rxjava: Can I use retry() but with delay?

Question

I am using rxjava in my Android app to handle network requests asynchronously. Now I would like to retry a failed network request only after a certain time has passed.

Answer 1

Same answer as from kjones but updated to latest version For RxJava 2.x version: ('io.reactivex.rxjava2:rxjava:2.1.3')

public class RetryWithDelay implements Function<Flowable<Throwable>, Publisher<?>> {

    private final int maxRetries;
    private final long retryDelayMillis;
    private int retryCount;

    public RetryWithDelay(final int maxRetries, final int retryDelayMillis) {
        this.maxRetries = maxRetries;
        this.retryDelayMillis = retryDelayMillis;
        this.retryCount = 0;
    }

    @Override
    public Publisher<?> apply(Flowable<Throwable> throwableFlowable) throws Exception {
        return throwableFlowable.flatMap(new Function<Throwable, Publisher<?>>() {
            @Override
            public Publisher<?> apply(Throwable throwable) throws Exception {
                if (++retryCount < maxRetries) {
                    // When this Observable calls onNext, the original
                    // Observable will be retried (i.e. re-subscribed).
                    return Flowable.timer(retryDelayMillis,
                            TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
                }

                // Max retries hit. Just pass the error along.
                return Flowable.error(throwable);
            }
        });
    }
}

Usage:

// Add retry logic to existing observable. // Retry max of 3 times with a delay of 2 seconds.

observable
    .retryWhen(new RetryWithDelay(3, 2000));

Answer 2

Inspired by Paul's answer, and if you are not concerned with retryWhen problems stated by Abhijit Sarkar, the simplest way to delay resubscription with rxJava2 unconditionnaly is :

source.retryWhen(throwables -> throwables.delay(1, TimeUnit.SECONDS))

You may want to see more samples and explanations on retryWhen and repeatWhen.

Answer 3

Now with RxJava version 1.0+ you can use zipWith to achieve retry with delay.

Adding modifications to kjones answer.

Modified

public class RetryWithDelay implements 
                            Func1<Observable<? extends Throwable>, Observable<?>> {

    private final int MAX_RETRIES;
    private final int DELAY_DURATION;
    private final int START_RETRY;

    /**
     * Provide number of retries and seconds to be delayed between retry.
     *
     * @param maxRetries             Number of retries.
     * @param delayDurationInSeconds Seconds to be delays in each retry.
     */
    public RetryWithDelay(int maxRetries, int delayDurationInSeconds) {
        MAX_RETRIES = maxRetries;
        DELAY_DURATION = delayDurationInSeconds;
        START_RETRY = 1;
    }

    @Override
    public Observable<?> call(Observable<? extends Throwable> observable) {
        return observable
                .delay(DELAY_DURATION, TimeUnit.SECONDS)
                .zipWith(Observable.range(START_RETRY, MAX_RETRIES), 
                         new Func2<Throwable, Integer, Integer>() {
                             @Override
                             public Integer call(Throwable throwable, Integer attempt) {
                                  return attempt;
                             }
                         });
    }
}

Answer 4

(Kotlin) I little bit improved code with exponential backoff and applied defense emitting of Observable.range():

    fun testOnRetryWithDelayExponentialBackoff() {
    val interval = 1
    val maxCount = 3
    val ai = AtomicInteger(1);
    val source = Observable.create<Unit> { emitter ->
        val attempt = ai.getAndIncrement()
        println("Subscribe ${attempt}")
        if (attempt >= maxCount) {
            emitter.onNext(Unit)
            emitter.onComplete()
        }
        emitter.onError(RuntimeException("Test $attempt"))
    }

    // Below implementation of "retryWhen" function, remove all "println()" for real code.
    val sourceWithRetry: Observable<Unit> = source.retryWhen { throwableRx ->
        throwableRx.doOnNext({ println("Error: $it") })
                .zipWith(Observable.range(1, maxCount)
                        .concatMap { Observable.just(it).delay(0, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS) },
                        BiFunction { t1: Throwable, t2: Int -> t1 to t2 }
                )
                .flatMap { pair ->
                    if (pair.second >= maxCount) {
                        Observable.error(pair.first)
                    } else {
                        val delay = interval * 2F.pow(pair.second)
                        println("retry delay: $delay")
                        Observable.timer(delay.toLong(), TimeUnit.SECONDS)
                    }
                }
    }

    //Code to print the result in terminal.
    sourceWithRetry
            .doOnComplete { println("Complete") }
            .doOnError({ println("Final Error: $it") })
            .blockingForEach { println("$it") }
}

Answer 5

This is a solution based on Ben Christensen's snippets I saw, RetryWhen Example, and RetryWhenTestsConditional (I had to change n.getThrowable() to n for it to work). I used evant/gradle-retrolambda to make the lambda notation work on Android, but you don't have to use lambdas (although it's highly recommended). For the delay I implemented exponential back-off, but you can plug in what ever backoff logic you want there. For completeness I added the subscribeOn and observeOn operators. I'm using ReactiveX/RxAndroid for the AndroidSchedulers.mainThread().

int ATTEMPT_COUNT = 10;

public class Tuple<X, Y> {
    public final X x;
    public final Y y;

    public Tuple(X x, Y y) {
        this.x = x;
        this.y = y;
    }
}


observable
    .subscribeOn(Schedulers.io())
    .retryWhen(
            attempts -> {
                return attempts.zipWith(Observable.range(1, ATTEMPT_COUNT + 1), (n, i) -> new Tuple<Throwable, Integer>(n, i))
                .flatMap(
                        ni -> {
                            if (ni.y > ATTEMPT_COUNT)
                                return Observable.error(ni.x);
                            return Observable.timer((long) Math.pow(2, ni.y), TimeUnit.SECONDS);
                        });
            })
    .observeOn(AndroidSchedulers.mainThread())
    .subscribe(subscriber);

Answer 6

You can use the retryWhen() operator to add retry logic to any Observable.

The following class contains the retry logic:

RxJava 2.x

public class RetryWithDelay implements Function<Observable<? extends Throwable>, Observable<?>> {
    private final int maxRetries;
    private final int retryDelayMillis;
    private int retryCount;

    public RetryWithDelay(final int maxRetries, final int retryDelayMillis) {
        this.maxRetries = maxRetries;
        this.retryDelayMillis = retryDelayMillis;
        this.retryCount = 0;
    }

    @Override
    public Observable<?> apply(final Observable<? extends Throwable> attempts) {
        return attempts
                .flatMap(new Function<Throwable, Observable<?>>() {
                    @Override
                    public Observable<?> apply(final Throwable throwable) {
                        if (++retryCount < maxRetries) {
                            // When this Observable calls onNext, the original
                            // Observable will be retried (i.e. re-subscribed).
                            return Observable.timer(retryDelayMillis,
                                    TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
                        }

                        // Max retries hit. Just pass the error along.
                        return Observable.error(throwable);
                    }
                });
    }
}

RxJava 1.x

public class RetryWithDelay implements
        Func1<Observable<? extends Throwable>, Observable<?>> {

    private final int maxRetries;
    private final int retryDelayMillis;
    private int retryCount;

    public RetryWithDelay(final int maxRetries, final int retryDelayMillis) {
        this.maxRetries = maxRetries;
        this.retryDelayMillis = retryDelayMillis;
        this.retryCount = 0;
    }

    @Override
    public Observable<?> call(Observable<? extends Throwable> attempts) {
        return attempts
                .flatMap(new Func1<Throwable, Observable<?>>() {
                    @Override
                    public Observable<?> call(Throwable throwable) {
                        if (++retryCount < maxRetries) {
                            // When this Observable calls onNext, the original
                            // Observable will be retried (i.e. re-subscribed).
                            return Observable.timer(retryDelayMillis,
                                    TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
                        }

                        // Max retries hit. Just pass the error along.
                        return Observable.error(throwable);
                    }
                });
    }
}

Usage:

// Add retry logic to existing observable.
// Retry max of 3 times with a delay of 2 seconds.
observable
    .retryWhen(new RetryWithDelay(3, 2000));