I ran git cl status today and got something like:

                final-try-sigh : https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/472192 (closed)
              final-try-sigh-2 : https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/472533 (unsent)
[E2017-05-25 13:36:14,430 35530 140394620774144 git_cl.py] failed to fetch status for <__main__.Changelist object at
0x7fb06c18a850>:                                                                  
Traceback (most recent call last):                                                  
  File "/usr/local/google/home/dcheng/src/depot_tools/git_cl.py", line 4006, in fetch
    return (cl, cl.GetStatus())                                                           
  File "/usr/local/google/home/dcheng/src/depot_tools/git_cl.py", line 1733, in GetStatus 
    return self._codereview_impl.GetStatus()                                             
  File "/usr/local/google/home/dcheng/src/depot_tools/git_cl.py", line 2525, in GetStatus
    'DETAILED_LABELS', 'CURRENT_REVISION', 'SUBMITTABLE'])                                     
  File "/usr/local/google/home/dcheng/src/depot_tools/git_cl.py", line 2653, in _GetChangeDetail
    self._GetGerritHost(), str(issue), options)                                       
  File "/usr/local/google/home/dcheng/src/depot_tools/gerrit_util.py", line 532, in GetChangeDetail
    return ReadHttpJsonResponse(CreateHttpConn(host, path))            
  File "/usr/local/google/home/dcheng/src/depot_tools/gerrit_util.py", line 379, in ReadHttpJsonResponse
    fh = ReadHttpResponse(conn, accept_statuses)
  File "/usr/local/google/home/dcheng/src/depot_tools/gerrit_util.py", line 337, in ReadHttpResponse
    response, contents = conn.request(**conn.req_params)
  File "/usr/local/google/home/dcheng/src/depot_tools/third_party/httplib2/__init__.py", line 1609, in request
    (response, content) = self._request(conn, authority, uri, request_uri, method, body, headers, redirections, cache
key)
  File "/usr/local/google/home/dcheng/src/depot_tools/third_party/httplib2/__init__.py", line 1351, in _request
    (response, content) = self._conn_request(conn, request_uri, method, body, headers)
  File "/usr/local/google/home/dcheng/src/depot_tools/third_party/httplib2/__init__.py", line 1307, in _conn_request
    response = conn.getresponse()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 1089, in getresponse
    response.begin()
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 444, in begin
    version, status, reason = self._read_status() 
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 400, in _read_status
    line = self.fp.readline(_MAXLINE + 1)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/socket.py", line 476, in readline
    data = self._sock.recv(self._rbufsize)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/ssl.py", line 341, in recv
    return self.read(buflen)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/ssl.py", line 260, in read
    return self._sslobj.read(len)
SSLError: The read operation timed out

I ran it again and got:
                final-try-sigh : https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/472192 (broken) (error)
              final-try-sigh-2 : https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/472533 (broken) (error)
              final-try-sigh-3 : https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/472428 (broken) (error)
             initiator-awesome : None 

It's not clear why the exceptions sometimes aren't caught.