Nginx upstream prematurely closed connection while reading response header from upstream, for large requests

I solved this by setting a higher timeout value for the proxy:

location / {
    proxy_read_timeout 300s;
    proxy_connect_timeout 75s;
    proxy_pass http://localhost:3000;
}

Documentation: https://nginx.org/en/docs/http/ngx_http_proxy_module.html

I think that error from Nginx is indicating that the connection was closed by your nodejs server (i.e., "upstream"). How is nodejs configured?

I had the same error for quite a while, and here what fixed it for me.

I simply declared in service that i use what follows:

Description= Your node service description
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=forking
PIDFile=/tmp/node_pid_name.pid
Restart=on-failure
KillSignal=SIGQUIT
WorkingDirectory=/path/to/node/app/root/directory
ExecStart=/path/to/node /path/to/server.js

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

What should catch your attention here is "After=network.target". I spent days and days looking for fixes on nginx side, while the problem was just that. To be sure, stop running the node service you have, launch the ExecStart command directly and try to reproduce the bug. If it doesn't pop, it just means that your service has a problem. At least this is how i found my answer.

For everybody else, good luck!

I don't think this is your case, but I'll post it if it helps anyone. I had the same issue and the problem was that Node didn't respond at all (I had a condition that when failed didn't do anything - so no response) - So if increasing all your timeouts didn't solve it, make sure all scenarios get a response.