The documentation for tRest states that you can increase the timeout in studio on the component but this will not work on the server and you need to edit a config file.
This option does not work in Talend Runtime. For ESB Deployments to Talend Runtime, this parameter will have no effect. In the configuration file <TalendRuntimePath>/container/etc/org.apache.cxf.http.conduits-common.cfg, you need a URL which covers you service, for example, url = http://.* to handle both HTTP and HTTPS requests, and specify the client.ConnectionTimeout parameter in milliseconds in this HTTP Conduit file. If you need to use the Receive timeout option, specify the client.ReceiveTimeout in milliseconds too.
but i can't find the file org.apache.cxf.http.conduits-common.cfg anywhere, there isn't even a container directory i can see on the server.
The behavior you are seeing is expected and depends on how the REST service is deployed.
The file org.apache.cxf.http.conduits-common.cfg is only used when the service is deployed on Talend Runtime (ESB / Karaf). It will not exist if the job or service is executed from Talend Studio, as a standalone job, or in Talend Cloud.
Why the file is missing
The container/ directory and CXF .cfg files are created only in Talend Runtime (Apache Karaf).
If you do not have a Talend Runtime installation, there is no server-side CXF configuration to modify.
In these cases, only component-level timeout settings (tRest / tRESTClient) apply.
When the CXF configuration applies
If the service is deployed as a Talend Route on Talend Runtime, you can configure server-side timeouts by creating or editing:<TalendRuntime>/container/etc/org.apache.cxf.http.conduits-common.cfg
