Execute multiple webrequests in WP7? - windows-phone-7

I have a list of addresses that i want to visit using httpWebRequest.
All i need is the statuscode returned by the server.
I have tried to foreach through them and begin a httpWebRequest on each of them, but then i only receive the callback from the last one.
It seems like only one webrequest is allowed at a time.
I'm having quite a hard time understanding how to do this without the GetResponse, which is not allowed in silverlight.
The code is running in a backgroundworker.
And i am using Mango - WP7.1
How do i solve that?
foreach (var current in Addresses)
{
var request = HttpWebRequest.Create(current);
request.BeginGetResponse(r =>
{
try
{
var response = (HttpWebResponse)request.EndGetResponse(r);
Deployment.Current.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(() =>
{
//BOOM RECEIVED
});
}
catch (Exception)
{
Debug.WriteLine("Error in EndGetResponse");
}
}, null);
}
Thanks in advance =)

Your problem of a single response is most likely being caused by your use of anonymous methods and the the way scoping works when you put these inside loops. You are throwing away the earlier request references on each step through the loop.
See my blogpost on the topic here http://csainty.blogspot.com/2010/10/windows-phone-7asynchronous-programming.html
The simplest way to illustrate this is to rewrite your code with full methods, this forces you to consider the scope instead of just blindly referening external variables in your delegates.
foreach (var current in Addresses)
{
var request = HttpWebRequest.Create(current);
request.BeginGetResponse(EndGetResponse, new RequestState { Request = request, Address = current });
}
private void EndGetResponse(IAsyncResult result) {
try {
var state = (RequestState)result.AsyncState;
var response = (HttpWebResponse)state.Request.EndGetResponse(result);
Deployment.Current.Dispatcher.BeginInvoke(GotResponse, state.Address, response.StatusCode);
} catch (Exception) {
Debug.WriteLine("Error in EndGetResponse");
}
}
private void GotResponse(Address address, HttpStatusCode code) {
//BOOM RECEIVED
}
public class RequestState {
HttpWebRequest Request { get; set; }
Address Address { get; set; }
}
Once you solve the scoping issues you can rewrite back into anonymos methods for stylistic reasons if you like.
This will only solve your first problem of getting all the responses back however, I assume you also need to run some code when all the requests are complete to check the status of the whole batch?
That is a different problem altogether.
You can not use WaitOne() or anything like that, it will lock your thread and stop the requests from actually running at all. You will probably want to call off to another method in you BOOM code that stores away the result and checks if all the results are in yet.

Related

NetworkStream ReadAsync and WriteAsync hang infinitelly when using CancellationTokenSource - Deadlock Caused by Task.Result (or Task.Wait)

After reading pretty much every question on Stack Overflow and Microsoft's documentation about NetworkStream, I dont understand what is wrong with my code.
The problem I see is that my method GetDataAsync() hangs very often. I call this method from Init Method like so:
public MyView(string id)
{
InitializeComponent();
MyViewModel myViewModel = session.Resolve<MyViewModel>(); //Autofac
myiewModel.Init(id);
BindingContext = myViewModel;
}
Above, my View does its initialization, then resolves MyViewModel from Autofac DiC and then calls MyViewModel Init() method to do some additional setup on the VM.
The Init method then calls my Async method GetDataAsync which return a IList like so:
public void Init()
{
// call this Async method to populate a ListView
foreach (var model in GetDataAsync("111").Result)
{
// The List<MyModel> returned by the GetDataAsync is then
// used to load ListView's ObservableCollection<MyModel>
// This ObservableCollection is data-bound to a ListView in
// this View. So, the ListView shows its data once the View
// displays.
}
}
, and here is my GetDataAsync() method including my comments:
public override async Task<IList<MyModel>> GetDataAsync(string id)
{
var timeout = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(20);
try
{
byte[] messageBytes = GetMessageBytes(Id);
using (var cts = new CancellationTokenSource(timeout))
using (TcpClient client = new TcpClient(Ip, Port))
using (NetworkStream stream = client.GetStream())
{
await stream.WriteAsync(messageBytes, 0, messageBytes.Length, cts.Token);
await stream.FlushAsync(cts.Token);
byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
StringBuilder builder = new StringBuilder();
int bytesRead = 0;
await Task.Delay(500);
while (stream.DataAvailable) // need to Delay to wait for data to be available
{
bytesRead = await stream.ReadAsync(buffer, 0, buffer.Length, cts.Token);
builder.AppendFormat("{0}", Encoding.ASCII.GetString(buffer, 0, bytesRead));
}
string msg = buffer.ToString();
}
return ParseMessageIntoList(msg); // parses message into IList<MyModel>
}
catch (OperationCanceledException oce)
{
return await Task.FromResult<IList<RoomGuestModel>>(new List<RoomGuestModel>());
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
return await Task.FromResult<IList<RoomGuestModel>>(new List<RoomGuestModel>());
}
}
I would expect that a ReadAsync or WriteAsync either complete successfully, throw some exception, or get cancelled after 10 seconds in which case I would catch OperationCanceledException.
However, it just hangs endlessly when I call method above. If I am debugging and have some breakpoints in the code above, I will be able to go through the method entirely but if I call it 2nd time, app just hangs forever.
I am new to Tasks and Async programming, so I am also not sure I do my cancellations and exception handling properly here?
UPDATE AND FIX
I figured out how to fix the deadlock issue. In hope this will help others sho might run into the same issue, I'll first explain it. The articles that helped me a lot are:
https://devblogs.microsoft.com/pfxteam/await-and-ui-and-deadlocks-oh-my/ by Stephen Taub
https://montemagno.com/c-sharp-developers-stop-calling-dot-result/ by James Montemagno
https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/jj991977.aspx by StephenCleary
https://blog.xamarin.com/getting-started-with-async-await/ by Jon Goldberger
#StephenCleary was great help understanding the issue. Calling Result or Wait (above, I call Result when calling GetDataAsync) will lead to dead-lock.
The context thread (UI in this case) is now waiting for GetDataAsync to complete, but GetDataAsync captures the current context-thread (UI thread), so it can resume on it once it gets data from TCP. But since this context-thread is now blocked by call to Result, it cannot resume.
The end result is that it looks like call to GetDataAsync has deadlocked but in reality, it is call to Result that deadlocked.
After reading tons of articles from #StephenTaub, #StephenCleary, #JamesMontemagno, #JoeGoldenberger (thank you all), I started getting understanding of the issue (I am new to TAP/async/await).
Then I discovered continuations in Tasks and how to use them to resolve the issue (thanks to Stephen Taub's article above).
So, instead of calling it like:
IList<MyModel> models = GetDataAsync("111").Result;
foeach(var model in models)
{
MyModelsObservableCollection.Add(model);
}
, I call it with continuation like this:
GetDataAsync(id)
.ContinueWith((antecedant) =>
{
foreach(var model in antecedant.Result)
{
MyModelsObservableCollection.Add(model);
}
}, TaskContinuationOptions.OnlyOnRanToCompletion)
.ContinueWith((antecedant) =>
{
var error = antecedant.Exception.Flatten();
}, TaskContinuationOptions.OnlyOnFaulted);
This seam to have fixed my deadlocking issue and now my list will load fine even though it is loaded from the constructor.
So, this seam to work just fine. But #JoeGoldenberger also suggests another solution in his article https://blog.xamarin.com/getting-started-with-async-await/ which is to use Task.Run(async()=>{...}); and inside that await GetDataAsync and load ObservableCollection. So, I gave that a try as well and that is not blocking either, so working great:
Task.Run(async() =>
{
IList<MyModel> models = await GetDataAsync(id);
foreach (var model in models)
{
MyModelsObservableCollection.Add(model);
}
});
So, it looks like either of these 2 will remove deadlock just fine. And since above my Init method is called from a c-tor; therefore, I cannot make it Async and await on this, using one of the 2 methods described above resolves my problem. I dont know which one is better but in my tests, they do work.
Your problem is most likely due to GetDataAsync("111").Result. You shouldn't block on async code.
This can cause deadocks. E.g., if you're on a UI thread, the UI thread will start GetDataAsync and run it until it hits an await. At this point, GetDataAsync returns an incomplete task, and the .Result call blocks the UI thread until that task is completed.
Eventually, the inner async call completes and GetDataAsync is ready to resume executing after its await. By default, await captures its context and resumes on that context. Which in this example is the UI thread. Which is blocked since it called Result. So, the UI thread is waiting for GetDataAsync to complete, and GetDataAsync is waiting for the UI thread so it can complete: deadlock.
The proper solution is to go async all the way; replace .Result with await, and make the necessary changes to other code for that to happen.
As stated in my update, going async all the way by providing an async lambda like below resolved the issue for me
Task.Run(async() =>
{
IList<MyModel> models = await GetDataAsync(id);
foreach (var model in models)
{
MyModelsObservableCollection.Add(model);
}
});
Loading asynchronously an observable collection in a ctor this way (in my case, ctor calls Init which then uses this Task.Run) solves problem

Akavache always calling the fetchFunc

I have the following code using Akavache in a Xamarin app and it's not behaving the way I would think it should. Probably my misunderstanding of how it should be but it's driving me crazy.
So in my viewmodel I'm making the call to FetchNewsCategories and specifying a cache of 5 minutes for the item. What I'd expect to happen is that if the cache item is not there, it would make a call to the fetchFunc (ie. FetchNewsCategoriesAsync) but if I call the service any number of times inside the cache timeout of 5 minutes, it should just give me the cached item and not do the server call. In all cases that I've tried, it keeps doing the rest call and never gives me the cached item. I've also tried this with GetAndFetchLatest and if there is a cached item, it doesn't make the rest call but it also doesn't make the call in the subscribe event in the viewmodel.
Any ideas what I'm doing wrong here?
EDIT: I tested this same code on Android (Nexus 5 KitKat API19) and it's working flawlessly. I'm going to reset my IOS emulator and see if something was just out of whack.
NewsService.cs
public static async Task<ServiceResponse<List<ArticleCategoryInfo>>> FetchNewsCategoriesAsync(BlogSourceType blogSource)
{
return await ServiceClient.POST<List<ArticleCategoryInfo>>(Config.ApiUrl + "news/categories", new
{
ModuleId = Int32.Parse(Config.Values[blogSource == BlogSourceType.News ? ConfigKeys.KEY_NEWS_MODULE_ID : ConfigKeys.KEY_BLOG_MODULE_ID])
});
}
public static IObservable<ServiceResponse<List<ArticleCategoryInfo>>> FetchNewsCategories(BlogSourceType blogSource)
{
var cache = BlobCache.LocalMachine;
var cachedCategories = cache.GetOrFetchObject("categories" + blogSource,
async () => await FetchNewsCategoriesAsync(blogSource),
DateTime.Now.AddMinutes(5));
return cachedCategories;
}
NewsViewModel.cs
public async Task LoadCategories()
{
var cachedCategories = NewsService.FetchNewsCategories(blogSource);
cachedCategories.Subscribe((obj) => { Device.BeginInvokeOnMainThread(() => DisplayCategories(obj.Result,"Subscribe"));});
return;
}
private void DisplayCategories(IList<ArticleCategoryInfo> categories, string source)
{
Categories.Clear();
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("Redisplaying categories from " + source);
foreach (var item in categories)
{
Categories.Add(item);
}
}
Just wanted to add my resolution to the issue I experienced above for reference to others with this problem.
The ServiceResponse object that I was trying to cache had an HttpResponseMessage in it which I suspect was causing a serialization error, probably a cyclical reference, so it never did get cached and ended up calling the endpoint every time. I ended up putting an [IgnoreDataMemberAttribute] on that property so it wasn't serialized and the problems went away.
I ended up handling the subscribe in the following manner to handle errors and to make sure the activity indicator bound to the IsBusy property was updated properly.
public async Task LoadActivities(bool refresh)
{
IsBusy = true;
if (refresh) OlderThanJournalId = int.MaxValue;
var cached = ActivityService.FetchJournalItems(GroupId, OlderThanJournalId, refresh);
cached.Subscribe((result) => { Device.BeginInvokeOnMainThread(() => {
DisplayActivities(result);
}); }, (err) => HandleError(err), () => IsBusy = false);
}
public void HandleError(Exception ex) {
IsBusy = false;
DialogService.ShowErrorToast(AppResources.ErrorMessage, "Unable to load activity stream.");
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine(ex.Message);
}
private void DisplayActivities(ServiceResponse<List<JournalItem>> response)
{
if (!response.IsConnected) {
DialogService.ShowInfoToast(AppResources.ErrorMessage, AppResources.NotConnected);
return;
}
if (!response.Authorized) {
App.LoginManager.Logout();
}
Activities.Clear();
foreach (var item in response.Result)
{
Activities.Add(item);
}
}
BeginInvokeOnMainThread is used to make sure that the updates to the ObservableCollection in DisplayActivities are seen in the UI.

Data Fetching Crashes in Xamarin Forms

I am trying to fetch Customer data to parse them into customer object to display on TableView. The following code sometimes works, sometimes not. Whenever it does crash, it shows Customer data is empty in the foreach loop even though I run the same code every time. I do not have clue what could be wrong in this circumstances. I am quite new on this platform. If I am missing anything/ extra information, please let me know.
namespace TableViewExample
{
public partial class MyDataServices : ContentPage
{
private ODataClient mODataClient;
private IEnumerable <IDictionary<string,object>> Customers;
public MyDataServices ()
{
InitializeComponent ();
InitializeDataService ();
GetDataFromOdataService ();
TableView tableView = new TableView{ };
var section = new TableSection ("Customer");
foreach (var customers in Customers) {
//System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine ((string)customers ["ContactName"]);
var name = (string)customers ["ContactName"];
var cell = new TextCell{ Text = name };
section.Add (cell);
}
tableView.Root.Add (section);
Padding = new Thickness (10, 20, 10, 10);
Content = new StackLayout () {
Children = { tableView }
};
}
private void InitializeDataService(){
try {
mODataClient = new ODataClient ("myURL is here");
}
catch {
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("ERROR!");
}
}
private void GetDataFromOdataService (){
try {
Customers = mODataClient.For ("Customers").FindEntries ();
}
catch {
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("ERROR!");
}
}
}
}
Its hard helping out here, however here are some things to consider:-
It sounds like the dataservice could either be not contactable / offline; too busy or it could even be throwing an exception itself and returning a data response that you are not expecting to receive, that then triggers an exception and crash in your application as your always expecting an exact response without catering for any abnormal responses / events.
If you are contacting an external service over the internet it may just be your internet connection is slow / faulty and not returning the information fast enough as other possibilities.
In your code you are assuming that you always get a response from the server - and that this response will always be of an anticipated structure that your expecting to decode - without factoring in any possibility of abnormal responses returned by the dataservice. I have not used ODataClient personally, so not sure how it behaves in the event of maybe no data received / timeout or in your case the dataservice and how it behaves internally in the response to a bad-request etc.
I am assuming an exception would get thrown, and you do get your debug line executed indicating a failure.
You may want to also adjust this statement so that you write out the exception as well, i.e.:-
private void GetDataFromOdataService ()
{
try
{
Customers = mODataClient.For ("Customers").FindEntries ();
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
System.Diagnostics.Debug.WriteLine("ERROR!" + ex.ToString());
}
}
If there was a bad response, then the line at Customers = ..... would throw the exception as there may be no Customers returned or some other information packaged in the response from the dataservice.
The Customers variable would also be null at this point I am assuming due to this failing.
So when you get back to your code at foreach (var customers in Customers) { it will then throw a null reference exception as Customers is infact null.
As all your current code executes in the constructor without any try and catch block around this, it will also crash your application at this point as well.
Also you are doing all of this work in the constructor. Try seperating this out. I haven't investigated exactly where the constructor gets called in an iOS page life-cycle, however, if it is in the viewDidLoad, then you have something like 10 seconds for everything to complete, otherwise it will exit automatically. I imagine in your case, this isn't applicable however.
Going forward also try putting your layout controls in the constructor, and move your data task to maybe the OnAppearing override instead.
Using async would definitely be advisable as well, but remember you need to inspect the response from your dataservice, as the error could be embedded within the response also and you will need to detect when it is OK to process the data.

URLLoader Event.Complete Not Triggering

private var csv:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
private var array:Array = new Array();
private var urlr:URLRequest = new URLRequest();
public function loadRecipe(path:String):void
{
try
{
csv.dataFormat = URLLoaderDataFormat.TEXT;
urlr = new URLRequest(path);
csv.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, finishRecipe);
csv.load(urlr);
}
catch (e:SecurityErrorEvent)
{
trace("1");
}
catch (e:IOErrorEvent)
{
trace("2");
}
}
public function finishRecipe(e:Event):void
{
var csvString:String = csv.data as String;
array = csvString.split(",");
}
My code that I'm working with is above. I can't get the completion event to ever trigger, that is, my array is never populated. Can anyone give me insight as to why?
EDIT:
I changed to get rid of all the weak references and check for errors. I don't get any errors.
I've run into this bug frequently over the years. When certain browsers (FireFox, Chrome) retrieve the file from cache instead of network, the loader will dispatch a PROGRESS event but never COMPLETE.
Try clearing your browser cache and see whether the file loads correctly next time. If so, you can do one of two things as a workaround:
Break the cache by adding a random string to the end of your request URL.
urlr = new URLRequest(path + "?cachebust=" + Math.floor(100000+900000*Math.random()));
This is simple to code, but has obvious disadvantages, forcing unnecessary reloads.
Listen for both COMPLETE and PROGRESS events. In the PROGRESS handler, check to see if bytesLoaded matches bytesTotal. If it does, remove all handlers and continue as if it were a COMPLETE event.
... somewhere in your code ...
loader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, handleComplete);
loader.addEventListener(ProgressEvent.PROGRESS, handleProgress);
... somewhere else
private function handleProgress(evt:ProgressEvent):void
{
checkLoadComplete();
}
private function handleComplete(evt:Event):void
{
checkLoadComplete();
}
private function checkLoadComplete():void
{
if(loader.bytesTotal > 0 && loader.bytesLoaded == loader.bytesTotal) {
loader.removeEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, handleComplete);
loader.removeEventListener(ProgressEvent.PROGRESS, handleProgress);
... your code here
}
}
Ummm just looking at the code you provided it seems like you actually try to catch the errors using try/catch. In order to find errors, you have to start listening to them on the actual loader. Like this:
public function Foobar() {
var loader:URLLoader;
loader.addEventListener(IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR, onIOError);
loader.addEventListener(SecurityErrorEvent.SECURITY_ERROR, onSecurityError);
loader.addEventListener(ProgressEvent.PROGRESS, onProgress);
loader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, onComplete);
}
private function onComplete(e:Event):void {}
private function onProgress(e:ProgressEvent):void {}
private function onSecurityError(e:SecurityErrorEvent):void {}
private function onIOError(e:IOErrorEvent):void {}

Recursive call to IObservable in Windows Phone 7 application using Rx

We have a Windows Phone 7 application which uses a set of 3 service methods using Reactive Extensions, defined as follows:
public static class ServiceClient
{
public static IObservable<string> LookupImage(byte[] image) {...}
public static IObservable<XDocument> GetDefinition(string id) {...}
public static IObservable<Dictionary<string, byte[]>> GetFiles(string id, string[] fileNames) {...}
}
We need the WP7 application to keep calling LookupImage in the above client (each time with different set of byte[] image data) until the returned IObservable<string> is nonempty. After we get the Observable string we have to call GetDefinition and GetFiles methods (in that order).
The calls to LookupImage should happen as often as the service response is returned as opposed to being controlled by a timer as it will vary depending on network connection speed and we need to be able to send as many of these as possible.
I'd appreciate any pointers to what might be a solution to the above. As a start I have the following
private void RunLookupAndRenderLogic()
{
byte[] imageBytes = GetImageBytes();
// There are some cases where the image was not 'interesting' enough in which case GetImageBytes() returns null
if (pictureBytes != null)
{
// Where we have image data, send this to LookupImage service method
var markerLookup = ServiceClient.LookupImage(imageBytes);
markerLookup.Subscribe(id =>
{
// If the id is empty, we need to call this again.
if (String.IsNullOrEmpty(id))
{
???
}
// If we have an id, call GetDefinition and GetFiles methods of the service. No further calls to LookupImage should take place.
RenderLogic(id);
});
}
else
// If no interesting image was returned, try again
RunRecognitionAndRenderLogic();
}
Apologies if I get this wrong, but if I understand it correctly you want to Retry the call to LookupImage with the exact same argument, until it returns a value?
A naive way of solving this would be to simply call repeat and then take(1):
ServiceClient.LookupImage(imageBytes)
.Repeat()
.Take(1)
.Subscribe(id => ....);
However as Rx is single threaded by default, there is no point in this context that allows us to inject our disposal call (implicit from the Take(1)-->OnComplete()-->Auto disposal of subscription).
You can dodge this by offering some breathing space between subsequent re-subscriptions by using the CurrentThread Scheduler.
Observable.Defer(()=>
ServiceClient.LookupImage(imageBytes)
.ObserveOn(Scheduler.CurrentThread)
)
.Repeat()
.Take(1)
.Subscribe(id => ....);
There are other ways of achieving this with some good understanding of Rx and some creativity. (Most I would imagine a Scheduler)
To give you some inspriation check out the chapter on Scheduling and Threading. It covers recursion and building your own iterator which is effectively what you are trying to do.
Full code sample:
private void RunLookupAndRenderLogic()
{
byte[] imageBytes = GetImageBytes();
// There are some cases where the image was not 'interesting' enough in which case GetImageBytes() returns null
if (pictureBytes != null)
{
// Where we have image data, send this to LookupImage service method
var subscription = Observable
.Defer(()=>
ServiceClient.LookupImage(imageBytes)
.ObserveOn(Scheduler.CurrentThread)
)
.Where(id=>!String.IsNullOrEmpty(id))
.Repeat()
.Take(1)
.Subscribe(id =>
{
// If we have an id, call GetDefinition and GetFiles methods of the service. No further calls to LookupImage should take place.
RenderLogic(id);
});
//TODO: You dont offer any way to cancel this (dispose of the suscription).
//This means you could loop forever :-(
}
else
{
// If no interesting image was returned, try again
RunRecognitionAndRenderLogic();
}
}
(Disclosure: I am the author of IntroToRx.com)

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