diff --git a/DOCS/man/options.rst b/DOCS/man/options.rst
index 6a73ac7a85..aaabed7696 100644
--- a/DOCS/man/options.rst
+++ b/DOCS/man/options.rst
@@ -3127,6 +3127,18 @@ Demuxer
     the first song in the stream. Well, you won't get anything useful either
     way if the seek is outside of mpv's cache.
 
+``--demuxer-lavf-propagate-opts=<yes|no>``
+    Propagate FFmpeg-level options to recursively opened connections (default:
+    yes). This is needed because FFmpeg will apply these settings to nested
+    AVIO contexts automatically. On the other hand, this could break in certain
+    situations - it's the FFmpeg API, you just can't win.
+
+    This affects in particular the ``--timeout`` option and anything passed
+    with ``--demuxer-lavf-o``.
+
+    If this option is deemed unnecessary at some point in the future, it will
+    be removed without notice.
+
 ``--demuxer-mkv-subtitle-preroll=<yes|index|no>``, ``--mkv-subtitle-preroll``
     Try harder to show embedded soft subtitles when seeking somewhere. Normally,
     it can happen that the subtitle at the seek target is not shown due to how
diff --git a/demux/demux_lavf.c b/demux/demux_lavf.c
index 5153bfe42f..5f9d5a3781 100644
--- a/demux/demux_lavf.c
+++ b/demux/demux_lavf.c
@@ -79,6 +79,7 @@ struct demux_lavf_opts {
     char *sub_cp;
     int rtsp_transport;
     int linearize_ts;
+    int propagate_opts;
 };
 
 const struct m_sub_options demux_lavf_conf = {
@@ -104,6 +105,7 @@ const struct m_sub_options demux_lavf_conf = {
                 {"http", 3})),
         OPT_CHOICE("demuxer-lavf-linearize-timestamps", linearize_ts, 0,
                    ({"no", 0}, {"auto", -1}, {"yes", 1})),
+        OPT_FLAG("demuxer-lavf-propagate-opts", propagate_opts, 0),
         {0}
     },
     .size = sizeof(struct demux_lavf_opts),
@@ -118,6 +120,7 @@ const struct m_sub_options demux_lavf_conf = {
         .sub_cp = "auto",
         .rtsp_transport = 2,
         .linearize_ts = -1,
+        .propagate_opts = 1,
     },
 };
 
@@ -232,6 +235,8 @@ typedef struct lavf_priv {
     int linearize_ts;
     bool any_ts_fixed;
 
+    AVDictionary *av_opts;
+
     // Proxying nested streams.
     struct nested_stream *nested;
     int num_nested;
@@ -851,8 +856,27 @@ static int nested_io_open(struct AVFormatContext *s, AVIOContext **pb,
     struct demuxer *demuxer = s->opaque;
     lavf_priv_t *priv = demuxer->priv;
 
+    if (priv->opts->propagate_opts) {
+        // Copy av_opts to options, but only entries that are not present in
+        // options. (Hope this will break less by not overwriting important
+        // settings.)
+        AVDictionaryEntry *cur = NULL;
+        while ((cur = av_dict_get(priv->av_opts, "", cur, AV_DICT_IGNORE_SUFFIX)))
+        {
+            if (!*options || !av_dict_get(*options, cur->key, NULL, 0)) {
+                MP_TRACE(demuxer, "Nested option: '%s'='%s'\n",
+                         cur->key, cur->value);
+                av_dict_set(options, cur->key, cur->value, 0);
+            } else {
+                MP_TRACE(demuxer, "Skipping nested option: '%s'\n", cur->key);
+            }
+        }
+    }
+
     int r = priv->default_io_open(s, pb, url, flags, options);
     if (r >= 0) {
+        if (options)
+            mp_avdict_print_unset(demuxer->log, MSGL_TRACE, *options);
         struct nested_stream nest = {
             .id = *pb,
         };
@@ -972,16 +996,19 @@ static int demux_open_lavf(demuxer_t *demuxer, enum demux_check check)
     if (demuxer->access_references) {
         priv->default_io_open = avfc->io_open;
         priv->default_io_close = avfc->io_close;
-#if !HAVE_FFMPEG_STRICT_ABI
         avfc->io_open = nested_io_open;
         avfc->io_close = nested_io_close;
-#endif
     } else {
         avfc->io_open = block_io_open;
     }
 
     mp_set_avdict(&dopts, lavfdopts->avopts);
 
+    if (av_dict_copy(&priv->av_opts, dopts, 0) < 0) {
+        av_dict_free(&dopts);
+        return -1;
+    }
+
     if (avformat_open_input(&avfc, priv->filename, priv->avif, &dopts) < 0) {
         MP_ERR(demuxer, "avformat_open_input() failed\n");
         av_dict_free(&dopts);