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Client side is not sending message to server Java Socket

I am learning about sockets in java, but when I was running a program that sends messages from the client side to server side it doesn't show a message. If I enter some text on the client side it doesn't show up on the server side, but if I type endProcess it stops running. Which means that the message is going through it's just not showing up.
My Client.java code is here:
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
public class Client{
Socket soc;
DataInputStream dis;
DataOutputStream dos;
public Client(){
try{
soc = new Socket("(Address)",5000);
System.out.println("Connection Established");
dis = new DataInputStream(System.in);
dos = new DataOutputStream(soc.getOutputStream());
System.out.println("Streams connected");
}catch(UnknownHostException u){
System.out.println(u);
}catch(IOException i){
System.out.println(i);
}
String line = "";
while(!line.equals("endConnection")){
try{
line = dis.readUTF();
dos.writeUTF(line);
}catch(IOException i){
System.out.println(i);
}
}
try {
soc.close();
dis.close();
dos.close();
} catch (Exception e) {
System.out.println(e)
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
new Client();
}
}
Here is my Server.java code:
import java.net.*;
import java.io.*;
public class Server {
ServerSocket serSoc;
Socket soc;
DataInputStream dis;
public Server(){
try {
serSoc = new ServerSocket(5000);
System.out.println("Server Online");
soc = serSoc.accept();
System.out.println("Client Connected");
dis = new DataInputStream(new BufferedInputStream(soc.getInputStream()));
String line = "";
System.out.println("Waiting for input...");
while(!line.equals("endConnection")){
line = dis.readUTF();
System.out.println(line);
}
System.out.println("Client disconnected");
soc.close();
dis.close();
} catch (Exception e) {
System.out.println(e);
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
new Server();
}
}

There are many problems here.
Duplex protocol issues
line = dis.readUTF();
dos.writeUTF(line);
This isn't going to work; The dis.readUTF() line is going to block (freeze) until a line is read. The problem is, sometimes you have nothing to send in which case you want to read, and something you have nothing to read in which case you want to send. In practice you need to redesign this entirely; you need 2 threads. At which point you get into the issues of multicore, needing synchronization primitives and/or java.util.concurrent classes for all data that is shared between the 2 threads.
Alternatively, adopt a model that is strictly push or pull (where at any given time both parties already know who can send, and if the other party wants to send they simply cannot. For example, every party sends a simply 'NOTHING TO DO' message every second, trading places every time. This is quite an inefficient algorithm, of course. But could be written without involving multiple threads.
Flush and close issues
dos.writeUTF(line);
This doesn't actually send anything, or at least, isn't guaranteed to. To send any data on the internet, it gets wrapped in a packet which has lots of overhead. So, things are buffered until there's a full packet to send. Which means that line doesn't do anything. It just fills a buffer, no packets go out. You first need to close or flush. dos.flush() would help maybe. This is a big problem, because later you do:
soc.close();
dis.close();
dos.close();
You first close the socket, which, well, closes the socket. You then close the streams, which will also send anything that's still stuck in a buffer, except, that will fail, because the socket is already closed. In other words, the line you .writeUTF()-ed? It never gets there. You first shove it in a buffer, then you close the socket, then you send the buffer which won't work as the socket is already closed.
Broken error handling
} catch (Exception e) {
System.out.println(e);
}
Horrible. Don't do this. Your code reacts to any problem by printing something and just keeping right on going. That means if anything goes wrong, the client will start spamming an endless cavalcade of exception traces and locking up the system with any luck. You want the code to stop running when problems occur. Easiest way, by far, is to just stick throws IOException on your constructor and main method, which is allowed. Distant second best option is to configure your 'eh whatever' catch blocks as throw new RuntimeException("unhandled", e); instead of e.printStackTrace().
What you do (System.out.println(e);) is even worse - you are tossing away extremely useful information such as the stack trace and causal chain.

How to stream data from one part of a Java program to another?

I've learned in Java how to stream data over a network connection using ServerSocket and Socket, such as:
Client.java:
Socket socket = new Socket(address, port);
int i;
while ((i = System.in.read()) != -1)
socket.getOutputStream().write(i);
Server.java:
ServerSocket server = new ServerSocket(port);
Socket socket = server.accept();
int i;
while ((i = socket.getInputStream().read()) != -1)
System.out.println(i);
This would simply have Client blocking on System.in.read() at one end, and Server blocking on socket.getInputStream().read() at the other, and the bytes get passed when ENTER is pressed in the Client program.
How would I accomplish something similar within a single program, without using Sockets? For example, if I had Thread A waiting on keyboard input which is then streamed to Thread B which is able to "consume" the bytes at an arbitrary time in the future, just as Server (above) is able to consume bytes from socket.getInputStream() at some arbitrary time?
Is PipedInput/OutputStream the right solution for this, or ByteArrayInput/OutputStream, or something else? Or am I overthinking it?

Yes, you can use PipedInputStream/PipedOutputStream for "streaming" data "locally" in your JVM. You create one PipedInputStream and one PipedOutputStream instance, connect them with the connect() method and start sending/receiving bytes. Check the following example:
PipedInputStream pipedIn = new PipedInputStream();
PipedOutputStream pipedOut = new PipedOutputStream();
pipedIn.connect(pipedOut);
Thread keyboardReadingThread = new Thread() {
#Override
public void run() {
System.out.println("Enter some data:");
Scanner s = new Scanner(System.in);
String line = s.nextLine();
System.out.println("Entered line: "+line);
byte[] bytes = line.getBytes(StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
try {
pipedOut.write(bytes);
pipedOut.flush();
pipedOut.close();
} catch (IOException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
System.out.println("Keyboard reading thread terminated");
}
};
keyboardReadingThread.start();
Thread streamReadingThread = new Thread() {
#Override
public void run() {
try {
int bytesRead = 0;
byte[] targetBytes = new byte[100];
System.out.println("Read data from the PipedInputStream instance");
while ((bytesRead = pipedIn.read(targetBytes)) != -1) {
System.out.println("read "+bytesRead+" bytes");
String s = new String(targetBytes, 0, bytesRead, StandardCharsets.UTF_8);
System.out.println("Received string: "+s);
}
} catch (IOException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
System.out.println("Streaming reading thread terminated");
}
};
streamReadingThread.start();
keyboardReadingThread.join();
streamReadingThread.join();
First the two piped stream instances are connected. After that two threads will read from the keyboard and read from the PipedInputStream instance. When you run your application you will get an output similar to this (with Some example input for testing being the keyboard input):
Enter some data:
Read data from the PipedInputStream instance
Some example input for testing
Entered line: Some example input for testing
Keyboard reading thread terminated
read 30 bytes
Received string: Some example input for testing
Streaming reading thread terminated
Also notice that the threads are not synchronized in any way, so the System.out.println() statements might get executed in a different order.

This is mostly an extension of the answer #VGR gave in the comments.
If the entirety of your "Network" exists within the same, single JVM, then you don't need anything like sockets at all - you can just use Objects and methods.
The entire point of Sockets was to allow the JVM to perform actions outside of itself (typically with another JVM somewhere in the outside world).
So unless you are trying to interact with objects outside of your current JVM, it is as simple as this.
public class ClientServerExample
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
Server server = new Server();
Client client = new Client();
client.sendMessage("Hello Server", server);
}
static class Server
{
String respond(String input)
{
String output = "";
System.out.println("Server received the following message -- {" + input + "}");
//do something
return output;
}
}
static class Client
{
void sendMessage(String message, Server server)
{
System.out.println("Client is about to send the following message to the server -- {" + message + "}");
String response = server.respond(message);
System.out.println("Client received the following response from the server -- {" + response + "}");
//maybe do stuff with the response
}
}
}
Here is the result from running it.
Client is about to send the following message to the server -- {Hello Server}
Server received the following message -- {Hello Server}
Client received the following response from the server -- {}
Note that server doesn't return anything because I didn't do anything in the server. Replace that comment with some code of your own and you will see the results.
EDIT - to better explain a real world example, where a server will respond to requests in FIFO, here is a modified version of the above example.
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.concurrent.CompletableFuture;
public class ClientServerExample
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
System.out.println("===========STARTING SYNCHRONOUS COMMUNICATION============");
synchronousCommunication();
System.out.println("===========FINISHED SYNCHRONOUS COMMUNICATION============");
System.out.println("===========STARTING ASYNCHRONOUS COMMUNICATION============");
asynchronousCommunication();
System.out.println("===========FINISHED ASYNCHRONOUS COMMUNICATION============");
}
public static void synchronousCommunication()
{
Server server = new Server();
Client client = new Client();
String response = "";
response = client.sendMessage("Good morning Server!", server).join();
System.out.println("Client received the following response from the server -- {" + response + "}");
response = client.sendMessage("Good evening Server!", server).join();
System.out.println("Client received the following response from the server -- {" + response + "}");
}
public static void asynchronousCommunication()
{
Server server = new Server();
Client client = new Client();
List<CompletableFuture<String>> responses = new ArrayList<>();
responses.add(client.sendMessage("Good morning Server!", server));
responses.add(client.sendMessage("Good evening Server!", server));
for (CompletableFuture<String> eachResponse : responses)
{
System.out.println("Client received the following response from the server -- {" + eachResponse.join() + "}");
}
}
static class Server
{
CompletableFuture<String> respond(final String input)
{
System.out.println("Server received the following message -- {" + input + "}");
return
CompletableFuture.supplyAsync(
() ->
{
try
{
//sleep for 2 seconds, to represent arbitrary delay in receiver processing
Thread.sleep(2000);
return input.contains("morning") ? "Good morning to you too!" : "Good evening to you too!";
}
catch (Exception e)
{
throw new IllegalStateException("What happened?", e);
}
});
}
}
static class Client
{
CompletableFuture<String> sendMessage(String message, Server server)
{
System.out.println("Client is about to send the following message to the server -- {" + message + "}");
return server.respond(message);
}
}
}
Both of these examples are performing a FIFO approach to data processing. They receive the request, calculate a response, and then send back a CompletableFuture, which is basically an Object that contains the response that will arrive once the Server gets around to it, sort of like a Promise in Javascript.
For the synchronous example, we see that a client message is sent, and then processed before the next one is sent. As a result, we have a minor delay between the 2 (about 2 seconds).
For the asynchronous example, we see that both client messages are sent, and their CompletableFutures are put into a batch list, which is converted to normal strings once all requests have been sent.
The synchronous example takes around 10 seconds.
The asynchronous example takes around 5 seconds.
Both of these are different ways of performing FIFO in the way that you described. They both are examples where multiple clients send a request to the server, and then the server finishes them when they get around to it. That 5 seconds delay is meant to represent the idea of "getting around to it". In reality, getting around to it usually means that the server has so much on it's plate that it will take a long time before it has a chance to give a full response.
Let me know if you need another example to better help you understand.

Client connects but cant send message to the server.[Console Chat]

I tried to make a console chat server. the main problem i am facing is that i can not send the message to the server.. as you can see in the img i uploaded that the server and the client are connected. but when i type anything in the client side. The client becomes unresponsive and i have to close the cmd prompt.
How can i fix this?
Is something wrong with my computer or is the code wrong?
public class MyClient
{
Socket s ;
DataInputStream din ;
DataOutputStream dout;
public MyClient()
{
try
{
s= new Socket("localhost",10);
System.out.println(s);
din = new DataInputStream(s.getInputStream());
dout= new DataOutputStream(s.getOutputStream());
ClientChat();
}
catch(Exception e)
{
System.err.println(e);
}
}
public void ClientChat() throws IOException
{
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));
//Scanner s2 = new Scanner(System.in);
String s1;
System.out.println("start the conversation");
do
{
s1=br.readLine();
//s1=s2.nextLine();
dout.flush();
System.out.println("server:"+din.readUTF());
}
while(!s1.equals("stop"));
}
public static void main (String args[])
{
new MyClient();
}
}

The code snippet never calls dout.write*(), so nothing is ever sent over the Socket.
readLine() will block until a line of text is read, so messages sent to the client won't be printed until after the client types a 2nd line of text. You can fix this either by using asynchronous I/O or by moving the read loop into it's own Thread.

You need to make the server and client a thread, so they can work independently.
server as thread will wait for a client connections and will receive messages.
client as thread will work on its own.
problem is that they cannot run concurrently.

Use dout.writeUTF(s1); inside the do loop.
The writeUTF will allow you to write the subsequent message till then It will be stuck at readutf function.
The java.io.DataOuputStream.writeUTF(String str) method writes a string to the underlying output stream using modified UTF-8 encoding. Refer to this

Code running stuck at scanner.hasNextLine()

I try to make a little Server-Client connection.
They both have a Scanner and a PrintWriter, and they are writing to each other using a Socket's input and output stream.
Client.java:
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.net.ServerSocket;
import java.net.Socket;
import java.net.UnknownHostException;
import java.util.Scanner;
public class Client {
static ServerSocket serverSocket;
static Socket socket;
static PrintWriter printWriter;
static Scanner scanner;
public static void main(String[] args) throws UnknownHostException, IOException {
socket = new Socket("localhost", 13344);
scanner = new Scanner(socket.getInputStream());
printWriter = new PrintWriter(socket.getOutputStream());
printWriter.println("dataline 1");
printWriter.println("dataline 2");
printWriter.println("dataline 3");
printWriter.flush();
//Error!? => I never got the echo from server in output
while (scanner.hasNextLine()) {
String lineRead = scanner.nextLine();
System.out.println("From server" + lineRead);
}
socket.close();
scanner.close();
printWriter.close();
System.out.println("Client has quit.");
}
}
Server.java
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.PrintWriter;
import java.net.ServerSocket;
import java.net.Socket;
import java.util.Scanner;
public class Server {
static ServerSocket serverSocket;
static Socket socket;
static PrintWriter printWriter;
static Scanner scanner;
public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
serverSocket = new ServerSocket(13344);
System.out.println("Waiting for Client to connect");
socket = serverSocket.accept();
scanner = new Scanner(socket.getInputStream());
printWriter = new PrintWriter(socket.getOutputStream());
System.out.println("Client has connected!!");
while (scanner.hasNextLine()) {
String lineRead = scanner.nextLine();
System.out.println("From Client: " + lineRead);
}
//Error!? => This line never runs
System.out.println("Now sending echo to Client");
printWriter.println("Echo from server1");
printWriter.println("Echo from server2");
printWriter.flush();
socket.close();
printWriter.close();
scanner.close();
System.out.println("Server has quit.");
}
}
I start the server: java Server.java
I start the client: java Client.java
Server's output:
Waiting for client to connect
Client has connected!!
From Client: dataline 1
From Client: dataline 3
From Client: dataline 3
Client's output is empty, not a word on it.
As you can see Server's code termination stops AFTER it is read from Client's output stream, and Client's code termination stops BEFORE it could read from Server's output stream.
My question is:
How this Scanner-PrintWrier communication works, how do i know if a printWriter printed BEFORE a scanner could read in a server-client connection like this? What i did wrong and why? How to use properly a scanner?
E D I T:
#T.C Do you mean like this? Now i got full output, both Server and Client are quit after they are sent and received data.
I modified like this:
String line = "";
while (!line.equals("#")) {
line = scanner.nextLine();
if (!line.equals("#")) {
System.out.println("From server" + line);
}
}

The Scanner.hasNext*() methods will block to wait for input to scan, so you can't use it to detect when the client has finished sending.
Simplest way to solve this problem would be to have the client send a special string telling the server it's done sending.

I have already posted some samples on client-server communication with detailed description.
Please have a look at below post that might help you to understand it better.
Multiple clients access the server concurrently
Java Server with Multiclient communication.
Try with BufferedReader that contains ready() that tells whether this stream is ready to be read. A buffered character stream is ready if the buffer is not empty, or if the underlying character stream is ready.
You can try with InputStream#available() but it doesn't have read line method.
Go with the solution suggested by #T.C. but he is not provided any sample code on it. You can find in it my post.

Had almost the exact same problem, after banging my head in the keyboard for a couple of hours, this is what saved me:
printWriter = new PrintWriter(socket.getOutputStream(), true);
The second parameter sets auto-flushing to true.

How to add heartbeat messaging on top of this Java code( for KnockKnockClient/Server)?

I'm studying the following basic Java socket code( source ). It's a Knock-Knock-Joke client/server app.
In the Client, we set up the socket as usual:
try {
kkSocket = new Socket("localhost", 4444);
out = new PrintWriter(kkSocket.getOutputStream(), true);
in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(kkSocket.getInputStream()));
} catch( UnknownHostException uhe ){ /*...more error catching */
And then later, we just read and write to Server:
BufferedReader stdIn = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));
String fromServer;
String fromUser;
while ((fromServer = in.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println("Server: " + fromServer);
if (fromServer.equals("bye."))
break;
fromUser = stdIn.readLine();
if (fromUser != null){
System.out.println("Client: " + fromUser);
out.println(fromUser);
}
And on the server, we have the corresponding code, to get the joke punch-line.
KnockKnockProtocol kkp = new KnockKnockProtocol();
outputLine = kkp.processInput(null);
out.println(outputLine);
while ((inputLine = in.readLine()) != null) {
outputLine = kkp.processInput(inputLine);
out.println(outputLine);
if (outputLine.equals("Bye."))
break;
I want to attach a heartbeat to the whole thing, which will print out to the console whenever it detects that the other side died. Because what happens now if I kill the other side is an exception - like this one below:
So if I am running both KnockKnockClient and KnockKnockServer, then I shut down KnockKnockServer, what should happen is that on the Client I see this outputted:
>The system has detected that KnockKnockServer was aborted
I'm looking for any tips. So far I've mainly been trying to run a daemon thread that periodially creates new connections to the other side. But I'm confused about what condition to check for(but I think it's just a boolean value?). Is that the right approach? I just found out online there's a library called JGroups for multicast networking - would that be a better way? I'm looking for any tips.
My server-code so far(sorry it's messy)
&
Client-side
thanks

But the exception you are getting is exactly this! It's telling you that the other side just died. Just catch the exception and print to the console, that "The system has detected that KnockKnockServer was aborted".
You are using TCP connection and TCP has built-in heartbeat (keepalive) mechanism that will do this for you. Just set setKeepAlive() on the socket. That being said - It is possible to control keepalive frequency per each connection, but I do not know how to do that in java.
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/TCP-Keepalive-HOWTO/overview.html
https://stackoverflow.com/a/1480259/706650

you have a Synchronous communication. for having the heartbeat message, use an asynchronous communication. there will be 2 threads. one will read from the socket and another will keep writing to the socket. If you use asynchronous communication, the server will be sending a message every 10 seconds. the client thread will be reading messages from the server and if there is no message, it means the server is down. in your case, the server either sends back the message to client(if client has some message) or send an automatic reply.your server code can be modified like this.
Create a server thread that will keep sending messages to client every 10 seconds.
public class receiver extends Thread{
public static bool hearbeatmessage=true;
Socket clientSocket=new Socket();
PrintWriter out=new PrintWriter();
public receiver(Socket clientsocket){
clientSocket=clientsocket;
out = new PrintWriter(clientSocket.getOutputStream(), true);
}
public void run(){
while(true)
{
if(heartbeatmessage){
thread.sleep(10000);
out.println("heartbeat");
}
}
}
}
In your server code:
KnockKnockProtocol kkp = new KnockKnockProtocol();
outputLine = kkp.processInput(null);
out.println(outputLine);
receiver r=new reciver(clientSocket);
r.run(); /*it will start sending hearbeat messages to clients */
while ((inputLine = in.readLine()) != null) {
outputLine = kkp.processInput(inputLine);
reciver.hearbeatMessage=false; /* since you are going to send a message to client now, sending the heartbeat message is not necessary */
out.println(outputLine);
reciver.hearbeatMessage=true; /*start the loop again*/
if (outputLine.equals("Bye."))
break;
The client code will also be modified, a thread will keep reading messages from the socket and if it has not received message for more than 11 seconds(1 second extra), it will declare the server is not available.
Hope this helps. There might be some flaw in the logic too. Let me know.

The following are best practices which we apply on a daily base when interfacing with hardware (using sockets).
Good practice 1 : SoTimeout
This property enables a read timeout. The goal of this is to avoid the issue that Tom had. He wrote something in the line of : "you will need to wait till the next client message arrives". Well, this offers a solution to that problem. And it's also the key to implementing a heartbeat and many other checks.
By default, the InputStream#read() method will wait forever, until a message arrives. The setSoTimeout(int timeout) changes this behaviour. It will apply a timeout now. When it timeouts it will throw the SocketTimeoutException. Just catch the exception, check a couple of things and continue reading (repeat). So basically, you put your reading method in a loop (and probably even in a dedicated thread).
// example: wait for 200 ms
connection.setSoTimeout(200);
You can use these interruptions (caused by the timeout) to validate the status: E.g. how long has it been since I received my last message.
Here is an example to implement the loop:
while (active)
{
try
{
// some function that parses the message
// this method uses the InputStream#read() method internally.
code = readData();
if (code == null) continue;
lastRead = System.currentTimeMillis();
// the heartbeat message itself should be ignored, has no functional meaning.
if (MSG_HEARTBEAT.equals(code)) continue;
//TODO FORWARD MESSAGE TO ACTION LISTENERS
}
catch (SocketTimeoutException ste)
{
// in a typical situation the soTimeout should be about 200ms
// the heartbeat interval is usually a couple of seconds.
// and the heartbeat timeout interval a couple of seconds more.
if ((heartbeatTimeoutInterval > 0) &&
((System.currentTimeMillis() - lastRead) > heartbeatTimeoutInterval))
{
// no reply to heartbeat received.
// end the loop and perform a reconnect.
break;
}
// simple read timeout
}
}
Another use of this timeout: It can be used to cleanly stop your session by setting active = false. Use the timeout to check if this field is true. If that's the case, then break the loop. Without the SoTimeout logic this would not be possible. You would either be forced to do a socket.close() or to wait for the next client message (which clearly makes no sense).
Good practice 2 : Built-in Keep-Alive
connection.setKeepAlive(true);
Well basically this is pretty much what your heart-beat logic does. It automatically sends a signal after a period of inactivity and checks for a reply. The keep-alive interval is operating system dependent though, and has some shortcomings.
Good practice 3 : Tcp No-Delay
Use the following setting when you are often interfacing small commands that need to be handled quickly.
try
{
connection.setTcpNoDelay(true);
}
catch (SocketException e)
{
}

I think you are over complicating things.
From the client side:
If the client gets an IOException for the connection reset, then this means the server is dead. Instead of printing the stack trace just do what ever you need to do once you know that the server is down. You already know the server is down due to the exception.
From the server side:
Either start a timer and if you don't get a request for a time more than the interval assume that the client is down.
OR start a background server thread at the client (making the client and server peers) and have the server send a "dummy" hearbeat request (server now acts as a client). If you get exception the client is down.

Figured I'd take a crack at this... I started with the KnockKnockServer and KnockKnockClient that are on the Java site (in your original question).
I didn't add any threading, or heartbeats; I simply changed the KnockKnockClient to the following:
try { // added try-catch-finally block
while ((fromServer = in.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println("Server: " + fromServer);
if (fromServer.equals("Bye."))
break;
fromUser = stdIn.readLine();
if (fromUser != null) {
System.out.println("Client: " + fromUser);
out.println(fromUser);
}
}
} catch (java.net.SocketException e) { // catch java.net.SocketException
// print the message you were looking for
System.out.println("The system has detected that KnockKnockServer was aborted");
} finally {
// this code will be executed if a different exception is thrown,
// or if everything goes as planned (ensure no resource leaks)
out.close();
in.close();
stdIn.close();
kkSocket.close();
}
This seems to do what you want (even though I modified the original Java website example, rather than your code - hopefully you'll be able to see where it plugs in). I tested it with the case you described (shut down the server while the client is connected).
The downside to this is that, while the client is waiting for user input, you don't see that the server has died; you have to enter client input, and then you'll see that the server has died. If this is not the behavior you want, please post a comment (perhaps that was the whole point of the question - it just seemed like you might have been going down a longer road than you needed in order to get to where you wanted to be).

Here's a slight modification to the client. It doesn't use an explicit heartbeat, but as long as you keep reading from the server, you'll immediately detect the disconnect anyway.
This is because readLine will immediately detect any read errors.
// I'm using an anonymous class here, so we need
// to have the reader final.
final BufferedReader reader = in;
// Decouple reads from user input using a separate thread:
new Thread()
{
public void run()
{
try
{
String fromServer;
while ((fromServer = reader.readLine()) != null)
{
System.out.println("Server: " + fromServer);
if (fromServer.equals("Bye."))
{
System.exit(0);
}
}
}
catch (IOException e) {}
// When we get an exception or readLine returns null,
// that will be because the server disconnected or
// because we did. The line-break makes output look better if we
// were in the middle of writing something.
System.out.println("\nServer disconnected.");
System.exit(0);
}
}.start();
// Now we can just read from user input and send to server independently:
while (true)
{
String fromUser = stdIn.readLine();
if (fromUser != null)
{
System.out.println("Client: " + fromUser);
out.println(fromUser);
}
}
In this case, we allow client writes even when we're waiting for reply from the server. For a more stable application, we'd want to lock the input while we're waiting for a reply by adding a semaphore controlling when we start reading.
These are the modifications we would make to control the input:
final BufferedReader reader = in;
// Set up a shared semaphore to control client input.
final Semaphore semaphore = new Semaphore(1);
// Remove the first permit.
semaphore.acquireUninterruptibly();
new Thread()
... code omitted ...
System.out.println("Server: " + fromServer);
// Release the current permit.
semaphore.release();
if (fromServer.equals("Bye."))
... code omitted ...
while (true)
{
semaphore.acquireUninterruptibly();
String fromUser = stdIn.readLine();
... rest of the code as in the original ...

I think #Bala's answer is correct on server side. I'd like to give a supplementary on client side.
On client side, you should:
use an variable to keep the timestamp of the last message from server;
start a thread which runs periodically(every 1 second, e.g.) to compare current timestamp and the last message timestamp, if it is longer than desired timeout(10 seconds, e.g.), a disconnection should be reported.
Following are some code snippet:
The TimeoutChecker class(thread):
static class TimeoutChecker implements Runnable {
// timeout is set to 10 seconds
final long timeout = TimeUnit.SECONDS.toMillis(10);
// note the use of volatile to make sure the update to this variable thread-safe
volatile long lastMessageTimestamp;
public TimeoutChecker(long ts) {
this.lastMessageTimestamp = ts;
}
#Override
public void run() {
if ((System.currentTimeMillis() - lastMessageTimestamp) > timeout) {
System.out.println("timeout!");
}
}
}
Start the TimeoutChecker after connection is established:
try {
kkSocket = new Socket("localhost", 4444);
// create TimeoutChecker with current timestamp.
TimeoutChecker checker = new TimeoutChecker(System.currentTimeMillis());
// schedule the task to run on every 1 second.
ses.scheduleAtFixedRate(, 1, 1,
TimeUnit.SECONDS);
out = new PrintWriter(kkSocket.getOutputStream(), true);
in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(kkSocket.getInputStream()));
} catch( UnknownHostException uhe ){ /*...more error catching */
The ses is a ScheduledExecutorService:
ScheduledExecutorService ses = Executors.newScheduledThreadPool(1);
And remember to update the timestamp when receiving messages from server:
BufferedReader stdIn = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(System.in));
String fromServer;
String fromUser;
while ((fromServer = in.readLine()) != null) {
// update the message timestamp
checker.lastMessageTimestamp = System.currentTimeMillis();
System.out.println("Server: " + fromServer);
if (fromServer.equals("bye."))
break;

Adel,was looking at your code http://pastebin.com/53vYaECK
Can you try the following solution. not sure whether it will work.
instead of creating a bufferedreader with the inputstream once,
we can create an instance of BufferedReader eachtime.
when the kkSocket.getInputStream is null, it comes out of the while loop and set completeLoop to false, so that we exit the while loop.
it has 2 while loops and the objects are created each time.
if the connection is open but does not have data in it inputstream will not be null,
BufferedReader.readLine would be null.
bool completeLoop=true;
while(completeLoop) {
while((inputstream is=kkSocket.getInputStream())!=null) /*if this is null it means the socket is closed*/
{
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader( new InputStreamReader(is));
while ((fromServer = in.readLine()) != null) {
System.out.println("Server: " + fromServer);
if (fromServer.equals("Bye."))
break;
fromUser = stdIn.readLine();
if (fromUser != null) {
System.out.println("Client: " + fromUser);
out.println(fromUser);
}
}
}
completeLoop=false;
System.out.println('The connection is closed');
}