diff --git a/youtube_dl/downloader/http.py b/youtube_dl/downloader/http.py
index 04da14d91..96379caf1 100644
--- a/youtube_dl/downloader/http.py
+++ b/youtube_dl/downloader/http.py
@@ -241,7 +241,7 @@ class HttpFD(FileDownloader):
                 except socket.error as e:
                     # SSLError on python 2 (inherits socket.error) may have
                     # no errno set but this error message
-                    if e.errno in (errno.ECONNRESET, errno.ETIMEDOUT) or getattr(e, 'message') == 'The read operation timed out':
+                    if e.errno in (errno.ECONNRESET, errno.ETIMEDOUT) or getattr(e, 'message', None) == 'The read operation timed out':
                         retry(e)
                     raise