diff --git a/pageserver/src/page_service.rs b/pageserver/src/page_service.rs
index a7a0d1a22e..bd3ece2dfc 100644
--- a/pageserver/src/page_service.rs
+++ b/pageserver/src/page_service.rs
@@ -256,7 +256,10 @@ async fn page_service_conn_main(
     //
     // no write timeout is used, because the kernel is assumed to error writes after some time.
     let mut socket = tokio_io_timeout::TimeoutReader::new(socket);
-    socket.set_timeout(Some(std::time::Duration::from_secs(60 * 10)));
+
+    // timeout should be lower, but trying out multiple days for
+    // <https://github.com/neondatabase/neon/issues/4205>
+    socket.set_timeout(Some(std::time::Duration::from_secs(60 * 60 * 24 * 3)));
     let socket = std::pin::pin!(socket);
 
     // XXX: pgbackend.run() should take the connection_ctx,