http connection timeout issues

Question

I'm running into an issue when i try to use the HttpClient connecting to a url. The http connection is taking a longer time to timeout, even after i set a connection timeoout.

int timeoutConnection = 5000;
HttpConnectionParams.setConnectionTimeout(httpParameters, timeoutConnection);

int timeoutSocket = 5000;
HttpConnectionParams.setSoTimeout(httpParameters, timeoutSocket);

It works perfect most of the time. However, every once in while, the http connection runs for ever and ignore the setconnectiontimeout, especailly when the phone is connected to wifi, and the phone was idling.

So after the phone is idling, the first time i try to connect, the http connection ignores the setconnectiontimeout and runs forever, after i cancel it and try again, it works like charm everytime. But that one time that doesn't work it creates a threadtimeout error, i tried using a different thread, it works, but i know that the thread is running for long time.

I understand that the wifi goes to sleep on idle, but i dont understand why its ignoring the setconnectiontimeout.

Anyone can help, id really appreciated.

Answer 1

I've met the same problem, I guess maybe the Android doesn't support this parameter. In my case i tested all three parameters for the ThreadSafeClientConnManager

params.setParameter( ConnManagerPNames.MAX_CONNECTIONS_PER_ROUTE, new ConnPerRouteBean(20) );
params.setIntParameter( ConnManagerPNames.MAX_TOTAL_CONNECTIONS, 200 );
params.setLongParameter( ConnManagerPNames.TIMEOUT, 10 );
ThreadSafeClientConnManager connmgr = new ThreadSafeClientConnManager( params );

The first and second worked fine, but the third didn't work as documented. No exception was thrown and the executing thread was blocked indefinitely when the DefaultHttpClient#execute() was executing.

see http://hc.apache.org/httpcomponents-client-ga/tutorial/html/connmgmt.html#d4e650
"...One can ensure the connection manager does not block indefinitely in the connection request operation by setting 'http.conn-manager.timeout' to a positive value. If the connection request cannot be serviced within the given time period ConnectionPoolTimeoutException will be thrown."

Answer 2

Well, if you idle/multitask to another application, then your thread that is running might be stopped and destroyed. Maybe you should put the connection code inside a Service instead?:

http://developer.android.com/reference/android/os/AsyncTask.html http://developer.android.com/reference/android/app/IntentService.html

Answer 3

I've had similar issues with timeouts on android. To resolve it what I did was used the commands to not let the phone idle while I was attempting to establish a connection and during any reads or writes to the connection. Its probably worth a shot in this case as well.

Answer 4

Although I haven't seen this on the Android platform, I've seen similar things on other platforms and the solution in these cases is to manage the timeout yourself. Kick off another thread (the timeout thread) when your make your request. The timeout thread counts down the requisite time. If the timeout expires before you receive any data, the timeout thread cancels the original request and you retry with a new request. Harder to code, but at least you know it will work.

Answer 5

Thread t=new Thread()
{
  public void run()
  {
    try 
    {
      Thread.sleep(absolutetimeout);
      httpclient.getConnectionManager().closeExpiredConnections();
      httpclient.getConnectionManager().closeIdleConnections(absolutetimeout,TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
      httpclient.getConnectionManager().shutdown();
      log.debug("We shutdown the connection manager!");
    }
    catch(InterruptedException e)
    {}
  }
};

t.start();
HttpResponse res= httpclient.execute(httpget);
t.interrupt();

Is that along the lines of what you all are suggesting?

I'm not exactly sure how to cancel the execute once it has started, but this seemed to work for me. I'm not sure which of the three lines in the thread did the magic, or if it was some combination of all of them.

Answer 6

The problem might be in the Apache HTTP Client. See HTTPCLIENT-1098. Fixed in 4.1.2.

The timeout exception tries to reverse DNS the IP, for logging purposes. This takes an additional time until the exception is actually fired.