Akka - Is it possible to get the message in the actor's supervisor on it's failure?

Question

Is there a way to get a message in actor supervisor's SupervisorStrategy? I mean the one that caused actor's failure. I want to get some data from it.

Answer 1

A possible approach:

1. Define a new runtime exception exception class able to encapsulate the faulty message.
2. In the supervised actor. Catch exceptions and throw instead the exception defined above with the faulty message.
3. In the supervisor strategy, catch the new exception type and access the message.

For instance:

// The new exception type
case class MessageException( 
  akkaMessage: Any, 
  originalException: Throwable 
) extends RuntimeException("Exception due to message")

// In the supervised actor
def receive = {
  case msg => try{ process(msg) } catch { 
    case t => throw MessageException(msg,t) 
  }
}

// In the supervisor
override val supervisorStrategy =
  OneForOneStrategy(maxNrOfRetries = 10, withinTimeRange = 1 minute) {
     case MessageException(msg,t) => //decide what to do
  }