Spring 4 websockets causing tons of exceptions

Question

Ever since we started using websockets in Spring 4, our logs are littered with this exception:

3 ERROR MessageBrokerSockJS-1 handler.XhrStreamingTransportHandler$XhrStreamingSockJsSession:276 - Terminating connection after failure to send message to client. This may be because the client has gone away (see https://java.net/jira/browse/SERVLET_SPEC-44) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:  ClientAbortException:  java.net.SocketException: Broken pipe 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at org.apache.catalina.connector.OutputBuffer.doFlush(OutputBuffer.java:371) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at org.apache.catalina.connector.OutputBuffer.flush(OutputBuffer.java:333) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at org.apache.catalina.connector.Response.flushBuffer(Response.java:570) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at org.apache.catalina.connector.ResponseFacade.flushBuffer(ResponseFacade.java:307) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at org.springframework.http.server.ServletServerHttpResponse.flush(ServletServerHttpResponse.java:81) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at org.springframework.web.socket.sockjs.transport.session.StreamingSockJsSession.writeFrameInternal(StreamingSockJsSession.java:99) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at org.springframework.web.socket.sockjs.transport.session.AbstractSockJsSession.writeFrame(AbstractSockJsSession.java:273) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at org.springframework.web.socket.sockjs.transport.session.AbstractSockJsSession.sendHeartbeat(AbstractSockJsSession.java:294) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at org.springframework.web.socket.sockjs.transport.session.AbstractSockJsSession$1.run(AbstractSockJsSession.java:309) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at org.springframework.scheduling.support.DelegatingErrorHandlingRunnable.run(DelegatingErrorHandlingRunnable.java:54) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Unknown Source) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(Unknown Source) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(Unknown Source) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.access$201(Unknown Source) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.run(Unknown Source) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:  Caused by: java.net.SocketException: Broken pipe 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at java.net.SocketOutputStream.socketWrite0(Native Method) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at java.net.SocketOutputStream.socketWrite(Unknown Source) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at java.net.SocketOutputStream.write(Unknown Source) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at org.apache.coyote.http11.InternalOutputBuffer.realWriteBytes(InternalOutputBuffer.java:215) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at org.apache.tomcat.util.buf.ByteChunk.flushBuffer(ByteChunk.java:480) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at org.apache.coyote.http11.InternalOutputBuffer.flush(InternalOutputBuffer.java:119) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.action(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:805) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at org.apache.coyote.Response.action(Response.java:174) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      at org.apache.catalina.connector.OutputBuffer.doFlush(OutputBuffer.java:366) 
Feb 15 12:05:16 apmgui i-04e9bc6a:      ... 17 more 

What can we do to prevent this?

Answer 1

This is now discussed and tracked in the Spring Framework https://jira.springsource.org/browse/SPR-11438.