HTTP Post causes error (60 sec timeout)

I use gradio to test my code (not part of spaces, stand-alone gradio app). I call openAI (gpt4-vision) and the HTTPS post call appears to time out. (i tested the code without gradio - execution from the command line. the program works fine. When I call from gradio front-end the requests. POST call gets 400 response and times out. I have app.queue() enabled. Any help / suggestion will be very highly apprecaited.