web request timeout handling? - c#

HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);
request.Timeout = 20000;
using (WebResponse response = request.GetResponse())
using (var stream = response.GetResponseStream())
using (var reader = new StreamReader(stream))
{
var result = reader.ReadToEnd();
// Do something with result
}
In the above example I have a timeout defined, if it happens to hit the timeout how would I know, the result would be empty ?
Do I receive any reponse types ?
How can I make sure I got timed out ?

GetResponse() would throw a WebException. It's simple to test exactly what happens though - set the timeout to 1ms and try to hit anything which takes a while to come back.
In fact, the documentation states this explicitly:
If the timeout period expires before the resource can be returned, a WebException is thrown.

Your HttpWebRequest.GetResponse call will throw a WebException when;
Abort was previously called.
-or-
The time-out period for the request expired.
-or-
An error occurred while processing the request.
Catch this exception.
I used to just pull my network cable out to test this sort of thing although you could be more elegant and use a proxy tool and block that particular request.

You should probably be using HTTPWebResponse. It has a status code that tells you that information and more. HTTPWebResponse is a descendant of WebResponse.

Related

WebRequest - GetRequestStream timing out with exception

I'm writing this short module where I have to modify an addressed resource with a PUT method. I'm using the WebRequest class to make this URI request and the GetRequestStream() to get the stream to write to.
However, it seems that after a couple of successful method calls (and using the PUT to modify resources) via this method below, my application hangs and then throws a WebException: The request timed out. error. Here's what the code looks like:
public void SendOffMessageToResource(int res_ID){
var httpWebRequest = WebRequest.Create ("http://192.168.x.x/api/sample_user/resources/1/state");
httpWebRequest.ContentType = "application/json";
httpWebRequest.Method = "PUT";
using (var streamWriter = new StreamWriter(httpWebRequest.GetRequestStream())) //here's where the VS seems to take a long long time to step over to the next line when the error happens.
{
string json = "{\"on\":false}";
streamWriter.Write(json);
streamWriter.Close();
}
}
I am already disposing the StreamWriter. I'm not even using the GetResponse() method, because all I need to do on this URI is actually modify the addressed resource with PUT method. I am not sure why it still throws an error and hangs the application. The search of previous threads only revealed that people should be using using statements to dispose resources, but I'm already doing that I think or perhaps I'm missing something? Do I always need to use GetResponse() to complete the request and dispose that always in addition to this?
Do I always need to use GetResponse() to complete the request and dispose that always in addition to this?
Yes, just that.

The request was aborted: The request was canceled. No solution works

Our console applications are making hundreds of WebRequests to Facebook every minute (with using multiple apps and hundreds of access tokens). Now, they started to fail with the exception message in the title ("The request was aborted: The request was canceled"). We searched for hours on the internet, and tried out every possible solution, but nothing helped.
These didn't help:
webRequest.Timeout = 20000; //A request that didn't get respond within 20 seconds is unacceptable, and we would rather just retry.
webRequest.KeepAlive = false;
webRequest.ProtocolVersion = HttpVersion.Version10;
webRequest.ServicePoint.Expect100Continue = false;
Anyone has any other idea?
edit:
ToString of the Exception: System.Net.WebException: The request was
aborted: The request was canceled. ---> System.Net.WebException: The
request was canceled at
System.Net.ServicePointManager.FindServicePoint(Uri address, IWebProxy
proxy, ProxyChain& chain, HttpAbortDelegate& abortDelegate, Int32&
abortState) at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.FindServicePoint(Boolean
forceFind) at
System.Net.HttpWebRequest.DoSubmitRequestProcessing(Exception&
exception) at System.Net.HttpWebRequest.SetResponse(Exception E) ---
End of inner exception stack trace --- at
System.Net.HttpWebRequest.GetResponse() at WebException message: The
request was aborted: The request was canceled.
edit2: And we are NOT reaching the limit. We know when that happens,
and the problem is NOT that. We have been doing this for two years,
and this thing only happened twice during the whole time. Per
AccessToken we are only doing 2-3 requests/minute, and the throttling
on Facebook is 600 requests/accesstoken/ip.
edit3: I would like to add an extra tip for people who have this or similar problem: Make sure that you dispose your RequestStream, your Response and your ResponseStream object.
http://www.dotnetframework.org/default.aspx/4#0/4#0/untmp/DEVDIV_TFS/Dev10/Releases/RTMRel/ndp/fx/src/Net/System/Net/ServicePointManager#cs/1305376/ServicePointManager#cs
I can see where the exception is thrown. Did you try increasing the HTTP request limit? The default is 2 per seconds.
ServicePointManager.DefaultConnectionLimit = 1000;
My Solve for Xamarin
public async Task<string> GetMessageEx(HttpWebResponse response)
{
Stream streamResponse = response.GetResponseStream();
StreamReader streamRead = new StreamReader(streamResponse);
string result = await streamRead.ReadToEndAsync();
await streamResponse.FlushAsync();
return result;
}

Cancel HTTPWebRequest when server goes down

I have created a Windows Service that calls a API (that returns JSON) with HTTPWebRequest.
The API doesn't return anything until it has something to "deliver". So I set the timeout quite high and lets the request wait until it receivs a response.
The problem is that when I test to turn off or disconnect the server running the API. The HTTPWebRequest doesn't stop the request. So I can't know if the API server has gone down.
The request code:
HttpWebRequest Request = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create(Url);
Request.Method = "POST";
Request.ContentType = "application/x-www-form-urlencoded";
Request.ContentLength = PostData.Length;
Request.Timeout = Timeout;
Request.KeepAlive = true;
using (StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(Request.GetRequestStream()))
{
sw.Write(PostData);
}
using (HttpWebResponse Response = (HttpWebResponse)Request.GetResponse())
{
using (StreamReader sr = new StreamReader(Response.GetResponseStream()))
{
ResponseText = sr.ReadToEnd();
}
}
Is there anyway to "break" the request when the requested server goes down?
I have tried using the webbrowser to call the API server and after a while disconnect it and that return an error to the webpage.
you could use a background worker only cecking if the server is online. It has some disatvantages but may work fine.
It is always good to keep the requests asynchronous (See the BeginXXX methods in HttpWebRequest - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.net.httpwebrequest.aspx).
Using the asynchronous APIs ensures that you are not blocked until you get a response from the server.
In addition to using the asynchronous APIs, you can have a heart-beat requests (that could be just a HEAD HTTP request to a ping service on the server, which returns an empty body and HTTP 200 status), to keep track that the server is alive. If this request times out, then server is not alive - in which case, you can cancel / just 'forget' that the request has been made.

HttpWebRequest.GetRequestStream : What it does?

Code exemple:
HttpWebRequest request =
(HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create("http://some.existing.url");
request.Method = "POST";
request.ContentType = "text/xml";
Byte[] documentBytes = GetDocumentBytes ();
using (Stream requestStream = request.GetRequestStream())
{
requestStream.Write(documentBytes, 0, documentBytes.Length);
requestStream.Flush();
requestStream.Close();
}
When I do request.GetRequestStream (), there's nothing to send in the request. From the name of the method, and the intellisense it shows ("Get System.IO.Stream to use to write request data"), nothing indicates that this line of code will connect to the distant server.
But it seems it does...
Can anyone explain to me what HttpWebRequest.GetRequestStream () exactly does ?
Thanks for your enlightenments.
Getting the request stream does not trigger the post, but closing the stream does. Post data is sent to the server in the following way:
A connection is opened to the host
Send request and headers
Write Post data
Wait for a response.
The act of flushing and closing the stream is the final step, and once the input stream is closed (i.e. the client has sent what it needs to the server), then the server can return a response.
You use GetRequestStream() to synchronously obtain a reference to the upload stream. It is only after you have finished writing to the stream that the actual request is send.
However, I would suggest that you use the BeginGetRequestStream method instead of GetRequestStream. BeginGetRequestStream performs asynchronously and don't lock the current thread while the stream is being obtained. You pass a callback and a context to the BeginGetRequestStream. In the callback, you can call EndGetRequestStream() to finally grab a reference and repeat the writing steps listed above (for synchronous behavior). Example:
context.Request.BeginGetRequestStream(new AsyncCallback(Foo), context);
public void Foo(IAsyncResult asyncResult)
{
Context context = (Context)asyncResult.AsyncState;
try
{
HttpWebRequest request = context.Request;
using (var requestStream = request.EndGetRequestStream(asyncResult))
using (var writer = new StreamWriter(requestStream))
{
// write to the request stream
}
request.BeginGetResponse(new AsyncCallback(ProcessResponse), context);
}
Be very careful with BeginGetRequestStream. It never times out, thus you must add additional logic to your program to recover from situations where GetRequestStream will throw a timeout exception.
In general, threads are cheap. The async Begin/End methods of HttpWebRequest are only worth using if you will have 10,000 or more concurrent requests; because implementing timeouts is very tricky and error-prone. In general, using BeginGetRequestStream is premature optimization unless you need significant performance gains.

How to force IIS to send response headers without sending response body and closing connection

I am trying to stream dynamically generated data to a client over HTTP using IIS, and the connection has to remain open for a long period of time, and the server will send periodic status updates to the client while it is performing a time-consuming operation.
This MUST all be handled within ONE request, but I am using a WebClient.OpenRead() stream, which cannot be opened until the headers are sent.
How can I force IIS to send headers to the client, and later send a response body?
This behaviour is normally achievable by setting KeepAlive to true and setting Expect header to "100 and continue". By doing this, server will send the headers with result code 100.
I am not sure if this is possible using WebClient.
Use HttpWebRequest instead to be able to set the values above. In fact WebClient does nothing magical but using GET to get the data. Here is the code for calling OpenRead in Reflector:
try
{
request = this.m_WebRequest = this.GetWebRequest(this.GetUri(address));
Stream responseStream = (this.m_WebResponse = this.GetWebResponse(request)).GetResponseStream();
if (Logging.On)
{
Logging.Exit(Logging.Web, this, "OpenRead", responseStream);
}
stream2 = responseStream;
}
catch (Exception exception)
{
//

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