Question

I am using HttpWebResponse.GetResponseStream to access an internet radio stream, and want to read some data from the response stream, and then disconnect. However, I always hang indefinitely on the Dispose of the stream. The unit test below will display “Cleaning up networkStream…”, but never get to “Finished”. Why is this? And should I fix it by just not bothering to Dispose of my networkStream?

[Test]
public void CanStreamMP3Radio()
{
    string url = @"http://radio.reaper.fm/stream/";
    HttpWebRequest req = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);
    HttpWebResponse resp = (HttpWebResponse)req.GetResponse();

    int total = 0;
    byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];

    using(var networkStream = resp.GetResponseStream())
    {
        do
        {
            int bytesRead = networkStream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
            Console.WriteLine("{0} bytesRead", bytesRead);
            total += bytesRead;
        } while (total < 16384);
        Console.WriteLine("Cleaning up networkStream...");
    }
    Console.WriteLine("Finished");
}

Answer 1

EDIT: just found a solution… call req.Abort() before the end of the using block. Not very elegant, but it works… So the code becomes:

[Test]
public void CanStreamMP3Radio()
{
    string url = @"http://radio.reaper.fm/stream/";
    HttpWebRequest req = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);
    using (HttpWebResponse resp = (HttpWebResponse)req.GetResponse())
    {
        int total = 0;
        byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];

        var networkStream = resp.GetResponseStream();
        do
        {
            int bytesRead = networkStream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
            Console.WriteLine("{0} bytesRead", bytesRead);
            total += bytesRead;
        } while (total < 16384);
        Console.WriteLine("Cleaning up HttpWebResponse...");
        req.Abort();
    }
    Console.WriteLine("Finished");
}

---

Try disposing the HttpWebResponse instead:

[Test]
public void CanStreamMP3Radio()
{
    string url = @"http://radio.reaper.fm/stream/";
    HttpWebRequest req = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);
    using (HttpWebResponse resp = (HttpWebResponse)req.GetResponse())
    {
        int total = 0;
        byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];

        var networkStream = resp.GetResponseStream();
        do
        {
            int bytesRead = networkStream.Read(buffer, 0, buffer.Length);
            Console.WriteLine("{0} bytesRead", bytesRead);
            total += bytesRead;
        } while (total < 16384);
        Console.WriteLine("Cleaning up HttpWebResponse...");
    }
    Console.WriteLine("Finished");
}

It should dispose the NetworkStream as well.