System.Net.Http.HttpRequestException Error while copying content to a stream

Question

I am using the HttpClient class in .NET Framework 4.5.2.

I calling PostAsync against a third party web service. 80% of the time this post works, 20% of the time our response is cut short. In this situation we get the following exception:

System.Net.Http.HttpRequestException: Error while copying content to a stream. ---> System.IO.IOException: Unable to read data from the transport connection: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host. ---> System.Net.Sockets.SocketException: An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host at System.Net.Sockets.NetworkStream.BeginRead(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size, AsyncCallback callback, Object state) --- End of inner exception stack trace --- at System.Net.Sockets.NetworkStream.BeginRead(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size, AsyncCallback callback, Object state) at System.Net.FixedSizeReader.StartReading() at System.Net.Security._SslStream.StartFrameHeader(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest) at System.Net.Security._SslStream.StartReading(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest) at System.Net.Security._SslStream.ProcessRead(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count, AsyncProtocolRequest asyncRequest) at System.Net.TlsStream.BeginRead(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size, AsyncCallback asyncCallback, Object asyncState) at System.Net.ConnectStream.BeginReadWithoutValidation(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size, AsyncCallback callback, Object state) at System.Net.ConnectStream.BeginRead(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 size, AsyncCallback callback, Object state) at System.Net.Http.HttpClientHandler.WebExceptionWrapperStream.BeginRead(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count, AsyncCallback callback, Object state) at System.Net.Http.StreamToStreamCopy.StartRead()

A subsequent identical request succeeds.

We cannot retry this request as the business action has already been taken. So it leaves us in an awkward situation.

This is my code:

using (var httpClient = new HttpClient())
{
    httpClient.DefaultRequestHeaders.Authorization = authorizationHeader;
    HttpContent httpContent = new StringContent(someXml);

    //Exception occurs on next line...
    var response = await httpClient.PostAsync("https://thirdpartyendpoint", httpContent);
    var responseXml = await response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();  
    //convert to Dto              
}

The third-party service are successfully saving the record to their database and do not see any obvious exceptions at their end. They did note that the failing requests generally took longer (around 18-30 seconds) to write to the database than the successful requests.

What can I do to handle this better?

Seems there is a blocking operation or the bad indexes in their database. Try to profile database queries or monitor db locks. — Roman Dibikhin
– Roman Dibikhin, Commented Oct 20, 2015 at 10:49
Hi Roman, despite the additional delay, they do not raise an exception in their code and they complete the response. We just do not receive it. — jonho
– jonho, Commented Oct 20, 2015 at 10:56

spottedmahn · Accepted Answer · 2020-12-06 06:17:46Z

26

we resolved this problem with 2 code changes:

Dispose of the httpResponseMessage and just work with a simple DTO

using (var httpResponseMessage = await httpClient.SendAsync(httpRequestMessage))
{
    return await CreateDto(httpResponseMessage);
}

Downgrade the version of HTTP to v1.0

var httpRequestMessage = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Post, new Uri(url))
{
    Version = HttpVersion.Version10,
    Content = httpContent
};

await client.SendAsync(httpRequestMessage);

which has the effect of adding this Http header

Connection: close

rather than this

Connection: keep-alive

edited Dec 6, 2020 at 6:17

spottedmahn

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answered Nov 3, 2015 at 14:32

jonho

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8 Comments

garenyondem Over a year ago

Any ideas about how to apply HttpVersion to httpClient get requests?

jonho Over a year ago

var httpRequestMessage = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Get, new Uri(url)) { Version = HttpVersion.Version10, Content = httpContent }; await client.SendAsync(httpRequestMessage); should do it

zinczinc Over a year ago

Using DTOs instead solved my problem. I suspected it would help. Thank you!

juanora Over a year ago

just by changing DefaultRequestHeaders.ConnectionClose to true worked for me :)

Robert Over a year ago

Downgrade to HTTP v1.0 worked for me. I found this is needed when post to Windows Server 2008 R2 but not Windows Server 2012, Any idea why?

|

Steve Wranovsky · Accepted Answer · 2019-02-14 16:53:21Z

6

I had a similar problem with the use of a shared HttpClient connecting to a server for REST calls. The problem ended up being a mismatch between the KeepAlive timeout on the client and server. The client side timeout is set by the MaxServicePointIdleTime setting on the ServicePointManager and defaults to 100s. The server side idle timeout was set to a shorter value in our server.

Having a shorter timeout on the server as compared to the client resulted in the server sporadically closing a connection just when the client was attempting to connect. This resulted in the reported exception.

Note that I ultimately found the problem because I also received this exception under the same conditions:

System.Net.WebException: The underlying connection was closed: A connection that was expected to be kept alive was closed by the server.

answered Feb 14, 2019 at 16:53

Steve Wranovsky

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2 Comments

user2173353 Over a year ago

This sounds interesting. Can you say what you did to set the server idle timeout? For the client I guess you used ServicePointManager.FindServicePoint(...).

Steve Wranovsky Over a year ago

@user2173353, we had a customer HttpServer that we could set the KeepAlive directly on a socket. I'm not sure how to set it in other cases.

DIMMACK · Accepted Answer · 2019-04-20 15:33:15Z

3

I had the same error (Error while copying content to a stream) with HTTPClient PutAsync() method:

using (StreamContent content = new StreamContent(stream))
{
    HttpResponseMessage response = await client.PutAsync(url, content))
}

You need to specify the HttpCompletionOption.ResponseHeadersRead flag which is not available in PutAsync so I switched to SendAsync:

using (StreamContent content = new StreamContent(stream))
{
    var httpRequest = new HttpRequestMessage(HttpMethod.Put, url);
    httpRequest.Content = content;

    HttpResponseMessage response = await client.SendAsync(httpRequest, HttpCompletionOption.ResponseHeadersRead);
}

answered Apr 20, 2019 at 15:33

DIMMACK

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3 Comments

user2173353 Over a year ago

Any idea why this is needed? Based on the description in the docs, I don't understand why this would help: learn.microsoft.com/en-us/uwp/api/….

Wietze Over a year ago

Maybe the answer is here: github.com/dotnet/corefx/issues/24683#issuecomment-435189110

bdrajer Jan 25 at 17:12

In my case, this eliminated the exception thrown by SendAsync() but the same exception is then thrown immediately afterwards when doing response.Content.ReadAsStringAsync()

Kozmocreamer · Accepted Answer · 2024-10-24 17:08:36Z

0

If you don't want to downgrade your HTTP version which I strongly recommend against, change your default request header to close the connection like so:

Client.DefaultRequestHeaders.ConnectionClose = true;

answered Oct 24, 2024 at 17:08

Kozmocreamer

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