Getting java.net.SocketTimeoutException: Connection timed out in android

Question

I'm relatively new to android development. I'm developing an android application where i'm sending request to web server and parsing json objects. Frequently i'm getting java.net.SocketTimeoutException: Connection timed out exception while communicating with the server. Some times it will work perfectly without any problem. I know this same question has been asked in SO many times. But still i didn't get any satisfying solution to this problem. I'm posting my logcat and app-server communication code below.

public JSONObject RequestWithHttpUrlConn(String _url, String param){

    HttpURLConnection con = null;
    URL url;
    String response = "";
    Scanner inStream = null;
    PrintWriter out = null;
    try {
        url = new URL(_url);
        con = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();
        con.setDoOutput(true);
        con.setRequestMethod("POST");
        if(param != null){
            con.setFixedLengthStreamingMode(param.getBytes().length);
        }
        con.setRequestProperty("Content-Type", "application/x-www-form-urlencoded");
        out = new PrintWriter(con.getOutputStream());
        if(param != null){
            out.print(param);
        }
        out.flush();
        out.close();
        inStream = new Scanner(con.getInputStream());

        while(inStream.hasNextLine()){
            response+=(inStream.nextLine());
        }
    } catch (MalformedURLException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    } catch (IOException e) {
        // TODO Auto-generated catch block
        e.printStackTrace();
    } finally{
        if(con != null){
            con.disconnect();
        }if(inStream != null){
            inStream.close();
        }if(out != null){
            out.flush();
            out.close();
        }
    }
}

Logcat:

03-25 10:55:32.613: W/System.err(18868): java.net.SocketTimeoutException: Connection 
timed out
03-25 10:55:32.617: W/System.err(18868):at org.apache.harmony.luni.platform.OSNetworkSystem.connect(Native Method)
03-25 10:55:32.617: W/System.err(18868):at dalvik.system.BlockGuard
$WrappedNetworkSystem.connect(BlockGuard.java:357)
03-25 10:55:32.617: W/System.err(18868):at 
org.apache.harmony.luni.net.PlainSocketImpl.connect(PlainSocketImpl.java:204)
03-25 10:55:32.617: W/System.err(18868):at 
org.apache.harmony.luni.net.PlainSocketImpl.connect(PlainSocketImpl.java:437)
03-25 10:55:32.617: W/System.err(18868):at        java.net.Socket.connect(Socket.java:1002)
03-25 10:55:32.621: W/System.err(18868):at 
org.apache.harmony.luni.internal.net.www.protocol.http.HttpConnection.<init>
(HttpConnection.java:75)
03-25 10:55:32.621: W/System.err(18868): at 
org.apache.harmony.luni.internal.net.www.protocol.http.HttpConnection.<init>
(HttpConnection.java:48)03-25 10:55:32.624: W/System.err(18868):at 
org.apache.harmony.luni.internal.net.www.protocol.http.HttpConnection$Address.connect
(HttpConnection.java:322)03-25 10:55:32.624: W/System.err(18868):at 
org.apache.harmony.luni.internal.net.www.protocol.http.HttpConnectionPool.get
(HttpConnectionPool.java:89)03-25 10:55:32.628: W/System.err(18868):at 
org.apache.harmony.luni.internal.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnectionImpl.getHttpCon
nection(HttpURLConnectionImpl.java:285)
03-25 10:55:32.628: W/System.err(18868):at     org.apache.harmony.luni.internal.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnectionImpl.makeConn
ection(HttpURLConnectionImpl.java:267)
03-25 10:55:32.636: W/System.err(18868):at
org.apache.harmony.luni.internal.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnectionImpl.connect
(HttpURLConnectionImpl.java:205)
03-25 10:55:32.636: W/System.err(18868):at 
org.apache.harmony.luni.internal.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnectionImpl.getOutputS
tream(HttpURLConnectionImpl.java:614)
03-25 10:55:32.636: W/System.err(18868):at 
com.myapp.core.JSONRequest.RequestWithHttpUrlConn(JSONRequest.java:63)
03-25 10:55:32.636: W/System.err(18868):    at com.myapp.core.DetailPage
$AsyncRecBooks.doInBackground(AKBookDetailView.java:265)
03-25 10:55:32.640: W/System.err(18868):    at com.myapp.core.DetailPage
$AsyncRecBooks.doInBackground(AKBookDetailView.java:1)
03-25 10:55:32.640: W/System.err(18868):    at android.os.AsyncTask$2.call
(AsyncTask.java:185)
03-25 10:55:32.640: W/System.err(18868):    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask
$Sync.innerRun(FutureTask.java:306)
03-25 10:55:32.640: W/System.err(18868):    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run
(FutureTask.java:138)
03-25 10:55:32.640: W/System.err(18868):    at 
java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1088)
03-25 10:55:32.648: W/System.err(18868):    at 
java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:581)
03-25 10:55:32.648: W/System.err(18868):    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:1019)
03-25 10:55:32.652: E/JSON Parser(18868): Error parsing data org.json.JSONException:  
End of input at character 0 of 

Can anyone help me out to find out a solution for this? Thanks in Advance....

Answer 1

I've searched all over the web and after reading lot of docs regarding connection timeout exception, the thing I understood is that, preventing SocketTimeoutException is beyond our limit. One way to effectively handle it is to define a connection timeout and later handle it by using a try-catch block. Hope this will help anyone in future who are facing the same issue.

HttpUrlConnection conn = (HttpURLConnection) url.openConnection();

//set the timeout in milliseconds
conn.setConnectTimeout(7000);