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Initialize call hangs forever if MCP server does not return a Content-Type: text/plain #2432
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- I confirm that I'm using the latest version of MCP Python SDK
- I confirm that I searched for my issue in https://github.com/modelcontextprotocol/python-sdk/issues before opening this issue
Description
We had some timeouts on our server while using MCP client from the SDK.
When users try to integrate our client with their MCP server, we do an initialize call to the server and we are waiting infinitely to the following:
sync with self:
...
After investigation, it seems the error happens when the MCP server is misconfigured, and returns something different than Content-Type: text/event-stream as a response from the initialize call.
Although it is on the server side, the client should be able to fail immediately with a understandable error to warn the user something went wrong with the server's initialize output.
Example Code
# server.py
from http.server import BaseHTTPRequestHandler, HTTPServer
class PlainTextHandler(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
def do_POST(self):
length = int(self.headers.get("Content-Length", 0))
self.rfile.read(length)
body = b"this is not json"
self.send_response(200)
self.send_header("Content-Type", "text/plain")
self.send_header("Content-Length", str(len(body)))
self.end_headers()
self.wfile.write(body)
def log_message(self, format, *args):
print(f"[server] {format % args}")
server = HTTPServer(("localhost", 9000), PlainTextHandler)
print("[server] listening on http://localhost:9000")
server.serve_forever()
# client.py
import asyncio
import mcp
from mcp.client.streamable_http import streamable_http_client
async def main():
print("connecting…")
async with streamable_http_client("http://localhost:9000/mcp") as (
read_stream, write_stream, _,
):
async with mcp.ClientSession(read_stream, write_stream) as session:
await session.initialize() # ← hangs here forever
print("done (you should never see this)")Python & MCP Python SDK
- Python 3.12.12
- MCP - 1.27.0
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P2Moderate issues affecting some users, edge cases, potentially valuable featureModerate issues affecting some users, edge cases, potentially valuable featurebugSomething isn't workingSomething isn't workingfix proposedBot has a verified fix diff in the commentBot has a verified fix diff in the commentready for workEnough information for someone to start working onEnough information for someone to start working on
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vishal-vanam commentedon Apr 13, 2026
I'd like to work on this. Will submit a PR shortly.
fix: consume response body on unexpected content type to prevent clie…
test: add regression test for initialize hang on unexpected content-t…
Christian-Sidak commentedon Apr 19, 2026
Opened a fix in #2472 -- adds a regression test verifying that
initialize()raisesMCPErrorimmediately when a misconfigured server returns an unexpected content type (e.g.text/plain) instead oftext/event-stream, rather than hanging forever.Kludex commentedon Oct 14, 2026
Fixed on main (2.x): a non-JSON/SSE content type now resolves the request with a JSON-RPC error instead of hanging. v1.x only takes critical and security fixes.