When the path to the build directory appears to be in a deep path the system is unable to connect to the bitbake socket.

To reproduce this:

mkdir -p \
/home/fray/testsuite/project/aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa/bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb/ccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccc/dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd/eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

cd <same long path>

git clone https://git.yoctoproject.org/poky

. ./poky/oe-init-build-env build
bitbake-layers add-layer <long_path>/poky/meta-skeleton

Result
NOTE: Starting bitbake server...
NOTE: No reply from server in 30s
NOTE: No reply from server in 30s
Timeout while waiting for a reply from the bitbake server (60s)


Change to a shorter path (repeat this while in the 'cccccc...ccccc' path) and it works.

It appears that this may be related to connecting to the socket.