I am experiencing the same TimeoutError problems with Avahi between client Linux Mint 18 and service provider Raspbian 9 (stretch), but my issues are intermittent, but seem to be often after a reboot of the Rasbian pc.
I have noticed that when the Avahi-Discover (sudo apt install avahi-discover on the client) shows the service but WITHOUT any data, then that is when I get the TimeoutError, so I simply repeat "service avahi-daemon restart" (on the avahi service provider) until I get data in the avahi-discover on the client.
This is not a solution, but it is a fix. And I need to get on with other work that uses the avahi service, not spend time resolving avahi issues. I have found very few solutions on the internet, but lots of unresolved examples. and this for me has been going on for weeks now, as has my investigations. I hope this fix helps and starts more discussions into resolving this annoying issue.