I have a Java web service client running on Linux (using Axis 1.4) that invokes a series of web services operations performed against a Windows server. There are times that some transactional operations fail with this Exception:
java.net.SocketTimeoutException: Read timed out
However, the operation on the server is completed (even having no useful response on the client). Is this a bug of either the web service server/client? Or is expected to happen on a TCP socket?
This is the expected behavior, rather than a bug. The operation behind the web service doesn’t know anything about your read timing out so continues processing the operation.
You could increase the timeout of the connection – if you are manually manipulating the socket itself, the socket.connect() method can take a timeout (in milliseconds). A zero should avoid your side timing out – see the API docs.
If the operation is going to take a long time in each case, you may want to look at making this asynchronous – a first request submits the operations, then a second request to get back the results, possibly with some polling to see when the results are ready.
If you think the operation should be completing in this time, have you access to the server to see why it is taking so long?