HttpURLConnection fail on Android

Question

(Solved - see comment below)

I have a class that implements a multipart file upload. The code works on every java client I've tried it on except for Android, and it's the only HTTP request code in my Android app that doesn't play nice with my back end service.

The connection responseCode is "-1" so something pretty nasty is going on here. No entries show up in the Apache access or error logs, it seems as if the request is never making it off of the android platform. The code gets right through the connection writes, but hangs on the connection read, times out and then returns. Behavior is same for real phone and emulator.

Does anyone know of any gotchas one needs to look out for when posting a multipart file in Android?

I'm including the class below (minor hygienic mods made) so you can see what I'm up to

import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.DataOutputStream;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.net.HttpURLConnection;
import java.net.MalformedURLException;
import java.net.URL;

public class GeoPictureUploader
{
    static String serviceDomain = "http://staging.abaqus.net";
    static String postUrl = serviceDomain + "/geo/upl/wupload/pictures";
    static String CRLF = "\r\n"; 
    static String twoHyphens = "--"; 
    static String boundary = "*****mgd*****"; 

    private String pictureFileName = null;
    private String name = null;
    private String password = null;
    private DataOutputStream dataStream = null;

    enum ReturnCode { noPicture, unknown, http201, http400, http401, http403, http404, http500};

    public GeoPictureUploader(String name, String password) 
    {
        this.name = name;
        this.password = password;
    }

    public static void setServiceDomain(String domainName)
    {
        serviceDomain = domainName;
    }

    public static String getServiceDomain()
    {
        return serviceDomain;
    }

    public ReturnCode uploadPicture(String pictureFileName)
    {
        this.pictureFileName = pictureFileName;
        File uploadFile = new File(pictureFileName); 

        if (uploadFile.exists())
            try 
            { 
                FileInputStream fileInputStream = new FileInputStream(uploadFile); 
                URL connectURL = new URL(postUrl);
                HttpURLConnection conn = (HttpURLConnection)connectURL.openConnection(); 

                conn.setDoInput(true); 
                conn.setDoOutput(true); 
                conn.setUseCaches(false); 
                conn.setRequestMethod("POST"); 

                conn.setRequestProperty("User-Agent", "myGeodiary-V1");
                conn.setRequestProperty("Connection","Keep-Alive"); 
                conn.setRequestProperty("Content-Type","multipart/form-data;boundary="+boundary); 

                conn.connect();

                dataStream = new DataOutputStream(conn.getOutputStream()); 

                writeFormField("login", name);
                writeFormField("password", password);
                writeFileField("photo1", pictureFileName, "image/jpg", fileInputStream);

                // final closing boundary line
                dataStream.writeBytes(twoHyphens + boundary + twoHyphens + CRLF); 

                fileInputStream.close(); 
                dataStream.flush(); 
                dataStream.close();
                dataStream = null;

                String response = getResponse(conn);
                int responseCode = conn.getResponseCode();

                if (response.contains("uploaded successfully"))
                    return ReturnCode.http201;
                else 
                    // for now assume bad name/password
                    return ReturnCode.http401; 
            } 
            catch (MalformedURLException mue) { 
                // Log.e(Tag, "error: " + mue.getMessage(), mue); 
                System.out.println("GeoPictureUploader.uploadPicture: Malformed URL: " + mue.getMessage());
                return ReturnCode.http400;
            } 
            catch (IOException ioe) { 
                // Log.e(Tag, "error: " + ioe.getMessage(), ioe); 
                System.out.println("GeoPictureUploader.uploadPicture: IOE: " + ioe.getMessage());
                return ReturnCode.http500;
            } 
            catch (Exception e) { 
                // Log.e(Tag, "error: " + ioe.getMessage(), ioe); 
                System.out.println("GeoPictureUploader.uploadPicture: unknown: " + e.getMessage());
                return ReturnCode.unknown;
            } 
        else 
        {
            return ReturnCode.noPicture;  
        }
    }

    /**
     * @param conn
     * @return
     */
    private String getResponse(HttpURLConnection conn)
    {
        try 
        {
            DataInputStream dis = new DataInputStream(conn.getInputStream()); 
            byte []        data = new byte[1024];
            int             len = dis.read(data, 0, 1024);

            dis.close();
            int responseCode = conn.getResponseCode();

            if (len > 0)
                return new String(data, 0, len);
            else
                return "";
        }
        catch(Exception e)
        {
            System.out.println("GeoPictureUploader: biffed it getting HTTPResponse");
            //Log.e(TAG, "GeoPictureUploader: biffed it getting HTTPResponse");
            return "";
        }
    }

    /**
     *  this mode of reading response no good either
     */
    private String getResponseOrig(HttpURLConnection conn)
    {
        InputStream is = null;
        try 
        {
            is = conn.getInputStream(); 
            // scoop up the reply from the server
            int ch; 
            StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer(); 
            while( ( ch = is.read() ) != -1 ) { 
                sb.append( (char)ch ); 
            } 
            return sb.toString();   // TODO Auto-generated method stub
        }
        catch(Exception e)
        {
            System.out.println("GeoPictureUploader: biffed it getting HTTPResponse");
            //Log.e(TAG, "GeoPictureUploader: biffed it getting HTTPResponse");
        }
        finally 
        {
            try {
            if (is != null)
                is.close();
            } catch (Exception e) {}
        }

        return "";
    }

    /**
     * write one form field to dataSream
     * @param fieldName
     * @param fieldValue
     */
    private void writeFormField(String fieldName, String fieldValue)
    {
        try
        {
            dataStream.writeBytes(twoHyphens + boundary + CRLF);    
            dataStream.writeBytes("Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\"" + fieldName + "\"" + CRLF);
            dataStream.writeBytes(CRLF);
            dataStream.writeBytes(fieldValue);
            dataStream.writeBytes(CRLF);
        }
        catch(Exception e)
        {
            System.out.println("GeoPictureUploader.writeFormField: got: " + e.getMessage());
            //Log.e(TAG, "GeoPictureUploader.writeFormField: got: " + e.getMessage());
        }
    }

    /**
     * write one file field to dataSream
     * @param fieldName - name of file field
     * @param fieldValue - file name
     * @param type - mime type
     * @param fileInputStream - stream of bytes that get sent up
     */
    private void writeFileField(
        String fieldName,
        String fieldValue,
        String type,
        FileInputStream fis)
    {
        try
        {
            // opening boundary line
            dataStream.writeBytes(twoHyphens + boundary + CRLF);    
            dataStream.writeBytes("Content-Disposition: form-data; name=\""
                                  + fieldName
                                  + "\";filename=\"" 
                                  + fieldValue
                                  + "\"" 
                                  + CRLF);
            dataStream.writeBytes("Content-Type: " + type +  CRLF);
            dataStream.writeBytes(CRLF); 

            // create a buffer of maximum size 
            int bytesAvailable = fis.available(); 
            int maxBufferSize = 1024; 
            int bufferSize = Math.min(bytesAvailable, maxBufferSize); 
            byte[] buffer = new byte[bufferSize]; 
            // read file and write it into form... 
            int bytesRead = fis.read(buffer, 0, bufferSize); 
            while (bytesRead > 0) 
            { 
                dataStream.write(buffer, 0, bufferSize); 
                bytesAvailable = fis.available(); 
                bufferSize = Math.min(bytesAvailable, maxBufferSize); 
                bytesRead = fis.read(buffer, 0, bufferSize); 
            } 

            // closing CRLF
            dataStream.writeBytes(CRLF);
        }
        catch(Exception e)
        {
            System.out.println("GeoPictureUploader.writeFormField: got: " + e.getMessage());
            //Log.e(TAG, "GeoPictureUploader.writeFormField: got: " + e.getMessage());
        }
    }


    /**
     * @param args
     */
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        if (args.length >= 0)
        {
            GeoPictureUploader gpu = new GeoPictureUploader("john", "notmyrealpassword");
            String picName = args[0];

            ReturnCode rc = gpu.uploadPicture(picName);
            System.out.printf("done");
        }
    }

}

Answer 1

Have you set the internet permission? I would make sure simple Gets (Use the HTTPUrl to fetch google) before trying to debug post.