python Time a try except

Check the documentation

import urllib2
request = urllib2.Request('http://www.yoursite.com')
try:
    response = urllib2.urlopen(request, timeout=4)
    content = response.read()
except urllib2.URLError, e:
    print e

If you want to catch more specific errors check this post

or alternatively for requests

import requests
try:
    r = requests.get(url,timeout=4)
except requests.exceptions.Timeout as e:
    # Maybe set up for a retry
    print e

except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e:
    print e

More about exceptions while using requests can be found in docs or in this post

A generic solution if you are using UNIX:

import time as time
import signal

#Close session
def handler(signum, frame):
    print 1
    raise Exception('Action took too much time')


signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM, handler)
signal.alarm(3) #Set the parameter to the amount of seconds you want to wait

try:
    #RUN CODE HERE

    for i in range(0,5):
        time.sleep(1)
except:
    print 2

signal.alarm(10) #Resets the alarm to 10 new seconds
signal.alarm(0) #Disables the alarm