We probably should upgrade the RethinkDB to the latest version. We saw those connection issues on occasion with one of the RethinkDBs we're running for a client a couple weeks ago. I talked to the Rethink people and they suggested the problem was likely something that they'd already fixed in 1.11 (we were still on 1.10 with that client). I upgraded and we've never had the problem again. Are you trying this on your local Rethink server? What version are you running?