Getting an error when trying to run search_images_ddg in google colab

Part 2 2022/23
1

When I try to use search_images_ddg on google colab im getting this error:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TimeoutError                              Traceback (most recent call last)
/usr/lib/python3.11/urllib/request.py in do_open(self, http_class, req, **http_conn_args)
   1347             try:
-> 1348                 h.request(req.get_method(), req.selector, req.data, headers,
   1349                           encode_chunked=req.has_header('Transfer-encoding'))

17 frames
TimeoutError: [Errno 110] Connection timed out

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

URLError                                  Traceback (most recent call last)
/usr/lib/python3.11/urllib/request.py in do_open(self, http_class, req, **http_conn_args)
   1349                           encode_chunked=req.has_header('Transfer-encoding'))
   1350             except OSError as err: # timeout error
-> 1351                 raise URLError(err)
   1352             r = h.getresponse()
   1353         except:

URLError: <urlopen error [Errno 110] Connection timed out>
1 Like
2

The library has changed it seems I used this instead:

from ddgs import DDGS
def search_images(keywords, max_images = 200):
results = DDGS().images(keywords, max_results = max_images)
return L(r[ā€œimageā€] for r in results if ā€œimageā€ in r)

link to my notebook:

2 Likes
3

The error means your code is timing out while trying to reach DuckDuckGo serversā€”likely due to network issues, restrictions, or temporary service problems. Try restarting your Colab runtime, checking your internet, or switching to a different library like bing-image-downloader. Using a proxy or adding retry logic can also help. Want a quick workaround? I can help rework your code.

1 Like
4

I have been fighting this issue myself. It seems like most duck-duck-go solutions will fail from Colab because they filter traffic and Colab reuses IPs or something. Iā€™ve been trying with Openverse but things are not easy either (or limited later, such as getting good URLs from Flicker which then blocks downloads).

For something more productive Iā€™d consider Bing or similar (involves registering on Azure). Otherwise I kind of gave up and decided to use Imageye to download mid-sized images semi-manually: you do image search (DDG or whatever) and scroll until you see enough of them. Then Imageye downloads them in batch, saving quite a lot of time, but resulting in aprox 500x500 images.

Really interested in real solutions for this basic problem that work in 2025.

5

Could we see your working code block please? Thank you! :slight_smile:

6 
def search_images(keywords, max_images=10, color='color'):
    results = DDGS().images(
        query=keywords,
        max_results=max_images,
        color=color,
    )
    return L(results).itemgot('image')

Solve it using this: you need to pass the color=ā€˜colorā€™ parameter to ddgs.