# Cartesia TTS Error
**URL:** https://community.livekit.io/t/cartesia-tts-error/1254
**Category:** Getting Started
**Created:** [May 26, 2026, 4:35pm UTC](https://community.livekit.io/t/cartesia-tts-error/1254 "2026-05-26T16:35:41Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Keynar](https://community.livekit.io/u/Keynar)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2026, 4:35pm UTC](https://community.livekit.io/t/cartesia-tts-error/1254/1 "2026-05-26T16:35:41Z")
I keep having these with my cartesia TTS and it messes up the conversation via the phone :
WARNING:livekit.agents:failed to synthesize speech: Request timed out., retrying in 2.0s
WARNING:livekit.agents:failed to synthesize speech: Request timed out., retrying in 2.0s
{“message”: “failed to synthesize speech: Request timed out., retrying in 2.0s”, “level”: “WARNING”, “name”: “livekit.agents”, “tts”: “livekit.agents.inference.tts.TTS”, “attempt”: 2, “streamed”: true, “pid”: 236, “job\_id”: “AJ\_aFfvMD3HReb3”, “room\_id”: “RM\_a7CG4SVxr5aV”, “timestamp”: “2026-05-26T16:32:38.387680+00:00”}
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### Author:  [@Muhammad\_Usman\_Bashir](https://community.livekit.io/u/Muhammad_Usman_Bashir)
#### Post date: [May 26, 2026, 8:26pm UTC](https://community.livekit.io/t/cartesia-tts-error/1254/2 "2026-05-26T20:26:35Z")
@Keynar, The “retrying in 2.0s” is the framework’s default retry:
- TTS uses `APIConnectOptions` with `timeout=10.0s`, `retry_interval=2.0s`, `max_retry=3` [[livekit-agents/livekit/agents/types.py](https://github.com/livekit/agents/blob/main/livekit-agents/livekit/agents/types.py) ].
- Synthesis is exceeding `10 seconds` and `retrying up to 3 times`.
You can raise the timeout with `conn_options=APIConnectOptions(timeout=20)` on the TTS, but for a phone call that masks rather than fixes. A `10s+` TTS latency already breaks the conversation. The real question is whether synthesis is genuinely slow (long segments, slower model) or intermittently degrading on Cartesia’s side.
Two quick checks: correlate your failure timestamps (log shows `2026-05-26T16:32 UTC`) against Cartesia’s status page; if they had degradation in that window, it’s provider-side and transient. And check which Cartesia model you’re on, since the lowest-latency model is the safer choice for telephony.
For production telephony, the durable fix is a fallback TTS. The inference path supports it (there’s a `tts-fallback` test in the repo), so configure a secondary provider via `FallbackAdapter` [[docs.livekit.io/agents/logic/fallback-strategies](https://docs.livekit.io/agents/logic/fallback-strategies) ]. When Cartesia times out, it fails over to the backup instead of dead-airing the call, which is what’s currently messing up your conversations.
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### Author:  [@darryncampbell](https://community.livekit.io/u/darryncampbell)
#### Post date: [May 27, 2026, 7:44am UTC](https://community.livekit.io/t/cartesia-tts-error/1254/3 "2026-05-27T07:44:33Z")
It’s unclear to me whether this is an occasional issue, or if the TTS just does not work. If it’s an occasional issue then please follow @Muhammad_Usman_Bashir 's reply above. If Cartesia TTS just does not work for you, please share your AgentSession configuration and reproduction steps. It’s also possibly related to this: [Does cartesia/sonic-3-latest still route to Sonic 3.5, or Sonic 3? - #3 by darryncampbell](https://community.livekit.io/t/does-cartesia-sonic-3-latest-still-route-to-sonic-3-5-or-sonic-3/1149/3)