How do you stop a fetch request from waiting forever when the server never answers?

Pass signal: AbortSignal.timeout(ms) in the fetch options — after that many milliseconds the request is aborted and the await throws a catchable error.

* The signal turns "waiting forever" into a second, catchable exit path. *

fetch() has no built-in timeout: if the server accepts the connection but never responds, the Promise simply stays pending and your UI waits forever. The fix is the abort mechanism:

try {
  const response = await fetch('/api/data', {
    // Give up after 5 seconds
    signal: AbortSignal.timeout(5000)
  });
  // ... handle response
} catch (error) {
  // Network failure OR timeout both land here
}

AbortSignal.timeout(5000) creates a signal that fires after 5000 ms; when it fires, the browser cancels the request and the await fetch(...) rejects with a TimeoutError — landing in your catch block exactly like a network failure. That turns "the page silently hangs" into an error path you can show to the user, which is why it belongs in every fetch that talks to a backend.

Go deeper:

• MDN: AbortSignal.timeout() — the reference, including the TimeoutError it rejects with.