Mono for Android - Activity crash upon service call - android

My application has a UI (implemented with an Activity) and a service (implemented with the IntentService). The service is used to send data (synchronous, using NetworkStream.Write) to a remote server as well as to update the transmission status to the UI (implemented using Broadcast Receiver method).
Here is my problem:
The application works properly if the size of the buffer used for the NetworkStream.Write is 11 KB or less.
However, if the size of the buffer is larger than 11 KB, say 20 KB (this size needed in order to send jpg images), then the sevice keeps working properly (verified with log file), nonetheless the UI its gone (similar as if device's back button is pushed) and I can't find the way to bring it back. Its important to point out that in this case the Activity its not going into OnStop() nor OnDestroy() states.
At first I thought this would be some ApplicationNotResponding related issue due to a server delay, yet the UI crashes after about 5 sec.
Moreover, this only happens with the Hardware version. The emulator version works fine.
// SEND STREAM:
Byte[] outStream = new Byte[20000];
// -- Set up TCP connection: --
TcpClient ClientSock = new TcpClient();
ClientSock.Connect("myserver.com", 5555);
NetworkStream serverStream = ClientSock.GetStream();
serverStream.Write(outStream, 0, outStream.Length);
serverStream.Flush();
// . . .
// RECEIVE STREAM:
inStream.Initialize(); // Clears any previous value.
int nBytesRead = 0;
nBytesRead = serverStream.Read(inStream, 0, 1024);
// -- Closing communications socket: --
ClientSock.Close();

One thing first: I would have been commented the question to clarify one thing before I give an answer, but unfortunately I don't have enough reputation yet.
The thing I would have asked for is: Why do you need to have a buffer greater than 11k to send an JPG image?
I nearly do the same in one (async) task with an image of 260k, but with a buffer of 10240 Bytes. Works without difficulties.
byte[] buffer = new byte[10240];
for (int length = 0; (length = in.read(buffer)) > 0;) {
outputStream.write(buffer, 0, length);
outputStream.flush();
bytesWritten += length;
progress = (int) ((double) bytesWritten * 100 / totalBytes);
publishProgress();
}
outputStream.flush();
I use this part to read an JPG image from resources or SD and post to my server.

Well you may want to change your application to use asynctask and take a look to the guide :
http://developer.android.com/training/basics/network-ops/connecting.html
Network operations can involve unpredictable delays. To prevent this from causing a poor user experience, always perform network operations on a separate thread from the UI.
Since android 4.0 it's impossible to perform network related task in the same thread as the UI thread. Also just to be clear http://developer.android.com/guide/components/services.html
Caution: A service runs in the main thread of its hosting process—the
service does not create its own thread and does not run in a separate
process

Related

Android close FileInputStream

I am using a FileInputStream in a thread in Android java to read from a serial interface file. stream.read(buffer) blocks if there is not data waiting right now, if new data comes in again is continues. Data arrives every now and then, whenever something comes in the thread continues running. That's perfect!
But when I want to terminate the thread it seems I stumble upon a long known bug. thread.interrupt() does not cancel stream.read().
There are lots of questions about that. The only thing that should work is to close the underlying stream. But if I close my FileInputStream stream.read() in my receiver thread still keeps waiting. It only stops after receiving the next bunch of data - that of course then goes a wrong way.
What else can I do to really close or shutdown the FileInputStream?
Edit
After discussing my solution looks like this. It's not best performance and uses available() which is not advised in the docs but it works.
The thread that listens to the file:
byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
while (!isInterrupted())
{
if (stream.available() == 0)
{
Thread.sleep(200);
continue;
}
// now read only executes if there is something to read, it will not block indefinitely.
// let's hope available() always returns > 0 if there is something to read.
int size = stream.read(buffer);
now do whatever you want with buffer, then repeat the while loop
}
The sleep duration is a tradeoff between not looping all the time and getting data in an acceptable interval. The Mainthread terminates this with
stream.close(); // which has no effect to the thread but is clean
thread.interrupt();
I guess there is nothing you can do with that blocking read operation. Try the available to check if there is available data before reading.
while(!isInterrupted()) {
int len = 0;
if(len = inputStream.available() > 0)
// read your data
}
Here is another option: How to stop a thread waiting in a blocking read operation in Java?
I also meet the same question, But I didn't find the official solution.
So I implemented a method according to my own business scenario.
class ReadThread extends Thread {
pubulic void run() {
while(flag) {
int size = inputStream.read(buffer);
if(flag) {
// do something
}
}
}
}
when I want to exit this thread, I will set flag = false. Even this thread is not really exit, suppose the inputStread read someting, I will not handle it.

Android heap corruption on USB receive

I'm trying to write a service that communicates with a USB device using USB Interrupt transfer. Basically I'm blocking on UsbConnection.requestWait() in a thread to wait for interrupts transfers in, then pass those to the activity using an intent.
I seem to be having problems when the USB devices sends me a largish number of interrupt packets in a row (about 50). It sometimes works but usually the app crash with a message of that flavor:
02-23 01:55:53.387: A/libc(8460): ### ABORTING: heap corruption detected by tmalloc_small
02-23 01:55:53.387: A/libc(8460): Fatal signal 11 (SIGSEGV) at 0xdeadbaad (code=1), thread 8460 (pf.mustangtamer)
it's not always a malloc call that fails, I have seen several flavors of malloc (dlmalloc, malloc_small) as well as dlfree. In every instance I get a Fatal Signal 11 and a reference to 0xdeadbaad so somehow I am corrupting the heap.
It's not obvious from the heap dump what is causing the corruption.
Here is what I believe is the offending code (the problem only occurs when receiving many packets back to back to back):
private class ReceiverThread extends Thread {
public ReceiverThread(String string) {
super(string);
}
public void run() {
ByteBuffer buffer = ByteBuffer.allocate(BUFFER_SIZE);
buffer.clear();
UsbRequest inRequest = new UsbRequest();
inRequest.initialize(mUsbConnection, mUsbEndpointIn);
while(mUsbDevice != null ) {
if (inRequest.queue(buffer, BUFFER_SIZE) == true) {
// (mUsbConnection.requestWait() is blocking
if (mUsbConnection.requestWait() == inRequest){
buffer.flip();
byte[] bytes = new byte[buffer.remaining()];
buffer.get(bytes);
//TODO: use explicit intent, not broadcast
Intent intent = new Intent(RECEIVED_INTENT);
intent.putExtra(DATA_EXTRA, bytes);
sendBroadcast(intent);
} else{
Log.d(TAG, "mConnection.requestWait() returned for a different request (likely a send operation)");
}
} else {
Log.e(TAG, "failed to queue USB request");
}
buffer.clear();
}
Log.d(TAG, "RX thread terminating.");
}
}
Right now the activity is not consuming the intents, I'm trying to get the USB communication to stop crashing before I implement that side.
I'm not seeing how the code above can corrupt the heap, possibly through some non-thread safe behavior. Only one request is queued at a time so I think "buffer" is safe.
My target is a tablet running JB 4.3.1 if that makes a difference.
I'm not seeing anything wrong with this either. You may want to try removing code from your loop and see if it still corrupts the heap to help you zoom on the offending area.
Remember that heap operations are usually delayed, the garbage collector doesn't run immediately, so you could be corrupting it somewhere else, and it's only showing up in this loop because it is very heap intensive.
try to use a larger heap size by setting android:largeHeap="true" in your application manifest.
I would have asked these questions in a comment, but alas, not enough rep.
I see nothing directly wrong with the code above, but I would check the following:
What is BUFFER_SIZE? crazily, I've had very strange problems with UsbRequest.queue() for sizes greater than 15KB. I'm pretty sure that this wouldn't cause your heap corruption, but it could lead to weirdness later. I had to break my requests into multiple calls to queue() to do large reads.
Are you using a bulk USB endpoint? I don't know what your application is, so I cant say for sure if you should be using a bulk endpoint or not, but its the type of endpoint intended for large transfers.
Lastly, when I encountered this 0xdeadbaad problem (detected by tmalloc_large), it had nothing to do with the code I thought was at fault (the code near the malloc) - it was of course a threading issue in which I had JNI native code reading/writing the same buffers on multiple separate threads! Its only that it gets detected when malloc is called, as user3343927 mentioned.

android - Bluetooth: program stuck at inputstream reading

Helo.
Im developing an application that transferes data over bluetooth(with a flight recorder device). When i am recieving a lot of data data(3000 - 40000 lines of text, depends of the file size) my aplication seems to stop recieving the data. I recieve the data with InputStream.read(buffer). For example: I send a command to the flight recorder, it starts sending me a file(line by line), on my phone i recieve 120 lines and then the app stucks.
Intresting is that on my HTC Desire the app stucks just sometimes, on the Samsung Galaxy S phone the application stucks every single time i try to recive more than 50 lines.
The code is based on the BluetoothChat example. This is the part of code where i am listening to the BluetoothSocket:
byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
int bytes =0;
while(true)
{
bytes = mmInStream.read(buffer);
readMessage = new String(buffer, 0, bytes);
Log.e("read", readMessage);
String read2 = readMessage;
//searching for the end of line to count the lines(the star means the start of the checksum)
int currentHits = read2.replaceAll("[^*]","").length();
nmbrOfTransferedFligts += currentHits;
.
.
.
//parsing and saving the recieved data
I must say that i am running this in a while(true) loop, in a Thread, that is implemented in an android Service. The app seems to stuck at "bytes = mmInStream.read(buffer);"
I have tried to do this with BufferedReader, but with no success.
Thanks.
The app seems to stuck at "bytes = mmInStream.read(buffer);"
But that is normal behavior: InputStream.read(byte[]) blocks when there is no more data available.
This suggests to me that the problem is on the other end or in the communication between the devices. Is is possible that you have a communication problem (which is a bit different on the Galaxy vs. the Desire) that is preventing more data from being received?
Also, I would suggest that you wrap a try/catch around the read statement to be sure that you catch any possible IOException's. Though I guess you would have seen it in logcat if that were happening.
Speaking of logcat, I would suggest that you look at the logcat statements that Android itself it generating. I find that it generates a lot for Bluetooth and this might help you to figure out whether there really is any more data to be read().

Hang-up on TCP socket send call in Android native code

I have a problem with socket send (or write) function on android.
There is my network lib that I use on Linux and Android. Code is written in C.
On Android, application creates a service, which loads a native code and creates the connection with the help of my network lib. Connection is the TCP socket. When I call send (or write, no difference), code hangs in this call in most cases. Sometimes, it unhangs after 10-120 seconds. Sometimes, it waits longer (until I kill the application). Data size being sent is about 40-50 bytes. First data sending (handshake, 5 bytes) never hangs (or I am just lucky). The hanging send is, usually, next after handshake packet. Time between this first handshake packet sending and hanging sending is about 10-20 seconds.
The socket is used on another thread (I use pthread), where the recv is called. But, I do not send data to Android in this time, so recv is just waiting when I call send.
I am sure that other side is waiting for the data – I see that recv on other side returns with EAGAIN every 3 seconds (I set timeout) and immediately calls recv again. Recv is waiting 10 bytes always (minimal size of packet).
I am unable to reproduce this behavior on Linux-to-Android transfer or Linux-to-Linux, only on Adnroid-to-Linux. I am able to reproduce this with two available to me different Android devices, so I don’t think this is the problem in broken hardware of one particular device.
I tried to set SO_KEEPALIVE and TCP_NODELAY options with no success.
What can issue the hang-up on send/write calls and how can I resolve this?
Socket created with this code:
int sockfd, n;
addrinfo hints, *res, *ressave;
bzero(&hints, sizeof(addrinfo));
hints.ai_family = AF_INET;
hints.ai_socktype = SOCK_STREAM;
if ((n = getaddrinfo(host, serv, &hints, &res)) != 0)
{ /* stripped error handling*/ }
ressave = res;
do
{
sockfd = socket(res->ai_family, res->ai_socktype, res->ai_protocol);
if (sockfd < 0) continue;
if (connect(sockfd, res->ai_addr, res->ai_addrlen) == 0)
{
break; /* success */
}
close(sockfd); /* ignore this one */
} while ((res = res->ai_next) != NULL);
Hanging send operation is:
mWriteMutex.lock();
mSocketMutex.lockRead();
ssize_t n = send(mSocket, pArray, size, 0);
mSocketMutex.unlock();
mWriteMutex.unlock();
The problem is solved with the help of Nikolai N Fetissov in commentaries - his right question has unblocked my mind and I found a problem in RWMutex.

Android DataOutputStream Flush method does not seem to actually flush

Here's some quick code I am doing. (I removed some of it to make it more readable.) Essentially, I'm opening a file, and processing 3k chunks at a time. These get encoded to Base64 (4k chunk now) and uploaded via HTTP post. After each call to DataOutputStream.writeBytes() I also call DataOutputStream.flush() and then I update a progress bar based on how much has been sent.
File myImage = new File(somepath);
int bytesAvailable = myImage.length();
while (bytesAvailable > 0)
{
byte[] buffer = new byte[Math.min(12288, (int)bytesAvailable)];
bytesRead = fileInputStream.read(buffer, 0, Math.min(12288, (int)bytesAvailable));
if (bytesRead > 0)
{
s2 = Base64.encodeBytes(buffer);
bytesAvailable = fileInputStream.available();
dataStream.writeBytes(s2);
dataStream.flush();
// UPDATE THE PROGRESS BAR HERE
}
}
Now, when I run the application, the image is successfully uploaded each time. However if I watch the mobile connection indicator (up/down arrows), they do not light up while the progress bar moves. The bar will go from 0 to 100% over the course of 10 seconds or so for a 3MB image (far too fast for my 3G phone). Then at 100%, after this loop is done, the dataStream.close() method is called. This is when the data transmission starts (as indicated by the arrows). This sits for a few minutes before finishing.
Am I not understanding flush() correctly? Shouldn't it force data to be transmitted?
It sounds to me like you're adding 4k chunks into a data stream and then sending that data stream in a http post to a server. If this is the case, then your loop is essentially iterating over a memory copy, and the http transfer will happen after you finish with the data stream. The only way to know for sure how the upload is going will be to get your hands on the socket and its data stream. This looks quite difficult if your using DefaultHttpClientConnection and so on.

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