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Thread won't die and two of them keep overlapping

I need a thread that will only run once at a time, for example if it's called for the first time it will run, if it is called a second time, the first should stop completely and be allowed to die and a new one should take it's place.
I was ran a small test to see what was actually happening between each execution, the results show that the thread doesnt die but instead two threads are being executed alongside:
public class Test {
Worker worker = new Worker();
#Override
public void valid() {
try {
if (worker.running) {
worker.running = false;
worker.join();
}
} catch (InterruptedException iex) {
worker.running = false;
}
worker = new Worker();
worker.start();
}
private final class Worker extends Thread {
private volatile boolean running = true;
#Override
public void run() {
while (running) {
System.out.println(Thread.currentThread().getName());
try {
Thread.sleep(2000);
} catch (InterruptedException iex) {
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
}
}
}
}
}
The results are as follows:
//Upon first execution
Thread-4
Thread-4
Thread-4
Thread-4
//When I execute it again
Thread-7
Thread-4
Thread-7
Thread-4
Thread-7
Thread-4
I've tried using ExecutorService or using while(!Thread.currentThread.isInterrupted) instead of the boolean flag, and got the same results.
How can I properly stop "Thread-4" and have only one of them running?
The actual issue comes from a thread that will cycle through a list and update things on discord chat by request, what the thread does is listen to input and change as suggested by kidney I'm trying to use executor.submit() and Future
private ExecutorService executor = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
private Future<Void> worker;
private void setupImageThread() {
if (!worker.isDone() && !worker.isCancelled()) {
worker.cancel(true);
}
this.worker = (Future<Void>)executor.submit(new Cycler(Listener.queue(), this.links, Cel.cMember()));
ScheduledExecutorService ses = Executors.newScheduledThreadPool(1);
Runnable timeout = () -> {
executor.shutdown();
};
ses.schedule(timeout, 100, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
}
How can I go about initializing the Future for the first time it is created?

Using single thread executor service, I would try something like this:
public class Test {
private static ExecutorService executor = Executors.newSingleThreadExecutor();
Future<Void> worker;
public Test() {
this.worker = executor.submit(new Worker());
}
#Override
public void valid() {
if (!worker.isDone() && !worker.isCancelled()) {
worker.cancel(true); // Depends on whether you want to interrupt or not
}
this.worker = executor.submit(new Worker());
}
}
And make Worker implement Runnable.

It seems that the method valid can be called several times simultaneously. That means, every of those calls will wait to end only for one thread (Worker), whereas, every of them creates its own Worker and you lose a pointer to it, so it impossible to stop bunch of new created workers.
You should make the valid method synchronized: synchronized void valid() it will prevent creating many workers:
#Override
synchronized public void valid() {
...
}
One more thing to say. You put the while loop outside the try-catch, which is wrong: if the tread gets interrupted, the interruption doesn't kill it, because next interation gets started, so it should be like that:
#Override
public void run() {
try {
while (running) {
System.out.println(Thread.currentThread().getName());
Thread.sleep(2000);
}
catch (InterruptedException iex) {
//you don't need here Thread.currentThread().interrupt() call, because the thread has alredy been interrupted.
// The return statement here is also obsolete, I just use it as an example, but you can use empty braces.
return;
}
}
}

Check for thread shutdown and execute a task once it shutdown

I am creating a fixed-size thread pool with 10 threads as follows:
ExecutorService executorService = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(10);
for (int i = 0; i < poolSize; ++i) {
executorService.execute(factory.get());
}
Now, after spawning 10 threads, a runnable is being executed by each of them. Runnable here is provided by factory.get()
Now, I wanted to do a thing that as soon as a thread gets shutdown, i.e. it has completed a task, it picks another runnable again and start running it. So, basically check for all 10 threads state and execute a runnable again if the thread is shutdown.
I know I can do something like, in which I can call the executorService shutdown() method as follows to do that:
while (!executorService.isShutdown()) {
try {
executorService.execute(factory.get());
} catch (RejectedExecutionException e) {
if (!executorService.isShutdown())
log.warn("task submission rejected");
}
}
But in this approach, issue is that I am keep on calling the execute function which would increase LinkedBlockingQueue and won't serve my purpose.
If I can somehow check the Threads state, that would be good because then, it would avoid the overhead of going back to get more work from the executor service.
Please suggest how can I do that in code.

You can use a bounded executor. The following is code by Brian Goetz from jcip
/**
* BoundedExecutor
* <p/>
* Using a Semaphore to throttle task submission
*
* #author Brian Goetz and Tim Peierls
*/
public class BoundedExecutor {
private final Executor exec;
private final Semaphore semaphore;
public BoundedExecutor(Executor exec, int bound) {
this.exec = exec;
this.semaphore = new Semaphore(bound);
}
public void submitTask(final Runnable command)
throws InterruptedException {
semaphore.acquire();
try {
exec.execute(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
try {
command.run();
} finally {
semaphore.release();
}
}
});
} catch (RejectedExecutionException e) {
semaphore.release();
}
}
}
Then just create and use it:
ExecutorService executorService = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(10);
BoundedExecutor boundedExecutor = new BoundedExecutor(executorService,10);
while (!executorService.isShutdown()) {
try {
boundedExecutor.submitTask(factory.get());
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
}
}
This way you will always have 10 threads running, new tasks will only be submitted after the old ones will complete and you can stop the execution by shutting down the executor.

Why use a thread pool if you're going to run 10 threads continually? Just start 10 threads yourself.
Why have a "controller" thread on top of the 10 worker threads? Just let each thread ask for the next task to execute.
The following assumes that factory.get() is thread-safe.
for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
new Thread(() -> {
for (;;) {
Runnable r = factory.get(); // <-- must be thread-safe
if (r == null)
break; // stop thread if no more tasks to execute
try {
r.run();
} catch (Exception e) {
// log exception here
}
}
}).start();
}
If needed, save the 10 thread objects in an array.
If you want to be able to shutdown the threads without having factory.get() returning null, add a volatile boolean, and check it in the loop.

How to end a thread in executor service if thread takes too long?

Sample executor service
static class MyRunnable implements Runnable {
private String serverName;
public MyRunnable(String serverName) {
super();
this.serverName = serverName;
}
#Override
public void run() {
...
conn = new ch.ethz.ssh2.Connection(serverName);
conn.connect();
boolean isAuthenticated = conn.authenticateWithPassword(user, pass);
logger.info("Connecting to " + server);
if (isAuthenticated == false) {
logger.info(server + " Please check credentials");
}
sess = conn.openSession();
...
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
List<String> serverList = ...;
ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(20);
for (String serverName : serverList) {
MyRunnable r = new MyRunnable(serverName);
executor.execute(r);
}
executor.shutdown();
executor.awaitTermination(1, TimeUnit.HOURS);
}
Right here is a sample code of my executor service. But with this logic when I meet a server that fails to connect or takes too long to connect it creates a a hang time within my application. I want to end/kill the thread if it takes longer than x amount of time to connect. How can I terminate the thread task if it does not connect to server within 2 seconds.
Attempt
ThreadPoolExecutor executor = new ThreadPoolExecutor(
10, 25, 500, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS,
new LinkedBlockingQueue<>(1));
I added the following code but apparently it does not end the thread if it takes longer than 2000 milliseconds.
Attempt 2
Future<?> future = executor.submit( new task));
try {
future.get(2000, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS); // This waits timeout seconds; returns null
}
catch(TimeoutException e) {
future.cancel(true);
// System.out.println(server + "name");
}

How can I terminate the thread task if it does not connect to server within 2 seconds.
This is difficult thing to do typically because even if you interrupt the thread (like the other answers mention) there's no guarantee that the thread will stop. Interrupt just sets a flag on the thread and it's up to the code to detect the status and stop. This means that a ton of threads may be in the background waiting for the connects.
In your case however you are using the ch.ethz.ssh2.Connection.connect() method. Turns out there is a connect method that takes a timeout. I think you want the following:
// try to connect for 2 seconds
conn.connect(null, 2000, 0);
To quote from the connect method javadocs:
In case of a timeout (either connectTimeout or kexTimeout) a SocketTimeoutException is thrown.

You have to do awaitTermination() first, then check the return value, and then do shutdownNow(). shutdown() does not guarantee instant stoppage of the service, it just stops taking new jobs, and waits for all jobs to complete in order. shutdownNow() on the other hand, stops taking new jobs, actively attempts to stop all running tasks, and does not start any new one, returning a list of all waiting-to-execute jobs.
From JavaDocs :
The following method shuts down an ExecutorService in two phases,
first by calling shutdown to reject incoming tasks, and then calling
shutdownNow, if necessary, to cancel any lingering tasks:
void shutdownAndAwaitTermination(ExecutorService pool) {
pool.shutdown(); // Disable new tasks from being submitted
try {
// Wait a while for existing tasks to terminate
if (!pool.awaitTermination(60, TimeUnit.SECONDS)) {
pool.shutdownNow(); // Cancel currently executing tasks
// Wait a while for tasks to respond to being cancelled
if (!pool.awaitTermination(60, TimeUnit.SECONDS))
System.err.println("Pool did not terminate");
}
} catch (InterruptedException ie) {
// (Re-)Cancel if current thread also interrupted
pool.shutdownNow();
// Preserve interrupt status
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
}
}

You can always call future.get(timeout...)
It will return timeout exception if it did not finish yet... then you can call future.cancel().

As long as you deal with threads in Java the only safe way to stop the thread is to interrupt it. You can call shutdown() first and then wait. This method doesn't interrupt threads.
If it doesn't help then you call shutdownNow() which tries to cancel tasks by setting interrupted flag of each thread to true. In that case if threads are blocked/waiting then InterruptedException will be thrown. If you check interrupted flag somewhere inside your tasks then you are good too.
But if you have no other choice but to stop threads you still can do it. One possible solution of getting access to workers is to trace all created threads inside ThreadPoolExecutor with help of custom thread factory.
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.List;
import java.util.concurrent.*;
public class TestThreadPoolEx {
static class CustomThreadFactory implements ThreadFactory {
private List<Thread> threads = new ArrayList<>();
#Override
public Thread newThread(Runnable r) {
Thread t = new Thread(r);
threads.add(t);
return t;
}
public List<Thread> getThreads() {
return threads;
}
public void stopThreads() {
for(Thread t : threads) {
if(t.isAlive()) {
try {
t.stop();
} catch (Exception e) {
//NOP
}
}
}
}
}
public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {
CustomThreadFactory factory = new CustomThreadFactory();
ExecutorService ex = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(1, factory);
ex.submit(() -> {
while(true);
});
ex.shutdown();
ex.awaitTermination(5, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
ex.shutdownNow();
ex.awaitTermination(5, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
factory.stopThreads();
}
}
This is sure unsafe but should fit your requirements. In this case it's able to stop while(true) loop. Cancelling tasks won't be able to do that.

Java - Close a thread with 'return' not working

I have the following code in a class which contains my main method
ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(1);
Runnable formatConcentration = new formatConcentration(87);
executor.execute(formatConcentration);
System.out.println("Called an instance of formatConcentration");
while (!executor.isTerminated())
{
//stay Alive
Thread.sleep(1000);
System.out.println("Still alive");
}
System.out.println("Program successfully finished");
return;
This creates an instance of formatConcentration class. The code for which is the following (I've taken all of my functionality out for the sake of the example).
public class formatConcentration extends Thread{
private int numberOfNewRows;
formatConcentration(int rows)
{
this.numberOfNewRows = rows;
}
public void run() {
System.out.println("Running the Formatting Script");
final int numberOfNewRegistered = this.numberOfNewRows;
try
{
System.out.println("Finished formatting");
}//end of try
catch (Exception e1)
{
log.log(e1.toString());
log.closeLog() ;
System.exit(1) ;
}
System.out.println("Still Finished formatting");
return;
}
}
My problem is that once return is invoked it does not terminate the thread.
I have done quite a lot of looking around and as far as I can tell this should be fine but I would imagine that I'm overlooking something small and would appreciate fresh eyes on the problem.
Or if someone has a suggestion of how to kill the thread from inside the run(){} method I would greatly appreciate it (preferably not by setting a variable that I'll check in the main class but if that's how I have to do it so be it) as I know that once it reaches the return statement it's finished and no longer need any reference to variables created in run().
The output generated to the console is as follows:
Called an instance of formatConcentration
Running the Formatting Script
Finished formatting
Still Finished formatting
Still alive
Still alive
Still alive
Still alive
Still alive
etc.

You never shutdown the executor. From the Javadocs for isTerminated:
Returns true if all tasks have completed following shut down. Note that isTerminated is never true unless either shutdown or shutdownNow was called first.
As long as you don't shutdown the executor, you can submit new tasks to it for execution. isTerminated does not check the state of the submitted tasks, it checks the state of the ExecutorService itself.

ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(1);
Runnable formatConcentration = new formatConcentration(87);
executor.execute(formatConcentration);
System.out.println("Called an instance of formatConcentration");
executor.shutdown();
while (!executor.isTerminated())
{
//stay Alive
Thread.sleep(1000);
System.out.println("Still alive");
}
System.out.println("Program successfully finished");
return;
Another simpler way to do it would be :
ExecutorService executor = Executors.newFixedThreadPool(1);
Runnable formatConcentration = new formatConcentration(87);
executor.execute(formatConcentration);
executor.shutdown();
try {
executor.awaitTermination(Long.MAX_VALUE, TimeUnit.NANOSECONDS);
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
// TODO Auto-generated catch block
e.printStackTrace();
}
Executor awaitTermination method substitutes your loop.

ExecutorService is mainly used to delegate your jobs to separte workers.
Using this only most of the Connection pooling libs have been created.
So this service will be initiated whenever your application is started and will be closed (manually) by your application's closing method.
In your program you should write a code to check the executor service's status,
Is any workers are currently working...
If no workers are in busy mode then just stop accepting any further tasks.
From javadocs see the sample shutdown code,
The following method shuts down an ExecutorService in two phases, first by calling shutdown to reject incoming tasks, and then calling shutdownNow, if necessary, to cancel any lingering tasks:
void shutdownAndAwaitTermination(ExecutorService pool) {
pool.shutdown(); // Disable new tasks from being submitted
try {
// Wait a while for existing tasks to terminate
if (!pool.awaitTermination(60, TimeUnit.SECONDS)) {
pool.shutdownNow(); // Cancel currently executing tasks
// Wait a while for tasks to respond to being cancelled
if (!pool.awaitTermination(60, TimeUnit.SECONDS))
System.err.println("Pool did not terminate");
}
} catch (InterruptedException ie) {
// (Re-)Cancel if current thread also interrupted
pool.shutdownNow();
// Preserve interrupt status
Thread.currentThread().interrupt();
}
}
Hope it will give some information to you.

ScheduledFuture.get() is still blocked after Executor shutdown

I want to run some periodic task in background and I want to do it right.
So I schedule my task with ScheduledExecutorService.scheduleWithFixedDelay(..) and call ScheduledFuture.get() on the separate thread to control the life of the task, catch uncaught exceptions from it and get notified if the task is cancelled.
The problem is that if ScheduledExecutorService.shutdown() is called while the task is executing, than ScheduledFuture does not get notified and its get() method stays blocked forever.
And here comes the simple code to illustrate the problem:
public final class SomeService {
private final ScheduledExecutorService executor = Executors.newSingleThreadScheduledExecutor();
private final SomePeriodicTask task = new SomePeriodicTask();
private ScheduledFuture<?> future;
public void start() {
future = executor.scheduleWithFixedDelay(task, 0, 1, TimeUnit.SECONDS);
final Runnable watchdog = new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
try {
future.get();
} catch (CancellationException ex) {
System.out.println("I am cancelled");
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
System.out.println("I am interrupted");
} catch (ExecutionException e) {
System.out.println("I have an exception");
}
System.out.println("Watchdog thread is exiting");
}
};
new Thread(watchdog).start();
}
public void shutdownAndWait() {
System.out.println("Shutdown requested");
executor.shutdown();
try {
executor.awaitTermination(Long.MAX_VALUE, TimeUnit.DAYS);
} catch (InterruptedException e) { //BTW When and why could this happen?
System.out.println("Waiting for shutdown was interrupted");
}
System.out.println("Executor is shutdown " + executor.isShutdown());
}
}
First, simple task which returns quickly
final class SomePeriodicTask implements Runnable {
#Override
public void run() {
System.out.print("I am just doing my job...");
System.out.println("done");
}
}
If we run it like this
public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {
SomeService service = new SomeService();
service.start();
Thread.sleep(3000);
service.shutdownAndWait();
System.out.println("Future is cancelled " + service.future.isCancelled());
System.out.println("Future is done " + service.future.isDone());
}
then the output is
I am just doing my job...done
I am just doing my job...done
I am just doing my job...done
Shutdown requested
I am cancelled
Watchdog thread is exiting
Executor is shutdown true
Future is cancelled true
Future is done true
totally as expected.
But if we modify the task to simulate some heavy job
final class SomePeriodicTask implements Runnable{
#Override
public void run() {
System.out.print("I am just doing my job...");
try {
Thread.sleep(1500); //Heavy job. You can change it to 5000 to be sure
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
System.out.println("Task was interrupted");
}
System.out.println("done");
}
}
so that the call to shutdown() happens while the task is executing... then the output is
I am just doing my job...done
I am just doing my job...Shutdown requested
done
Executor is shutdown true
Future is cancelled false
Future is done false
So what happened here... Executor is shutting down, as expected. It lets the current task to finish its job, as expected. We see that executor did finish shutting down, but our ScheduledFuture did not get cancelled and its get() method is still blocked and the watchdog thread prevents JVM from exiting and hangs forever.
Of course there are workarounds. For example I can call future.cancel(false) manually before shutdown or make watchdog a daemon thread or even try to schedule shutdown of Executor by himself so that it does not overlap with running task... But all of above have drawbacks and when code will get more complicated things can go sideways.
And anyway, I am seeking for your expert opinion because I will have no peace until I understand why it doesn't behave like it should. If it is a bug in jdk it must be reported. If I misunderstand something and my code is wrong, I must know it...
Thanks in advance

The first thing to understand is that for a periodic task, a normal completion does not turn the state of the Future to done as it expects to be rescheduled and possibly rerun.
This interferes with the semantics of Executor.shutdown; it will cancel all pending tasks but let the currently running tasks complete. So your currently running task completes normally and doesn’t set its state to done as it never does, but isn’t rescheduled because the executor has been shut down.
Even if you use shutdownNow it will interrupt the currently running tasks but not cancel them and since your task catches the InterruptedException and completes earlier but normally, there will be no state transition to done.
The best place to add the desired behavior of cancelling even tasks that completed normally upon shutdown is the Executor implementation; just change the line
private final ScheduledExecutorService executor = Executors.newSingleThreadScheduledExecutor();
to
private final ScheduledExecutorService executor = new ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor(1) {
#Override
protected void afterExecute(Runnable r, Throwable t) {
if(t==null && isShutdown() && r instanceof RunnableScheduledFuture<?>)
{
RunnableScheduledFuture<?> rsf = (RunnableScheduledFuture<?>)r;
if(rsf.isPeriodic()) rsf.cancel(false);
}
};
};