diff --git a/DESCRIPTION b/DESCRIPTION
index 257b420..a0e335c 100644
--- a/DESCRIPTION
+++ b/DESCRIPTION
@@ -45,6 +45,7 @@
     keyring,
     utils,
     httr,
+    curl,
     methods,
     PTXQC,
     purrr,
diff --git a/NAMESPACE b/NAMESPACE
index 9420cc0..bb89cd8 100644
--- a/NAMESPACE
+++ b/NAMESPACE
@@ -54,6 +54,7 @@
 importFrom(PTXQC,lcpCount)
 importFrom(PTXQC,lcsCount)
 importFrom(broom,tidy)
+importFrom(curl,has_internet)
 importFrom(dplyr,.data)
 importFrom(dplyr,anti_join)
 importFrom(dplyr,arrange)
diff --git a/R/KorAPConnection.R b/R/KorAPConnection.R
index e4a1ed2..61e0614 100644
--- a/R/KorAPConnection.R
+++ b/R/KorAPConnection.R
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 # Use setClassUnion to define the unholy NULL-data union as a virtual class.
 ################################################################################
 setClassUnion("characterOrNULL", c("character", "NULL"))
+setClassUnion("listOrNULL", c("list", "NULL"))
 
 #' Class KorAPConnection
 #'
@@ -12,7 +13,7 @@
 #' @import utils
 #' @import methods
 #' @export
-KorAPConnection <- setClass("KorAPConnection", slots=c(KorAPUrl="character", apiVersion="character", indexRevision="characterOrNULL", apiUrl="character", accessToken="characterOrNULL", userAgent="character", timeout="numeric", verbose="logical", cache="logical"))
+KorAPConnection <- setClass("KorAPConnection", slots=c(KorAPUrl="character", apiVersion="character", indexRevision="characterOrNULL", apiUrl="character", accessToken="characterOrNULL", userAgent="character", timeout="numeric", verbose="logical", cache="logical", welcome="listOrNULL"))
 
 #' @param .Object KorAPConnection object
 #' @param KorAPUrl the URL of the KorAP server instance you want to access.
@@ -80,9 +81,11 @@
             .Object@timeout = timeout
             .Object@verbose = verbose
             .Object@cache = cache
-            welcome <- apiCall(.Object, .Object@apiUrl, json = FALSE, cache = FALSE, getHeaders = TRUE)
-            message(welcome[[2]])
-            .Object@indexRevision <- welcome[[1]][["x-index-revision"]]
+            .Object@welcome = apiCall(.Object, .Object@apiUrl, json = FALSE, cache = FALSE, getHeaders = TRUE)
+            if (!is.null(.Object@welcome)) {
+              message(.Object@welcome[[2]])
+            }
+            .Object@indexRevision <- .Object@welcome[[1]][["x-index-revision"]]
             .Object
           })
 
@@ -175,8 +178,9 @@
 #' @param json logical that determines if json result is expected
 #' @param getHeaders logical that determines if headers and content should be returned (as a list)
 #' @importFrom jsonlite fromJSON
+#' @importFrom curl has_internet
 #' @export
-setMethod("apiCall", "KorAPConnection",  function(kco, url, json = TRUE, getHeaders = FALSE, cache = kco@cache) {
+setMethod("apiCall", "KorAPConnection",  function(kco, url, json = TRUE, getHeaders = FALSE, cache = kco@cache, timeout=kco@timeout) {
   result <- ""
   if (cache) {
     result <- R.cache::loadCache(dir=KorAPCacheSubDir(), key=list(url, kco@accessToken, kco@indexRevision))
@@ -186,32 +190,60 @@
       return(result)
     }
   }
+
+  # From https://community.rstudio.com/t/internet-resources-should-fail-gracefully/49199/11
+  # Thanks to kvasilopoulos
+  try_GET <- function(x, ...) {
+    tryCatch(
+      GET(url = x, timeout(timeout), ...),
+      error = function(e) conditionMessage(e),
+      warning = function(w) conditionMessage(w)
+    )
+  }
+  is_response <- function(x) {
+    class(x) == "response"
+  }
+
+  # First check internet connection
+  if (!curl::has_internet()) {
+    message("No internet connection.")
+    return(invisible(NULL))
+  }
+
   if (!is.null(kco@accessToken))
-    resp <- GET(url, user_agent(kco@userAgent), timeout(kco@timeout), add_headers(Authorization = paste("Bearer", kco@accessToken)))
+    resp <- try_GET(url, user_agent(kco@userAgent), timeout(timeout), add_headers(Authorization = paste("Bearer", kco@accessToken)))
   else
-    resp <- GET(url, user_agent(kco@userAgent), timeout(kco@timeout))
+    resp <- try_GET(url, user_agent(kco@userAgent), timeout(timeout))
+
+  if (!is_response(resp)) {
+    message(resp)
+    return(invisible(NULL))
+  }
   if (json || status_code(resp) != 200) {
     if (json && !http_type(resp) %in% c("application/json", "application/ld+json")) {
-      stop("API did not return json", call. = FALSE)
+      # message("API did not return json")
+      return(invisible(NULL))
     }
     result <- jsonlite::fromJSON(content(resp, "text", encoding = "UTF-8"))
     if (!is.null(result$warnings)) {
-      message <- if (nrow(result$warnings) > 1)
+      msg <- if (nrow(result$warnings) > 1)
         sapply(result$warnings, function(warning) paste(sprintf("%s: %s", warning[1], warning[2]), sep="\n"))
       else
         sprintf("%s: %s", result$warnings[1], result$warnings[2])
-      warning(message, call. = FALSE)
+      message(msg)
     }
   }
   if (status_code(resp) != 200) {
     if (kco@verbose) {
       cat("\n")
     }
-    message <- sprintf("%s KorAP API request failed", status_code(resp))
+    msg <- sprintf("%s KorAP API request failed", status_code(resp))
     if (!is.null(result$errors)) {
-      message <- sprintf("%s - %s %s", message, result$errors[1], result$errors[2])
+      errormsg <- unlist(result$errors)
+      msg <- sprintf("%s: %s %s", msg, errormsg[5], errormsg[2])
     }
-    stop(message, call. = FALSE)
+    message(msg)
+    return(invisible(NULL))
   }
   if (!json) {
     result <- content(resp, "text", encoding = "UTF-8")
diff --git a/R/KorAPCorpusStats.R b/R/KorAPCorpusStats.R
index 7d299ca..68e1103 100644
--- a/R/KorAPCorpusStats.R
+++ b/R/KorAPCorpusStats.R
@@ -47,6 +47,9 @@
              URLencode(enc2utf8(vc), reserved = TRUE))
     log.info(verbose, "Getting size of virtual corpus \"", vc, "\"", sep = "")
     res <- apiCall(kco, url)
+    if(is.null(res)) {
+      res <- data.frame(documents=NA, tokens=NA, sentences=NA, paragraphs=NA)
+    }
     log.info(verbose, ": ", res$tokens, " tokens\n")
     if (as.df)
       data.frame(vc = vc, res, stringsAsFactors = FALSE)
diff --git a/R/KorAPQuery.R b/R/KorAPQuery.R
index 9bab575..eb2afbd 100644
--- a/R/KorAPQuery.R
+++ b/R/KorAPQuery.R
@@ -188,15 +188,22 @@
       log.info(verbose, "Searching \"", query, "\" in \"", vc, "\"", sep =
                  "")
       res = apiCall(kco, paste0(requestUrl, '&count=0'))
-      log.info(verbose, ": ", res$meta$totalResults, " hits")
-      if(!is.null(res$meta$cached))
-        log.info(verbose, " [cached]\n")
-      else
-        log.info(verbose, ", took ", res$meta$benchmark, "\n", sep = "")
+      if (is.null(res)) {
+        log.info(verbose, " [failed]\n")
+        message("API call failed.")
+        totalResults <- 0
+      } else {
+        totalResults <-res$meta$totalResults
+        log.info(verbose, ": ", totalResults, " hits")
+        if(!is.null(res$meta$cached))
+          log.info(verbose, " [cached]\n")
+        else
+          log.info(verbose, ", took ", res$meta$benchmark, "\n", sep = "")
+      }
       if (as.df)
         data.frame(
           query = query,
-          totalResults = res$meta$totalResults,
+          totalResults = totalResults,
           vc = vc,
           webUIRequestUrl = webUIRequestUrl,
           stringsAsFactors = FALSE
@@ -208,11 +215,11 @@
           fields = fields,
           requestUrl = requestUrl,
           request = request,
-          totalResults = res$meta$totalResults,
+          totalResults = totalResults,
           vc = vc,
           apiResponse = res,
           webUIRequestUrl = webUIRequestUrl,
-          hasMoreMatches = (res$meta$totalResults > 0),
+          hasMoreMatches = (totalResults > 0),
         )
     }
   })
diff --git a/R/ci.R b/R/ci.R
index a0c04f7..19f8615 100644
--- a/R/ci.R
+++ b/R/ci.R
@@ -40,8 +40,12 @@
   x <- enquo(x)
   N <- enquo(N)
   nas <- df %>%
-    dplyr::filter(total <= 0) %>%
+    dplyr::filter(is.na(total) | total <= 0) %>%
     mutate(f = NA, conf.low = NA, conf.high = NA)
+
+  if (nrow(df) == nrow(nas))
+    return(nas)
+
   df %>%
     dplyr::filter(total > 0) %>%
     rowwise %>%
diff --git a/man/KorAPConnection-class.Rd b/man/KorAPConnection-class.Rd
index 75a165e..13ebf7e 100644
--- a/man/KorAPConnection-class.Rd
+++ b/man/KorAPConnection-class.Rd
@@ -32,7 +32,14 @@
 
 \S4method{clearAccessToken}{KorAPConnection}(kco)
 
-\S4method{apiCall}{KorAPConnection}(kco, url, json = TRUE, getHeaders = FALSE, cache = kco@cache)
+\S4method{apiCall}{KorAPConnection}(
+  kco,
+  url,
+  json = TRUE,
+  getHeaders = FALSE,
+  cache = kco@cache,
+  timeout = kco@timeout
+)
 
 \S4method{clearCache}{KorAPConnection}(kco)
 
diff --git a/tests/testthat/test-KorAPConnection.R b/tests/testthat/test-KorAPConnection.R
index c96805d..9eea61f 100644
--- a/tests/testthat/test-KorAPConnection.R
+++ b/tests/testthat/test-KorAPConnection.R
@@ -1,5 +1,14 @@
+test_that("KorAPConnection fails gracefully on unresolvable host", {
+  expect_message(new("KorAPConnection", apiUrl="http://xxx.asdhsahdsadhvgas.org"), "No internet|Could not resolve")
+})
+
+test_that("KorAPConnection fails gracefully on timeout", {
+  expect_message(new("KorAPConnection", apiUrl="http://httpbin.org/delay/3", timeout = 1), "No internet|Timeout")
+})
+
 test_that("KorAPConnection is printable", {
-  kco <- new("KorAPConnection")
+  kco <- new("KorAPConnection", timeout = 10)
+  skip_if(is.null(kco@welcome))
   expect_error(print(kco), NA)
 })
 
@@ -7,22 +16,23 @@
   expect_message(new("KorAPConnection"), "KorAP")
 })
 
-test_that("Opening KorAPConnection with invalid apiToken fails", {
-  expect_error(new("KorAPConnection", accessToken="test token"),
-               "401")
+test_that("Opening KorAPConnection with invalid apiToken fails gracefully", {
+  expect_message(new("KorAPConnection", accessToken="test token", timeout = 10),
+               "401|Timeout")
 })
 
 test_that("Persisting null apiToken fails", {
-  kco <- new("KorAPConnection")
+  kco <- new("KorAPConnection", timeout = 10)
   skip_if_not(is.null(kco@accessToken))
+  skip_if(is.null(kco@welcome))
   expect_error(persistAccessToken(kco),
                ".*not supplied any access token.*",
                perl = TRUE)
 })
 
 test_that("Opening KorAPConnection with KorAPUrl works", {
-  kco <- new("KorAPConnection", KorAPUrl="https://korap.ids-mannheim.de")
+  kco <- new("KorAPConnection", KorAPUrl="https://korap.ids-mannheim.de", timeout = 1)
   expect_equal(kco@apiUrl, paste0("https://korap.ids-mannheim.de/api/", kco@apiVersion, "/"))
-  kco <- new("KorAPConnection", KorAPUrl="https://korap.ids-mannheim.de/")
+  kco <- new("KorAPConnection", KorAPUrl="https://korap.ids-mannheim.de/", timeout = 1)
   expect_equal(kco@apiUrl, paste0("https://korap.ids-mannheim.de/api/", kco@apiVersion, "/"))
 })