Timeout when launching a user pod

[I 2025-10-09 11:42:50.568 JupyterHub spawner:2890] Attempting to create pod jupyter-ahodge, with timeout 3
[I 2025-10-09 11:42:53.691 JupyterHub spawner:2890] Attempting to create pod jupyter-ahodge, with timeout 3
[I 2025-10-09 11:42:57.057 JupyterHub spawner:2890] Attempting to create pod jupyter-ahodge, with timeout 3
[I 2025-10-09 11:43:00.451 JupyterHub spawner:2890] Attempting to create pod jupyter-ahodge, with timeout 3
[I 2025-10-09 11:43:04.324 JupyterHub spawner:2890] Attempting to create pod jupyter-ahodge, with timeout 3
[I 2025-10-09 11:43:08.839 JupyterHub spawner:2890] Attempting to create pod jupyter-ahodge, with timeout 3
[I 2025-10-09 11:43:15.328 JupyterHub spawner:2890] Attempting to create pod jupyter-ahodge, with timeout 3
[I 2025-10-09 11:43:19.979 JupyterHub spawner:2890] Attempting to create pod jupyter-ahodge, with timeout 3
[W 2025-10-09 11:43:22.981 JupyterHub user:996] ahodge's server failed to start in 300 seconds, giving up.
    
    Common causes of this timeout, and debugging tips:
    
    1. Everything is working, but it took too long.
       To fix: increase `Spawner.start_timeout` configuration
       to a number of seconds that is enough for spawners to finish starting.
    2. The server didn't finish starting,
       or it crashed due to a configuration issue.
       Check the single-user server's logs for hints at what needs fixing.
    
[E 2025-10-09 11:43:23.029 JupyterHub gen:629] Exception in Future <Task finished name='Task-23' coro=<BaseHandler.spawn_single_user.<locals>.finish_user_spawn() done, defined at /usr/local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/jupyterhub/handlers/base.py:1117> exception=TimeoutError('Could not create pod sre-binder-prod/jupyter-ahodge')> after timeout
    Traceback (most recent call last):
      File "/usr/local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/tornado/gen.py", line 624, in error_callback
        future.result()
      File "/usr/local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/jupyterhub/handlers/base.py", line 1124, in finish_user_spawn
        await spawn_future
      File "/usr/local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/jupyterhub/user.py", line 1018, in spawn
        raise e
      File "/usr/local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/jupyterhub/user.py", line 920, in spawn
        await asyncio.wait_for(f, timeout=spawner.start_timeout)
      File "/usr/local/lib/python3.12/asyncio/tasks.py", line 520, in wait_for
        return await fut
               ^^^^^^^^^
      File "/usr/local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/kubespawner/spawner.py", line 3158, in _start
        await exponential_backoff(
      File "/usr/local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/jupyterhub/utils.py", line 267, in exponential_backoff
        raise asyncio.TimeoutError(fail_message)
    TimeoutError: Could not create pod sre-binder-prod/jupyter-ahodge

I’ve read the docs on this and tried setting jupyterhub.singleuser.startTimeout higher. I suspect what’s going on is that in the hub configmap for values.yaml we have:

    for trait, cfg_key in (
        ("pod_name_template", None),
        ("start_timeout", None),
...
    ):
        if cfg_key is None:
            cfg_key = camelCaseify(trait)
        set_config_if_not_none(c.KubeSpawner, trait, "singleuser." + cfg_key)

But BinderSpawner is the spawner class and not KubeSpawner?

I’ve also tried setting jupyterhub.hub.config.BinderSpawner.start_timeout (sic) but no joy there either - remains at 3 seconds.

This is already answered I think - JupyterHub on Kubernetes: Spawn Failed for users with `timeout 3`. Increase pod creation Timeout - #6 by JunaidChaudry