ServerSocket Problem

[travis Haycock]

I am trying to create a client to server chat program in which the users can communicate. I have successfully created the application so the users can communicate via. text (chatting) as well as using the microphone to communicate. Problem arises when I have two ServerSockets or even try to share the ServerSocket with both features (text & microphone) What will happen is the streams will close or if I have two separate ServerSockets open one will work and the other will not , But; what will happen if I turn one off the other ServerSocket will work fine until i turn the other back on in which it'll have problems again.


Can someone please explain to me whats going on? how do you run two serverSockets on the same application and allow them both to receive data? I can show my code if requested client is about 400 lines long with server...

[Paul Clapham]

The two ServerSockets have to be listening on different ports, if you want them to both work at the same time. And they would have to do the data-receiving work in different threads.

[travis Haycock]

Thanks Paul for a prompt hand. OK, So they are on different ports exp. [1] severSocket 222 [2] serverSocket 222 lets say [1] is for text and [2] is for files etc. BUT they need to be most defiantly in separate threads??

[Paul Clapham]

I suppose you could do the two transfers in the same thread, but why would you? The code to do that would be far more complicated and it would just duplicate what the operating system does for you in switching between two threads. Or rather, it would attempt to duplicate that but it wouldn't do nearly as good a job. The OS might run the two threads on separate cores, or it might switch away from one thread when it was waiting for data to arrive over the network. All things which would be difficult or impossible to replicate in Java.

[travis Haycock]

Ok I am assuming the reason why one is not going through and getting a socket connection refusal is because of this I will make a new thread and report back.

[Paul Clapham]

Yep, if your ServerSocket accepts a connection and then continues to handle the Socket which connected to it, then it won't respond to other connection attempts. That's why you need it to start a new thread to handle the connection.

I'm not sure what happens when you have two of them, but most applications only need one.

But every socket tutorial I've ever seen includes code which starts new threads for socket handling, and explains why it's done. You should consider reading some tutorials -- I know it's a useful learning experience to do everything from scratch but learning from tutorials shouldn't be rejected. Personally when I try to learn about a Java feature which I don't know anything about, I start from the tutorial and play around with its example code until it's doing what I want it to do.

[travis Haycock]

Thanks again for the insight Paul, I will take your advice and watch some more tutorials... never can learn too much! So in all honesty should I just use the single ServerSocket? instead of using two? I mentioned above I believe that it closes the chat program as soon as the file sends and doesn't actually go through but this is because it should have been threaded so I am leaning towards just using one ServerSocket now and threading.

[Paul Clapham]

Most servers listen on only one port. However if your design requires two then by all means use two.

Note that I said "your design". That doesn't mean you should use two just because you tried to use only one and you couldn't make the programming work. If you look around at servers which you are familiar with you'll see that they almost uniformly listen on only one port, and that's almost exclusively the default port for the protocol.

[travis Haycock]

Thanks for the info, I've tried to apply it but I'm still getting a refusal to connect. The method that actually listens to download the file is at the very bottom. I included just the server-side because I have tested the client side sending to another server that just listens for the incoming data and it works flawless its just this server side particularly this code whats giving me problems and from my understanding and knowledge i don't know what I'm doing wrong.

public class SERVERMessenger extends JFrame implements ActionListener {

    private ObjectOutputStream output;
    private ObjectInputStream input;

    private JTextField userText;
    private JTextArea chatWindow;

    private ServerSocket server;
    private ServerSocket server2;

    private Socket connection;
    private Socket connection2;


    private String message = "";
    Playback pb = new Playback();

    private InetAddress ip;
    String hostName;

    public SERVERMessenger() throws UnknownHostException {

        super("SERVER");
        setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        setSize(500, 500);
        System.out.println("Server Started");

        chatWindow = new JTextArea();

        /*
    Obtain IP & Host Info.
         */
        ip = InetAddress.getLocalHost();
        hostName = ip.getHostName();
        userText = new JTextField();
        userText.addActionListener(
                new ActionListener() {
            @Override
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                sendMessage(e.getActionCommand());
                userText.setText("");
            }

        });

        userText.setEditable(false);

        /*
    Adding comps.
    
    
         */
        add(userText, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
        add(new JScrollPane(chatWindow));
        add(chatWindow, BorderLayout.CENTER);
        setVisible(true);
    }

    /*
   Permit user to type into JTextArea
   
     */
    private void ableToType(final boolean tof) {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(
                new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                userText.setEditable(tof);

            }

        }
        );

    }

    /*     Append new messages from server to the JTextArea
   
   
   
     */
    private void showMessage(final String m) {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(
                new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                chatWindow.append(m);

            }
        }
        );
    }

    /*
    set-up streams for text-to-text communication
    
    
     */
    private void setUpStreams() throws IOException {
        // to oputput message
        showMessage("  ");
        output = new ObjectOutputStream(connection.getOutputStream());
        output.flush();
        input = new ObjectInputStream(connection.getInputStream());
        showMessage("\nInput Stream Data Initialized");
        downloadFile();

    }

    /*
   
   loop while chatting or while session alive
     */
    private void whileChatting() throws IOException {
        ableToType(true);

        do {
            try {
                message = (String) input.readObject();
                showMessage("\n" + hostName + ":" + message);

            } catch (ClassNotFoundException classNotfoundException) {
                showMessage("\nI Dont know what object to type");
            }

        } while (!message.equals("SERVER - END"));
    }

    /*
 
 
 Send Message to other user/client
 
 
 
     */
    private void sendMessage(String message) {
        try {
            // server would be username in real workd
            output.writeObject(hostName + message);
            output.flush();
            showMessage(hostName + message);
        } catch (IOException ioException) {
            ioException.printStackTrace();
            chatWindow.append("\nCannot Send That Message");
        }

    }

    /*
 Procedure to close chat session
 
 
 
     */
    private void closeAll() {
        showMessage("\n Closing Connections..");
        ableToType(false);
        try {
            output.close();
            input.close();

        } catch (IOException ioException) {
            ioException.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    /*
 This is the main loop which runs all other methods and originated from main 
 
 " messenger.startRunning "
 
 
 
 
     */
    public void startRunning() {
        try {

            server = new ServerSocket(1246, 100);

            while (true) {
                try {

                    waitForConnection();
                    setUpStreams();
                    whileChatting();
                    downloadFile();
                } catch (EOFException eofException) {
                    showMessage("\nEnd Of Connection");
                } finally {

                }

            }

        } catch (IOException ioException) {
            ioException.printStackTrace();

        }

    }

    /*
    
    Please ignore, buttons will be added in future to chat GUI
    
    
     */
    @Override
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {

        Object source = e.getSource();
        if (source == userText) {
            sendMessage(userText.getText());
        }

    }

    /*
   This will wait for the connection when window is first opened and will inform
    user when the streams have been connected
    
    
    
    
     */
    private void waitForConnection() throws IOException {

        showMessage("\nWaiting For Connection To Be Established");
        connection = server.accept();

        showMessage("\n\nNow Connected To : " + connection.getInetAddress().getHostName());

    }

    /*
  ***************************************************************************************************************************   MAIN
     */
    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {

        SERVERMessenger messenger = new SERVERMessenger();
        messenger.startRunning();

    }

    /*
    Download file method creates new serverSocket and receives the file sent from client/user
    
    
   
     */
    public void downloadFile() throws IOException {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(
                new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {

                System.out.println("download method called");

                try {

                    // ServerSocket server2 = new ServerSocket (1200,100);
                    // Socket = connection2
                    while (true) {
                        // have tried activated and deactivated 
                        connection = server.accept();

                        System.out.println("downloading file.........");

                        OutputStream output = new ObjectOutputStream(connection.getOutputStream());
                        output.flush();

                        input = new ObjectInputStream(connection.getInputStream());

                        DataInputStream dis = new DataInputStream(connection.getInputStream());

                        FileOutputStream fos = new FileOutputStream(input.toString());

                        byte[] buffer = new byte[4096];
                        System.out.println(buffer.length);

                        int read = 0;

                        while ((read = dis.read(buffer)) > 0) {

                            fos.write(buffer, 0, read);
                        }

                        fos.close();
                        dis.close();

                    }

                } catch (IOException ex) {
                    Logger.getLogger(secondSocket.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
                }

                /// thread
            }
        }
        );

        ///// thread
    }
}

[Paul Clapham]

Once the ServerSocket accepts a connection it should start a new thread to handle the connection. If it doesn't, then it won't be able to accept any more connections.

[travis Haycock]

Im officially stumped I have 7 hours on this now and am still able to make little progress on this. i have rebuilt the whole server hoping I missed something, but apparently its me. I don't understand where I'm going wrong but the output is showing below... 130 is referring to Objectoutput.writeObject(hostName + ": " + m); I have tried correcting it with no prevail If anyone can help that would be amazing.. When I start the server up and then the client everything seems to go fine at first than I get the ERROR(S) I put below on serverSide

Server Started
SERVER RUNNING>>
Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NullPointerException
	at servermain.ServerMain.sendMessage(ServerMain.java:130)
	at servermain.ServerMain.whileChatting(ServerMain.java:108)
	at servermain.ServerMain.handleAll(ServerMain.java:85)
	at servermain.ServerMain.main(ServerMain.java:213)

As well when activating the Microphone and sending the sound file I am receiving this Error which I don't understand entirely, but am pretty positive its related to the first problem as well its pointing to the client-side
message = (String) Objectinput.readObject();

at java.net.SocketInputStream.socketRead(SocketInputStream.java:116)
	at java.net.SocketInputStream.read(SocketInputStream.java:170)
	at java.net.SocketInputStream.read(SocketInputStream.java:141)
	at java.net.SocketInputStream.read(SocketInputStream.java:223)
	at java.io.ObjectInputStream$PeekInputStream.peek(ObjectInputStream.java:2296)
	at java.io.ObjectInputStream$BlockDataInputStream.peek(ObjectInputStream.java:2589)
	at java.io.ObjectInputStream$BlockDataInputStream.peekByte(ObjectInputStream.java:2599)
	at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject0(ObjectInputStream.java:1319)
	at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readObject(ObjectInputStream.java:371)
	at daword.chat.whileChatting(chat.java:168)
	at daword.chat.startRunning(chat.java:122)
	at daword.DaWord.main(DaWord.java:1338)

Im going to post my code with the server first following the client

public class ServerMain extends JFrame {

    private ServerSocket server;
    public Socket connection;

    private ObjectOutputStream Objectoutput;
    private ObjectInputStream Objectinput;
    private JTextField userText;
    final JTextArea chatWindow;

    //  Playback pb = new Playback();
    final InetAddress ip;
    String hostName;

    public ServerMain() throws UnknownHostException {
        super("SERVER");
        setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        setSize(500, 500);
        System.out.println("Server Started");
        userText = new JTextField();
        userText.setEditable(false);
        userText.addActionListener(
                new ActionListener() {
            @Override
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                sendMessage(e.getActionCommand());
                userText.setText(" ");
            }

        });
        chatWindow = new JTextArea();

        ip = InetAddress.getLocalHost();
        hostName = ip.getHostName();

        add(userText, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
        add(new JScrollPane(chatWindow));
        add(chatWindow, BorderLayout.CENTER);

        setVisible(true);
    }

    /* This is the main method that activated the loop
    
    
    
     */
    private void handleAll() throws IOException {

        System.out.println("SERVER RUNNING>>");
        while (true) {

            server = new ServerSocket(1998, 100);
            connection = server.accept();

            waitForConnection(connection);

            /*
            Set up COnnections for chat
             */
            Thread textStreams = new Thread(new textStreams(connection));
            textStreams.start();

            whileChatting();
            /*
            download the voice file that can be sent by client
             */
            Thread downloadVoice = new Thread(new downloadVoice(connection));
            downloadVoice.start();

        }

    }

    private void waitForConnection(Socket connection) throws IOException {
        showMessage("\nWaiting For Connection To Be Established");
        showMessage("\n\nNow Connected To : " + connection.getInetAddress().getHostName());
    }

    /*
    This will show the message a user has sent to server
  
     */
    private void whileChatting() throws IOException {

        String message = "Now Connected";
        sendMessage(message);
        ableToType(true);
        do {
            try {
                message = (String) Objectinput.readObject();
                showMessage("\n" + message);
                Objectinput.close();
            } catch (ClassNotFoundException classNotFoundException) {
                showMessage("ERROR");
            }

        } while (!message.equals("END"));

    }

    /*
    
    Send Message To Cliente
     */
    private void sendMessage(String m) {
        try {
///************************************************************************************ ERROR HERE BELOW LINE 130
            Objectoutput.writeObject(hostName + ":  " + m);
 //*****
            Objectoutput.flush();
            showMessage("\n" + hostName + ":  " + m);
            Objectoutput.close();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            chatWindow.append("\nERROR Sending Message!");
            e.printStackTrace();

        }
    }

    private void showMessage(final String text) {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(
                new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                chatWindow.append(text);

            }

        }
        );

    }

    /*
     Permit user to type into JTextField
     */
    private void ableToType(final boolean tof) {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(
                new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                userText.setEditable(tof);

            }
        });

    }

    private void closeAll() {
        showMessage("\n Closing Connections..");
        ableToType(false);
        try {
            Objectoutput.close();
            Objectinput.close();
        } catch (IOException ioException) {
            ioException.printStackTrace();
        }
    }

    class textStreams implements Runnable {

        Socket connection;

        public textStreams(Socket connection) {
            this.connection = connection;
        }

        @Override
        public void run() {

            try {
                Objectoutput = new ObjectOutputStream(connection.getOutputStream());
                Objectoutput.flush();
            } catch (IOException ex) {
                Logger.getLogger(ServerMain.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
            }

            try {
                Objectinput = new ObjectInputStream(connection.getInputStream());
            } catch (IOException ex) {
                Logger.getLogger(ServerMain.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
            }
            showMessage("\nInput Stream Data Initialized And Stable");

        }

    }

    public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
        ServerMain sm = new ServerMain();
        sm.handleAll();

    }

}

CLIENT SIDE BELOW

public class chat extends JFrame implements KeyListener, Runnable {

    String voiceOutput = "voice.wav";
    private JTextField userText;
    final JTextArea chatWindow;
    private ObjectOutputStream Objectoutput;
    private ObjectInputStream Objectinput;
    private String message = " ";

    final String serverIP;

    private Socket connection;

    final int bufSize = 16384;
    TargetDataLine line;
    Thread thread;
    InputStream inputVoice;
    Playback playback = new Playback();

    AudioInputStream audioInputStream;
    JButton playB, captB;

    String errStr;
    double duration, seconds;

    InetAddress ip;
    String hostName;

    public chat(String host) throws UnknownHostException {

        super("Client");
        System.out.println("Client Listening ");
        setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        setSize(500, 500);

        ip = InetAddress.getLocalHost();
        hostName = ip.getHostName();

        serverIP = host;
        userText = new JTextField();
        setLookAndFeel();

        SoftBevelBorder sbb = new SoftBevelBorder(SoftBevelBorder.LOWERED);

        userText.setEditable(false);
        userText.addActionListener(
                new ActionListener() {
            @Override
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                sendMessage(e.getActionCommand());
                userText.setText(" ");
            }

        });

        /*

        Add comps
         */
        add(userText, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
        chatWindow = new JTextArea();
        add(new JScrollPane(chatWindow), BorderLayout.CENTER);

        userText.addKeyListener(this);

        setVisible(true);
    }

    /*
        Our main method that loops all methods

     */
    public void startRunning() throws IOException {
        try {
            connectToServer();
            setupStreams();
            whileChatting();

        } catch (EOFException eofException) {
            showMessage("\n" + hostName + " Terminated Connection");
        } finally {

        }
    }

    /*
        Sets up connection process


     */
    private void connectToServer() throws IOException {
        showMessage("\nConnecting...");
        connection = new Socket(InetAddress.getByName(serverIP), 1998);

        showMessage("\nYou Are Now Connected  On Primary Port:  " + connection.getInetAddress().getHostName());

        userText.setEditable(true);
    }

    /*
            Sets up streams 

     */
    private void setupStreams() throws IOException {
        Objectoutput = new ObjectOutputStream(connection.getOutputStream());
        Objectoutput.flush();
        Objectinput = new ObjectInputStream(connection.getInputStream());
        showMessage("\nInput Stream Data Initialized");
    }

    /*

        While chatting to append messages received/sent

     */
    public void whileChatting() throws IOException {

        String message = "Now Connected";
        sendMessage(message);
        ableToType(true);
        do {
            try {
                message = (String) Objectinput.readObject();       ************************* ERROR 2 Here
                showMessage("\n" + message);

            } catch (ClassNotFoundException classNotFoundException) {
                showMessage("ERROR");
            }

        } while (!message.equals("END"));

    }

    /*

        Closes streams and connection
     */
    private void closeAll() {
        showMessage("\nclosing..");
        ableToType(false);
        try {
            Objectoutput.close();
            Objectinput.close();
            connection.close();
        } catch (IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

    }

    /*
        Allows user to send a message to the Server/Client
 */
    private void sendMessage(String message) {
        try {
            Objectoutput.writeObject("\n" + hostName + ":" + message);
            Objectoutput.flush();
            showMessage("\n" + hostName + ":" + message);

        } catch (IOException e) {
            chatWindow.append("\nERROR Sending Message!");

        }
    }

    /*

        Appends chat messages to the users JTextArea
 */
    private void showMessage(final String m) {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(
                new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                chatWindow.append(m);

            }

        }
        );

    }

    /*

     Allows user to Type

     */
    public void ableToType(final boolean tof) {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(
                new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                userText.setEditable(tof);
            }

        }
        );
    }

    /*

        Look And Feel of GUI
     */
    private void setLookAndFeel() {
        try {
            UIManager.setLookAndFeel("UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName");
        } catch (ClassNotFoundException | InstantiationException | IllegalAccessException |
                UnsupportedLookAndFeelException e) {
        }
    }

    /*

        Key Action Events Which trigger the Miscrophone

     */
    @Override
    public void keyTyped(KeyEvent e) {

    }

    /*
                When Key is pushed it will activate the mic on/off through activating
                the Thread below. start() and stop() both methods integrated with the Thread


     */
    @Override
    public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e) {
        Object source = e.getSource();

        if (e.getKeyChar() == 'q') {
            System.out.println("Started Recording");
            start();
        } else if (e.getKeyChar() == 'l') {
            playback.start();

        }
    }

    @Override
    public void keyReleased(KeyEvent e) {
        Object source = e.getSource();

        if (e.getKeyChar() == 'q') {
            System.out.println("Stopped Recording");
            stop();
        }
    }

    private void shutDown(String message) {
        if ((errStr = message) != null && thread != null) {
            thread = null;
            playB.setEnabled(true);
            captB.setText("Record");
            System.err.println(errStr);
        }
    }

    public void start() {
        errStr = null;
        thread = new Thread(this);
        thread.setName("Capture");
        thread.start();
    }

    public void stop() {
        thread = null;
    }

    @Override
    @SuppressWarnings("empty-statement")

    /*

              This will capture the users mic when he/she presses the key 'Q' 
              Mic will terminate listening after user released the key 'Q'

     */
    public void run() {

        duration = 0;
        audioInputStream = null;

        // define the required attributes for our line,
        // and make sure a compatible line is supported.
        AudioFormat.Encoding encoding = AudioFormat.Encoding.PCM_SIGNED;
        float rate = 44100.0f;
        int channels = 2;
        int frameSize = 4;
        int sampleSize = 16;
        boolean bigEndian = true;

        AudioFormat format = new AudioFormat(encoding, rate, sampleSize, channels, (sampleSize / 8) * channels, rate, bigEndian);

        DataLine.Info info = new DataLine.Info(TargetDataLine.class, format);

        if (!AudioSystem.isLineSupported(info)) {
            shutDown("Line matching " + info + " not supported.");
            return;
        }

        // get and open the target data line for capture.
        try {
            line = (TargetDataLine) AudioSystem.getLine(info);
            line.open(format, line.getBufferSize());
        } catch (LineUnavailableException ex) {
            shutDown("Unable to open the line: " + ex);
            return;
        } catch (SecurityException ex) {
            shutDown(ex.toString());
            //JavaSound.showInfoDialog();
            return;
        } catch (Exception ex) {
            shutDown(ex.toString());
            return;
        }

        // play back the captured audio data
        ByteArrayOutputStream out = new ByteArrayOutputStream();

        int frameSizeInBytes = format.getFrameSize();
        int bufferLengthInFrames = line.getBufferSize() / 8;
        int bufferLengthInBytes = bufferLengthInFrames * frameSizeInBytes;
        byte[] data = new byte[bufferLengthInBytes];
        int numBytesRead;

        line.start();

        while (thread != null) {
            if ((numBytesRead = line.read(data, 0, bufferLengthInBytes)) == -1) {
                break;
            }
            out.write(data, 0, numBytesRead);
        }

        // we reached the end of the stream.
        // stop and close the line.
        line.stop();
        line.close();
        line = null;

        // stop and close the output stream
        try {
            out.flush();
            out.close();
        } catch (IOException ex) {
            ex.printStackTrace();
        }

        // load bytes into the audio input stream for playback
        byte audioBytes[] = out.toByteArray();
        ByteArrayInputStream bais = new ByteArrayInputStream(audioBytes);

        audioInputStream = new AudioInputStream(bais, format, audioBytes.length / frameSizeInBytes);

        long milliseconds = (long) ((audioInputStream.getFrameLength() * 1000) / format.getFrameRate());

        duration = milliseconds / 1000.0;

        try {
            AudioSystem.write(audioInputStream, AudioFileFormat.Type.WAVE, new File(voiceOutput));
            // METHOD WHICH ACTIVATES SENDING
            //  sendSoundFile();
            Thread sendVoice = new Thread(new sendVoice(voiceOutput, connection));
            sendVoice.start();

        } catch (IOException ex) {
            Logger.getLogger(chat.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);

        }

    }

    class sendVoice implements Runnable {

        String VoiceOutput;
        Socket connection;
        OutputStream output2;
        DataOutputStream dos;
        InputStream input2;
        FileInputStream fis;

        public sendVoice(String voiceOutput, Socket connection) {
            this.VoiceOutput = voiceOutput;
            this.connection = connection;

        }

        @Override
        public void run() {

            System.out.println("send voice now");

            try {
                output2 = connection.getOutputStream();
                output2.flush();
            } catch (IOException ex) {
                Logger.getLogger(chat.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
            }

            try {
                input2 = connection.getInputStream();
            } catch (IOException ex) {
                Logger.getLogger(chat.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
            }

            try {
                dos = new DataOutputStream(connection.getOutputStream());
            } catch (IOException ex1) {
                Logger.getLogger(chat.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex1);
                System.out.println("error creating data input stream ");
            }

            try {
                fis = new FileInputStream(voiceOutput);

            } catch (FileNotFoundException ex1) {
                Logger.getLogger(chat.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex1);
                System.out.println("error in creating file input stream");

            }

            int count = 0;
            byte[] buffer = new byte[4096];

            try {
                while ((count = fis.read(buffer)) > 0) {
                    dos.write(buffer, 0, count);
                    dos.flush();
                    System.out.println(fis);
                }
            } catch (IOException ex1) {
                Logger.getLogger(chat.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex1);
                System.out.println("error in loop writing");
            }

            try {
                // fis.close();
                dos.flush();
                dos.close();

            } catch (IOException ex1) {
                Logger.getLogger(chat.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex1);
                System.out.println("error closing dos");
            }

        }

    }

}

[Paul Clapham]

The variable in question is assigned a value in the run() method, the one which is called by the Thread when you start it. However it's clear from your stack trace that you never start any threads, since the run() method isn't in the stack trace.

Look, you have way too much code now to be debugging things which you should have done at the very beginning. So put that code aside and start again. Write a simple server which does nothing but accept connection requests and start threads to handle them. A plain old echo server would be good enough. Then to test that you would need one server and two clients, to make sure that your server can actually handle more than one client.

Once you've got that working, then you can start putting back the code you've written so far. But when you do that, remember that it's the code in the thread you spawned which should be doing all of the communication with its client. You should probably put this code in a separate class, first of all because it's the right thing to do and second of all because then you won't be tempted to mix up request-accepting code with communication-handling code.

[travis Haycock]

Thanks Paul, I'm rebuilding now I did what you recommend; started small scale with a simple echo server which worked kind of showed more in depth actually when I was working with shorter code what was going wrong. I tried to make the server fail and have found a couple faults where I went wrong with the threads.

[travis Haycock]

Where I think I was mistaken was just a lack of knowledge on my part I thought for example I could have used: (ill illustrate)


while(true){
Thread 1 (perform streams only etc.)

Thread 2 (perform only download etc.)



}


But in reality i need to replicate the whole class(s) for each connection .. if I'm not getting stuff mixed up again.

[Paul Clapham]

Yes, that's part of the "Separation of Concerns" concept. Your code modules -- methods and classes -- should each have a single concern. They should be responsible for a single thing. So you need a SocketServer to receive and accept connections. That's the single concern of the SocketServer. You shouldn't encumber that code module with any other processing. No saying Hello, no file transfers, none of that. After it accepts a connection it should give that connection to some other object whose single concern is to manage communications with that connection.

Now "manage communications" is a sort of wishy-washy piece of terminology. What is that anyway? Okay, you're going to say we can send text messages and we can transfer files and... So already we see the word "and" which tells us that there's more than one concern going on there. So we're going to have to separate those concerns. Maybe that just involves having different methods to do different things -- you've been doing that -- or maybe it's necessary to have more than one class for each of them. It just takes a bit of practice to be able to make that decision. My feeling is that being the gatekeeper waiting for connections is significantly different than being the manager who talks to clients. So that's why I suggested a separate class. But receiving a text message and echoing it to other clients in a chat session, versus receiving a file and making it accessible to other clients, that seems not so different. So maybe your communication manager just needs different methods for those things.