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inputstream.read() timeout seconds are counting even when the thread is not currently in the method

I'm using TelnetClient.class from Apache Commons Net 3.3 jar. My problem is that the behavior of the method setSoTimeout() is not what is expected. This method, as far as i know, simply calls the one with the same name but in the Socket.class setting the read() timeout. This is a sample code (IOManager is just a class i made for I/O operations):
telnet = new TelnetClient();
telnet.connect("localhost", 2020);
telnet.setSoTimeout(10000);
manager = new IOManager(telnet.getInputStream(), telnet.getOutputStream());
while (true) {
System.out.println(manager.readBuffer());
Thread.sleep(10000);
manager.sendMessage("Peanut Butter Jelly");
}
And this is the code of the method i use to read in IOManager class (reader is a BufferedReader with the telnet inputstream which has the soTimeout enabled):
public String readBuffer() throws IOException {
StringBuilder message = new StringBuilder();
int len;
char[] chars = new char[1024];
do {
if ((len = reader.read(chars)) != -1) {
message.append(chars, 0, len);
Thread.sleep(30);
} else {
throw new IOException("Stream closed");
}
} while (reader.ready());
return message.toString();
}
My problem is: even when im not calling the read() in the moment the timeout seconds are counting! All i want is to attempt to read data for 10 seconds but when i read something and then i wait 10 seconds and write, when i attempt again to read BOOM! java.net.SocketTimeoutException: Read timed out.
The timeout is expiring instantly! The server side then throw this: java.net.SocketException: Software caused connection abort: recv failed
The processes i work with do a lot of things before reading again, even waiting more than 20 minutes before sending a command again. The application must restart when it doesn't get an answer in the specified timeout. If i delete the Thread.sleep() it reads and sends correctly, as long as the client could not read data in 10 seconds (normal)
I work a lot with Server/Client programs and Sockets. This is only happening when using the TelnetClient. What could be the problem? Why this behavior? If i can't get it to work i think im going to use Callabe and Future interfaces but that is another Thread just to read (ouch, im actually making multiple connections to that Telnet Server).
Thanks for reading.

I ran into this problem and solved it by turning off the reader thread in TelnetClient:
telnet = new TelnetClient();
telnet.setReaderThread(false); // This prevents the timeout bug
telnet.connect("localhost", 2020);
telnet.setSoTimeout(10000);

I couldn't find a way. The behavior was always unexpected so i did it with this code:
I have my ExecutorService with space for only 1 Thread. I implement the call() method from Callable generic interface (that's why i can return String or whatever i want).
ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(1);
Callable<String> readTask = new Callable<String>() {
#Override
public String call() throws Exception {
return readBuffer();
}
};
I overload the readBuffer() method. I have this one that reads acepting a timeout argument:
public String readBuffer(long timeout) throws ExecutionException, TimeoutException {
return executor.submit(readTask).get(timeout, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
}
The executor submits the task reading the buffer until there's nothing else to read or until the timeout in milliseconds expires.
It works as expected and without performance problems.

Can't detect disconnect without extra readLine() loop

I am developing a program that uses sockets and currently I have a function in my code that checks for a heartbeat from the client every second.
private void userLoop() { // checks for incoming data from client
Timer t = new Timer();
t.schedule(new TimerTask() {
#Override
public void run() {
try {
socketIn.read(); // check for heartbeat from client
String userInput;
while ((userInput = br.readLine()) != null) {
}
} catch (Exception e) {
ControlPanel.model.removeElement(getUsername());
ControlPanel.append(getUsername() + " has disconnected.");
}
}
}, 1000);
}
When a client closes the game via the X button, shutting off their computer, logging out, whatever it may be, I get the message "'username' has disconnected". This is exactly what I want, however, it only works with the while loop in the code. The while loop essentially does nothing and I have no idea why it doesn't work with out.
If I remove the while loop and I disconnect using my client nothing gets printed out server sided.
String userInput;
while ((userInput = br.readLine()) != null) {
}
The above is essentially the dead code that does nothing but without it my program doesn't work the way it should..
Why is the code needed and how can I remove it and still make my program work correctly?

In this case, your while loop is essentially stalling your program until you no longer receive an input string. It's not dead code; it is just your way of installing a wait.
Otherwise, based on my understanding in the Timer class, it only waits one second, which might be too short of a timespan for what you're waiting to capture.

I fixed my problem by changing everything in the try block with
br.readLine();

There's a saying I've heard about exception handling: "Exceptions should only be used for exceptional situations." A client disconnecting from a server is not exceptional.
Now that I have that off my chest, let's move on. According to this other question,
socket.getInputSteam.read() does not throw when I close the socket from the client
it sounds like the read call won't throw if you're closing things properly on the client side.

The problem is that when the remote socket is closed, read() does not throw an Exception, it just returns -1 to signal the end of the stream.
The following should work without needing to call readLine():
try {
int ret = socketIn.read(); // check for heartbeat from client
if (ret == -1) {
// Remote side closed gracefully
clientDisconnected();
}
} catch (SocketTimeoutException e) {
// Timeout -- handle as required
handleTimeout();
} catch (IOException e) {
// Connection lost due to I/O error
clientDisconnected()
}

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');
}

How to I call a function to delay execute because of some conditions in java?

This is my run method, it opens a socket, and waiting for an accepted connection, if connection is accepted, will have a separate Thread open for execute it:
while (isKeepRun) {
socket = serverSocket.accept();
WorkTask worktask = new WorkTask();
worktask.setSocket(socket);
worktask.setIn(new ObjectInputStream(socket.getInputStream()));
worktask.setOut(new ObjectOutputStream(socket.getOutputStream()));
Thread wt = new Thread(worktask);
wt.start();
}
if (socket != null) {
socket.close();
}
if (serverSocket != null) {
serverSocket.close();
}
When the user call it to stop, they call this method, to change the while loop condition. in order to break the while loop:
public void stopWorking() {
isKeepRun = false;
}
Well, the WorkTask's run method is very simple like that:
try {
do {
objectOutputStream.flush();
receivedObj = objectInputStream.readObject();
if (receivedObj != null){
System.out.println(receivedObj.toString()+" " + receivedObj.hashCode());
}
} while (receivedObj != null
&& !receivedObj.equals(SharedConstant.SOCKET_EOF_STRING));
if (objectInputStream != null) {
objectInputStream.close();
}
if (objectOutputStream != null) {
objectOutputStream.close();
}
} catch (IOException e1) {
e1.printStackTrace();
} catch (ClassNotFoundException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
The problem is assume that reading one message need 1 second per message, the user may give up to 100 messages, that's mean it requires 100 seconds to run, in the socket. When the isKeepRun is keep running, there is no problem. But when the user wanna to stop , and call stopWorking, the loop will be escaped, can the socket is closed, during the WorkTask is reading the message. How can I delay the execution of stopWorking if the socket is still reading, if the socket is finished reading, and the stopWorking will be call immediately, but if the socket don't have any thing to read, I can call the stopWorking in no delay?
Thanks.

If your worker thread is handling your client request then it should be his responsibility to close the socket connection. You should move the code that closes the accepted socket into your worker thread. Your server socket accept loop will be independent and will close as soon as the close request is made. But, the existing connections will still be valid and the worker thread can continue handling them.

There is a problem in your code:
while (isKeepRun) {
socket = serverSocket.accept();
....
}
....
if (socket != null) {
socket.close();
}
You use only one socket reference for all client socket. So if there are more than one client socket, then you will only close the last socket.
As above said, you can use wt.join() to wait for the worker thread to finish, then the main thread will finish. But you have only one reference for client socket. Even you wait, you can only wait for the last socket to finish. All the previous client socket will be closed if you set it to stop.

Try adding
wt.join()
after the wt.start(). This waits for thread to finish it's execution.

You can check if there are still active worker threads around by calling their isAlive method. To do so, you need to keep track of your workers (using some list or map).
You might also use a call back mechanism for the workers, through which they can report back, when they finished their task. Before stopping, you simply check if every worker is done.
In both cases, if there are still active workers, sleep for some time, and check again, until all threads have finished.
Edit:
Vikas Nalwar made a good point about letting the workers close the socket connection. It still might be a good idea to wait for the worker threads to finish, though.

Java Exception - Socket is closed, reliable udp help?

I'm currently using a Java implementation of the Reliable UDP protocol, found [here][1]. The project has absolutely no tutorials so I have found it really hard to identify problems.
I have set up a client and server. The server runs on localhost:1234 and the client runs on localhost:1235. The server is first established, and loops listening for connections.
I then have set it to send a packet to the server. When a packet is sent, the server calls handlePacket() -
DataInputStream i = new DataInputStream(client.getSocket().getInputStream());
short packetID = i.readShort();
i = null;
switch(packetID){
case 3:
Packeta packeta = new Packeta(client);
break;
}
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
I'm currently using a debugging with a small dummy class called Packeta. When the constructor is called, it reads from a stream and the logs to the console. However, always when constructing, it hangs for 10 seconds, before producing the error -
java.net.SocketException: Socket is closed ....
at
lessur.engine.net.packets.Packeta.(Packeta.java:15)
The constructor for Packeta -
public Packeta(LessurConnectedNode c) {
super((short)3, c);
try {
/*LINE 15*/ Logger.getLogger("adsfas").info("X was "+c.getSocket().getInputStream().read());
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
It has something todo with the input streams. I don't know what is wrong, but from reading other threads, it might be todo with having multiple inputstreams. I'm lost on this, please help.

The problem was, I was passing the server to the socket listener, before the socket was fully initialized. FIXED!