HttpClientError: The target server failed to respond

Question

I am trying to hit a server using HTTP client using PoolingClientConnectionManager setting max connections for individual hosts

//Code that initializes my connection manager and HTTP client 
HttpParams httpParam = httpclient.getParams();
HttpConnectionParams.setSoTimeout(httpParam, SOCKET_TIMEOUT);

HttpConnectionParams.setConnectionTimeout(httpParam, CONN_TIMEOUT);

httpclient.setParams(httpParam);

//Run a thread which closes Expired connections
new ConnectionManager(connManager).start(); 

//Code that executes my request 
HttpPost httpPost = new HttpPost(url);
        HttpEntity httpEntity = new StringEntity(request, "UTF-8");
httpPost.setEntity(httpEntity);

Header acceptEncoding = new BasicHeader("Accept-Encoding", "gzip,deflate");
httpPost.setHeader(acceptEncoding);     

if(contenttype != null && !contenttype.equals("")){
    Header contentType = new BasicHeader("Content-Type", contenttype);
    httpPost.setHeader(contentType);
}
InputStream inputStream = null;
LOG.info(dataSource + URL + url + REQUEST + request);

HttpResponse response = httpclient.execute(httpPost);

That is we are using Connection pooling for http persistence .

We are getting this error sporadically :

The target server failed to respond
org.apache.http.NoHttpResponseException: The target server failed to respond
        at org.apache.http.impl.conn.DefaultHttpResponseParser.parseHead(DefaultHttpResponseParser.java:95)
        at org.apache.http.impl.conn.DefaultHttpResponseParser.parseHead(DefaultHttpResponseParser.java:62)
        at org.apache.http.impl.io.AbstractMessageParser.parse(AbstractMessageParser.java:254)
        at org.apache.http.impl.AbstractHttpClientConnection.receiveResponseHeader(AbstractHttpClientConnection.java:289)
        at org.apache.http.impl.conn.DefaultClientConnection.receiveResponseHeader(DefaultClientConnection.java:252)
        at org.apache.http.impl.conn.ManagedClientConnectionImpl.receiveResponseHeader(ManagedClientConnectionImpl.java:191)
        at org.apache.http.protocol.HttpRequestExecutor.doReceiveResponse(HttpRequestExecutor.java:300)
        at org.apache.http.protocol.HttpRequestExecutor.execute(HttpRequestExecutor.java:127)
        at org.apache.http.impl.client.DefaultRequestDirector.execute(DefaultRequestDirector.java:517)
        at org.apache.http.impl.client.AbstractHttpClient.execute(AbstractHttpClient.java:906)

Does any one know how to resolve this?

We are shutting down idle connections as well.

Can some Please help.

http://hc.apache.org/httpcomponents-client-ga/tutorial/html/connmgmt.html

Solution 1

Probably, it is a bug in the HttpClient.

If you are using the HttpClient 4.4, please try to upgrade to 4.4.1.

If you want for more information, please look at this link.

If you can't upgrade, the following links might be helpful.

http://www.nuxeo.com/blog/using-httpclient-properly-avoid-closewait-tcp-connections/

Good luck!

Solution 2

Recently faced similar while using HttpClient 5.

On enabling the HttpClient logs and found that the issue was due to stale connections.

Adding the below helped to solve the issue, it detects and validates the connections that have become stale while kept inactive in the pool before reuse.

PoolingHttpClientConnectionManager connectionManager = new PoolingHttpClientConnectionManager();

connectionManager.setValidateAfterInactivity(timeinmilliseconds);

Comments

[arjuncc]

I am using 4.4.1, Unfortunately I have the same issue.

[alexanoid]

What value have you used for timeinmilliseconds ?