How to handle ClientAbortException in Spring-MVC?

Question

Whenever a client aborts the connection, I'm getting a ClientAbortException logged as follows:

org.apache.catalina.connector.ClientAbortException: java.io.IOException: APR error: -730053
    at org.apache.catalina.connector.OutputBuffer.doFlush(OutputBuffer.java:353) ~[catalina.jar:8.0.26]
    at org.apache.catalina.connector.OutputBuffer.flush(OutputBuffer.java:317) ~[catalina.jar:8.0.26]
    at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteOutputStream.flush(CoyoteOutputStream.java:110) ~[catalina.jar:8.0.26]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.core.json.UTF8JsonGenerator.flush(UTF8JsonGenerator.java:1022) ~[jackson-core-2.6.5.jar:2.6.5]
    at com.fasterxml.jackson.databind.ObjectWriter.writeValue(ObjectWriter.java:891) ~[jackson-databind-2.6.5.jar:2.6.5]
    at org.springframework.http.converter.json.AbstractJackson2HttpMessageConverter.writeInternal(AbstractJackson2HttpMessageConverter.java:264) ~[spring-web-4.2.4.RELEASE.jar:4.2.4.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.http.converter.AbstractGenericHttpMessageConverter.write(AbstractGenericHttpMessageConverter.java:100) ~[spring-web-4.2.4.RELEASE.jar:4.2.4.RELEASE]
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.AbstractMessageConverterMethodProcessor.writeWithMessageConverters(AbstractMessageConverterMethodProcessor.java:222) ~[spring-webmvc-4.2.4.RELEASE.jar:4.2.4.RELEASE]

Question: as I don't care if the client aborts the connection, I'd want to prevent logging. Or moreover, prevent my application trying to acutally return a response.

How could I do this?

Could I create some kind of global @ExceptionHandler(ClientAbortException.class) but returning void if I catch any?

Answer 1

Since at least Spring Boot 2.3.4 (and probably before) you can use a @ControllerAdvice annotated class with the following method:

  @ExceptionHandler(ClientAbortException.class)
  public void handleLockException(ClientAbortException exception, HttpServletRequest request) {
    final String message = "ClientAbortException generated by request {} {} from remote address {} with X-FORWARDED-FOR {}";
    final String headerXFF = request.getHeader("X-FORWARDED-FOR");
    log.warn(message, request.getMethod(), request.getRequestURL(), request.getRemoteAddr(), headerXFF);
  }

Answer 2

I've had the same problem and i was unable to do what you tell with Spring MVC and a Exception handler. Some exceptions (Unchecked ones i guess) are not chatched by Spring MVC handlers. What i did was to define a generic filter in web.xml

  <!-- Filter for exception handling, for those exceptions don't catched by Spring MVC -->
  <filter>
    <filter-name>LoggerFilter</filter-name>
    <filter-class>com.myproject.commons.filters.ExceptionLoggerServletFilter</filter-class>
  </filter>
  <filter-mapping>
    <filter-name>LoggerFilter</filter-name>
    <url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
  </filter-mapping>

And the source of my filter:

public class ExceptionLoggerServletFilter implements Filter {
  private static Log log = LogFactory.getLog(ExceptionLoggerServletFilter.class);

  @Override
  public void init(FilterConfig filterConfig) throws ServletException {
  }

  @Override
  public void doFilter(ServletRequest request, ServletResponse response, FilterChain chain) throws IOException,
      ServletException {
    try {
      chain.doFilter(request, response);
    } catch (Throwable e) {
      StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
      sb.append("Exception detected in ExceptionLoggerServletFilter:");
      if (e instanceof org.apache.catalina.connector.ClientAbortException) {
        // don't do full log of this error
        sb.append(" ClientAbortException");
        log.error(sb.toString());
      } else {
        log.error(sb.toString(), e);
      }
      throw e;
    }
  }

  @Override
  public void destroy() {
  }

}