Max retries exceeded: Failed to establish a websocket connection

[rathishcholarajan]

Information

• Qiskit IBM Provider version: 0.18.0
• Python version:
• Operating system:

What is the current behavior?

When running VQE program, one of our clients is seeing the below error.

runtime_job._start_websocket_client:WARNING:2021-11-17 02:26:59,893: An error occurred while streaming results from the server for job c6a64nurog3ddsr8gio0:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/opt/conda/lib/python3.8/site-packages/qiskit/providers/ibmq/runtime/runtime_job.py", line 328, in _start_websocket_client
    self._ws_client.job_results()
  File "/opt/conda/lib/python3.8/site-packages/qiskit/providers/ibmq/api/clients/runtime_ws.py", line 74, in job_results
    self.stream(url=url, retries=max_retries, backoff_factor=backoff_factor)
  File "/opt/conda/lib/python3.8/site-packages/qiskit/providers/ibmq/api/clients/base.py", line 211, in stream
    raise WebsocketError(error_message)
qiskit.providers.ibmq.api.exceptions.WebsocketError: 'Max retries exceeded: Failed to establish a websocket connection. Error: Traceback (most recent call last):\n  File "/opt/conda/lib/python3.8/site-packages/websocket/_app.py", line 369, in run_forever\n    dispatcher.read(self.sock.sock, read, check)\n  File "/opt/conda/lib/python3.8/site-packages/websocket/_app.py", line 70, in read\n    if not read_callback():\n  File "/opt/conda/lib/python3.8/site-packages/websocket/_app.py", line 335, in read\n    op_code, frame = self.sock.recv_data_frame(True)\n  File "/opt/conda/lib/python3.8/site-packages/websocket/_core.py", line 396, in recv_data_frame\n    frame = self.recv_frame()\n  File "/opt/conda/lib/python3.8/site-packages/websocket/_core.py", line 435, in recv_frame\n    return self.frame_buffer.recv_frame()\n  File "/opt/conda/lib/python3.8/site-packages/websocket/_abnf.py", line 337, in recv_frame\n    self.recv_header()\n  File "/opt/conda/lib/python3.8/site-packages/websocket/_abnf.py", line 293, in recv_header\n    header = self.recv_strict(2)\n  File "/opt/conda/lib/python3.8/site-packages/websocket/_abnf.py", line 372, in recv_strict\n    bytes_ = self.recv(min(16384, shortage))\n  File "/opt/conda/lib/python3.8/site-packages/websocket/_core.py", line 519, in _recv\n    return recv(self.sock, bufsize)\n  File "/opt/conda/lib/python3.8/site-packages/websocket/_socket.py", line 125, in recv\n    raise WebSocketConnectionClosedException(\nwebsocket._exceptions.WebSocketConnectionClosedException: Connection to remote host was lost.\n'

Steps to reproduce the problem

What is the expected behavior?

Websocket connection should not close every now and then due to inactivity when runtime job is in pending state for long time.

Suggested solutions

Ping server every minute so that the websocket connection doesn't close due to inactivity.