UncaughtExceptionHandler behaves unexpectedly, then freezes - java

My consumer doesn't work the way I expect it to. Below is an sscce of what happens in my real program.
Expected:
Print In finally!
Print About to print stacktrace
Print a NullPointerException stacktrace.
Actual:
Print In finally!
Hang, in sun.misc.Unsafe
Program:
import java.lang.Thread.UncaughtExceptionHandler;
import java.util.concurrent.ExecutorService;
import java.util.concurrent.Executors;
import java.util.concurrent.ThreadFactory;
public class ThreadTest implements Runnable {
public static void main(String... args) {
ExecutorService service = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor(new ThreadFactory() {
#Override
public Thread newThread(Runnable r) {
Thread newThread = new Thread(r);
newThread.setUncaughtExceptionHandler(new MyExceptionHandler());
return newThread;
}
});
service.submit(new ThreadTest());
}
private static class MyExceptionHandler implements UncaughtExceptionHandler {
#Override
public void uncaughtException(Thread t, Throwable e) {
System.out.println("About to print stacktrace");
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
#Override
public void run() {
Object foo = null;
try {
while(!Thread.interrupted()) {
Thread.sleep(1000);
System.out.println(foo.toString());
System.out.println("After npe!");
}
} catch(InterruptedException e) {
} finally {
System.out.println("In finally!");
}
}
}

Runnables run inside an Executor don't really throw exceptions which will hit the thread's uncaught exception handler. Instead, the Runnable is wrapped with code which catches Throwable. This is so that a Future can return the exception that was thrown from the task.
as #Gray noted in the comments below, your program is "hanging" because the thread pool thread is keeping the program from exiting. your runnable has completed and the thread pool thread is just waiting for a new task. if you shutdown the thread pool, your program will complete normally (or make the thread pool threads daemon).

Related

Only one thread appears to be active at once

I'm attempting to start another thread that branches from the main thread when thread.start() is called. But it appears to take the main thread in to the thread class. Here is minimum reproducible code of my issue. Thanks for looking.
public class Main {
public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {
ThreadWhileLoop threadWhileLoop = new ThreadWhileLoop();
//threadWhileLoop.run();
threadWhileLoop.start();
while (true){
Thread.sleep(1000);
System.out.println("Main Thread is doing its thing");
}
}
}
and here is the extended thread class
public class ThreadWhileLoop extends Thread {
#Override
public synchronized void start() {
super.start();
while (true){
System.out.println("ThreadWhileLoopIsRunning");
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
#Override
public void run() {
super.run();
while (true){
System.out.println("ThreadWhileLoopIsRunning");
try {
Thread.sleep(1000);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
}
Expected output:
ThreadWhileLoopIsRunning
Main Thread is doing its thing
ThreadWhileLoopIsRunning
Main Thread is doing its thing
ThreadWhileLoopIsRunning
Main Thread is doing its thing
Actual output:
ThreadWhileLoopIsRunning
ThreadWhileLoopIsRunning
ThreadWhileLoopIsRunning
Don’t override start. The start method is used by the calling thread to get the new thread into a runnable state. There are very few good reasons to override it. In your posted code the whole program is running in the main thread.
What you need to do is override the run method in the new thread. Then have the main thread call start, which will cause the run method to execute in a separate thread.
(It would be better to create a Runnable than to override Thread. You can pass the Runnable into the Thread as a constructor argument. With this approach there is less temptation to tamper with the Thread object.)
You can check what thread is running with
System.out.println(Thread.currentThread().getName());
In another answer I have an example of starting a thread using a Runnable: https://stackoverflow.com/a/5915306/217324

How do I kill a Runnable running in a Thread?

I have made a class called AbortableThread that is supposed to start and stop a thread when I want to. The class is relatively small since it just contains this code :
public class AbortableThread implements Runnable
{
private Thread worker;
private Runnable target;
public AbortableThread(Runnable target)
{
this.target = target;
}
public void start()
{
worker = new Thread(this);
worker.start();
}
public void stop()
{
worker.interrupt();
}
public void run()
{
while (!worker.isInterrupted())
target.run();
}
}
However, calling stop() does not stop the Thread. I think that's because target.run() runs on a separate thread, but I have no clue.
There isn’t a good way to stop a Runnable from outside (as a last resort there is stop, but that isn’t a good way).
A Runnable needs to be a good citizen and check for interruption itself, using Thread.currentThread().isInterrupted().
If the Runnable catches InterruptedException, the interrupt flag will be cleared; the Runnable needs to restore the interrupt flag by calling interrupt on the current thread.
In the posted code what happens is that the Runnable executes on the worker thread and the worker never gets a chance to check the interruption flag until the Runnable completes. Assuming the Runnable is something like
() -> { try {
Thread.sleep(100000L):
} catch (InterruptedException e) {}}
then the sleep would be cut short when the worker is interrupted, but the interrupt flag would be cleared so the Runnable would be executed again in the next iteration of the loop.
Try something like this:
public class AbortableThread implements Runnable
{
private final AtomicBoolean running = new AtomicBoolean(false);
private Thread worker;
private Runnable target;
public AbortableThread(Runnable target)
{
this.target = target;
}
public void start()
{
worker = new Thread(this);
worker.start();
}
public void stop()
{
running.set(false);
}
public void run()
{
running.set(true);
while (running.get()) {
try {
// make an small sleep
Thread.sleep(1);
} catch (InterruptedException e){
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
System.out.println(
"Thread was interrupted, Failed to complete operation");
}
// do something here like the one in question; it must be none-blocking
target.run();
}
}
}
A complete example can be found here:
How to Kill a Java Thread

Daemon thread with infinite loop not terminating

I have a simple test program (garage simulation) with several threads (Vehicle, MysteryVehicle, Observer objects) instantiated and started. Only the Observer object is a daemon thread running an infinite loop.
After all non-daemon threads terminate, Observer thread never does and the loop is executed infinitely (so this isn't some buffered output after the daemon thread really terminates - it does go on forever).
All of the non-daemon threads print something to the console just before exiting their run() methods, and it clearly shows all of them really terminated. I also didn't call join() on the daemon thread. When printing out all currently running threads, observer is listed as well, so my guess is that this daemon thread isn't terminating properly.
The complete code can be found on this commit.
Below you can see all threads created, started and where exactly is join() called.
Main.java
package garage;
import java.util.Set;
import garage.model.*;
import javafx.application.Application;
import javafx.stage.Stage;
public class Main extends Application {
#Override
public void start(Stage primaryStage) {
Platform platform = new Platform();
Vehicle.platform = platform;
platform.print();
Vehicle[] vehicles = new Vehicle[30];
for (int i = 0; i < 30; i++) {
vehicles[i] = new Vehicle();
}
for (int i = 0; i < 30; i++) {
vehicles[i].start();
}
Observer observer = new Observer();
observer.platform = platform;
observer.start();
MysteryVehicle mysteryVehicle = new MysteryVehicle();
mysteryVehicle.start();
try {
mysteryVehicle.join();
} catch (Exception exception) {
exception.printStackTrace();
}
try {
for (int i = 0; i < 30; i++)
vehicles[i].join();
} catch (Exception exception) {
exception.printStackTrace();
}
System.out.println("before");
platform.print();
System.out.println("after");
synchronized (Platform.lock) {
System.out.println("END");
System.out.println(platform.flag); // checks whether wait() was called anytime
}
Set<Thread> threads = Thread.getAllStackTraces().keySet();
for (Thread t : threads) {
System.out.println(t.getName());
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
launch(args);
}
}
Observer.java
package garage.model;
public class Observer extends Thread {
public Platform platform;
static int count = 0;
{
setName("observer");
setPriority(MIN_PRIORITY);
setDaemon(true);
}
#Override
public void run() {
while (true) {
synchronized (Platform.lock) {
try {
System.out.println(++count);
platform.print();
Platform.lock.wait(5000); // hack for when there is no meaningful loop condition
} catch (InterruptedException exception) {
exception.printStackTrace();
} finally {
Platform.lock.notifyAll();
}
}
}
}
}
Vehicle run() method - relevant part
public void run() {
...
System.out.println("done");
}
MysteryVehicle run() method - relevant part
public void run() {
synchronized (Platform.lock) {
System.out.println("And the vehicle disappears!");
...
}
}
All of the relevant thread messages are printed out to the console.
done - 30 times, And the vehicle disappears!, before, after, END, true
This is the list of all of the running threads:
Attach Listener
main
Common-Cleaner
JavaFX Application Thread
Signal Dispatcher
Finalizer
InvokeLaterDispatcher
Reference Handler
QuantumRenderer-0
observer
Thread-2
JavaFX-Launcher
Since the program doesn't terminate and the print() function the run() method of observer calls is executed infinitely, what is it that prevents the daemon thread from terminating?
What am I missing here?
I suspect main() never returns, so the main thread (and perhaps some of those FX threads) are still running.
From the Application doc:
The launch method does not return until the application has exited,
either via a call to Platform.exit or all of the application windows
have been closed.
The posted code has no window to close nor is Platform.exit() invoked.
As far as I know, calling join on daemon thread is a bad idea.The idea behind using daemon thread is it will not halt JVM from exiting. What you can do is send an interrupt to that thread and call join after that.

Starting a new thread on Exception using Uncaught Exceptional Handler

A runnable task parses incoming xml file and is invoked from a different class. Sometimes the parsing may fail and throw an exception. The task should be running even when exceptions occur. I tried restarting the same task in a new thread using Uncaught exception handler. But wanted more ideas on that.
Class invoking thread : (invokes thread)
It works fine to restart same task in new thread but probably handling exceptions without leading to a thread exit should be the way
Thread fileProcessThread = new Thread(FileProcessor);
fileProcessorThread.setUncaughtExceptionHandler(new Thread.UncaughtExceptionHandler()
{
#Override
public void uncaughtException (Thread arg0, Throwable arg1)
{
FileProcessor newObject = new FileProcessorTask();
Thread t = new Thread(newObject);
t.start();
}
});
fileProcessor.start();
Task Class :
public void run() {
try {
xmlparser.parse(incomingXmlFile);
}
catch (Exception e) {
Thread.currentThread.getUncaughtExceptionalHandler().uncaughtException(Thread.currentThread(), e);
// this invokes uncaughtException to restart thread ?
}
}
I have a watch service (file directory scan) running, so I need the task all the time, even if thread terminates.
When an exception occurs and call reaches the uncaughtExceptionHandler, the state of the thread is Invalid to start again. So you need to create a new thread and start again.
Code from Thread.start()
// A zero status value corresponds to state "NEW".
if (threadStatus != 0)
throw new IllegalThreadStateException();
However this could easily result in an infinite loop. (exception -> catch -> retry -> exception -> catch ...)
I recommend having a counter which stops the retries after a certain point.
Public class TestClass{
static AtomicInteger counter = new AtomicInteger();
static class MyExceptionHandler implements UncaughtExceptionHandler {
#Override
public void uncaughtException(Thread t, Throwable e) {
System.out.println("caught");
if (counter.get() == 3) {
System.out.println("Reached Max. retries, exiting");
} else {
counter.incrementAndGet();
new Thread(new MyTask()).start();
}
}
}
static class MyTask implements Runnable {
#Override
public void run() {
try {
Thread.currentThread().setUncaughtExceptionHandler(new MyExceptionHandler());
System.out.println("slept");
Thread.sleep(500);
double d = 0 / 0;
} catch (InterruptedException e) {}
}
}
public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception {
Thread thread = new Thread(new MyTask());
thread.start();
}
}
I've used static AtomicInteger but in your implementation probably have a common object which can be passed on from one thread to another and let that object have a counter.

How to run a task on a specific thread which is active?

Is there a way I can do a similar task like the android OS or java AWT thread where a task is run on a particular thread regardless of which thread of which thread the method was called from e.g. repaint().
private Thread thread;
public void startThread(){ //method which start's my thread
thread = new Thread(new Runnable(){
doSomething();
});
thread.start()
}
public void submitTask(Runnable runnable){
//run the runnable task on the thread "thread"
}
How can I achieve something like this, on a situation where I have more then one active thread
How I've dealt with this scenario before is to create a work queue and a thread which processes tasks that get added to it. So any thread can add a work item to the queue and the same thread will process it regardless of what thread added the work item.
public class MyClass {
private LinkedBlockingQueue<MyTask> myTaskProcessingQueue;
public MyClass() {
myTaskProcessingQueue = new LinkedBlockingQueue<MyTask>();
new MyTaskWorker().start();
}
public void processTask(MyTask myTask) {
myTaskProcessingQueue.put(myTask);
}
private class MyTaskWorker extends Thread {
#Override
public void run() {
while (true) {
try {
processMyTask(myTaskProcessingQueue.take());
} catch (InterruptedException ie) {
// handle it
}
}
}
private void processMyTask(MyTask myTask) {
// do work
}
}
}

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