a known timeout threshold for long-running tasks in Replit’s deployment environment?

    Has someone successfully used SQLite on Replit in production mode, and if so—how did you get it to successfully complete write operations?

    Would switching to something like Replit DB or hosting the database elsewhere (e.g., MongoDB Atlas or Postgres) be a more reliable workaround?

    Any tips on configuring request handling or background tasks to avoid this?

Appreciate any thoughts or war stories you’ve saved me before, and I’m hoping to pull through this hurdle too!

Thanks a ton,
Mark Pousee