在某些情况下，有必要在头文件中添加用户代理:

WebClient myWebClient = new WebClient();
myWebClient.DownloadFile(myStringWebResource, fileName);
myWebClient.Headers["User-Agent"] = "Mozilla/4.0 (Compatible; Windows NT 5.1; MSIE 6.0) (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322; .NET CLR 2.0.50727)";

这就是我案子的解决办法。

信贷:

http://genjurosdojo.blogspot.com/2012/10/the-remote-server-returned-error-504.html

用法:

using (var client = new TimeoutWebClient(TimeSpan.FromSeconds(10)))
{
    return await client.DownloadStringTaskAsync(url).ConfigureAwait(false);
}

类:

using System;
using System.Net;

namespace Utilities
{
    public class TimeoutWebClient : WebClient
    {
        public TimeSpan Timeout { get; set; }

        public TimeoutWebClient(TimeSpan timeout)
        {
            Timeout = timeout;
        }

        protected override WebRequest GetWebRequest(Uri uri)
        {
            var request = base.GetWebRequest(uri);
            if (request == null)
            {
                return null;
            }

            var timeoutInMilliseconds = (int) Timeout.TotalMilliseconds;

            request.Timeout = timeoutInMilliseconds;
            if (request is HttpWebRequest httpWebRequest)
            {
                httpWebRequest.ReadWriteTimeout = timeoutInMilliseconds;
            }

            return request;
        }
    }
}

但我推荐一个更现代的解决方案:

using System;
using System.Net.Http;
using System.Threading;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

public static async Task<string> ReadGetRequestDataAsync(Uri uri, TimeSpan? timeout = null, CancellationToken cancellationToken = default)
{
    using var source = CancellationTokenSource.CreateLinkedTokenSource(cancellationToken);
    if (timeout != null)
    {
        source.CancelAfter(timeout.Value);
    }

    using var client = new HttpClient();
    using var response = await client.GetAsync(uri, source.Token).ConfigureAwait(false);

    return await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync().ConfigureAwait(false);
}

它将在超时后抛出OperationCanceledException异常。

对于任何需要WebClient超时工作的异步/任务方法的人，建议的解决方案将不起作用。以下是有效的方法:

public class WebClientWithTimeout : WebClient
{
    //10 secs default
    public int Timeout { get; set; } = 10000;

    //for sync requests
    protected override WebRequest GetWebRequest(Uri uri)
    {
        var w = base.GetWebRequest(uri);
        w.Timeout = Timeout; //10 seconds timeout
        return w;
    }

    //the above will not work for async requests :(
    //let's create a workaround by hiding the method
    //and creating our own version of DownloadStringTaskAsync
    public new async Task<string> DownloadStringTaskAsync(Uri address)
    {
        var t = base.DownloadStringTaskAsync(address);
        if(await Task.WhenAny(t, Task.Delay(Timeout)) != t) //time out!
        {
            CancelAsync();
        }
        return await t;
    }
}

我在博客上写了完整的解决方法

为了完整起见，下面是kisp移植到VB的解决方案(不能向注释中添加代码)

Namespace Utils

''' <summary>
''' Subclass of WebClient to provide access to the timeout property
''' </summary>
Public Class WebClient
    Inherits System.Net.WebClient

    Private _TimeoutMS As Integer = 0

    Public Sub New()
        MyBase.New()
    End Sub
    Public Sub New(ByVal TimeoutMS As Integer)
        MyBase.New()
        _TimeoutMS = TimeoutMS
    End Sub
    ''' <summary>
    ''' Set the web call timeout in Milliseconds
    ''' </summary>
    ''' <value></value>
    Public WriteOnly Property setTimeout() As Integer
        Set(ByVal value As Integer)
            _TimeoutMS = value
        End Set
    End Property


    Protected Overrides Function GetWebRequest(ByVal address As System.Uri) As System.Net.WebRequest
        Dim w As System.Net.WebRequest = MyBase.GetWebRequest(address)
        If _TimeoutMS <> 0 Then
            w.Timeout = _TimeoutMS
        End If
        Return w
    End Function

End Class

End Namespace

你可以扩展超时:继承原始的WebClient类并重写webrequest getter来设置你自己的超时，如下例所示。

在我的例子中，MyWebClient是一个私有类:

private class MyWebClient : WebClient
{
    protected override WebRequest GetWebRequest(Uri uri)
    {
        WebRequest w = base.GetWebRequest(uri);
        w.Timeout = 20 * 60 * 1000;
        return w;
    }
}

正如Sohnee所说，使用System.Net.HttpWebRequest并设置Timeout属性，而不是使用System.Net.WebClient。

然而，你不能设置一个无限的超时值(它不受支持，试图这样做会抛出一个argumentoutofranceexception)。

我建议首先执行HEAD HTTP请求，检查返回的Content-Length头值，以确定您正在下载的文件中的字节数，然后为后续的GET请求相应地设置超时值，或者简单地指定一个非常长的超时值，您不会期望超过这个超时值。