Avoid expunging timer on glassfish

Question

I have a method annotated with @Schedule that is called by the container once in a while.

@Schedule(second = \"*/5\", minute = \"*\", hour = \"*\", persisten         


        

Answer 1

The current Glassfish up to version 4 expunges a timer if during the execution of the timeout callback method an application exception occurs.

The application exception causes a rollback of the current transaction. In such a situation Glassfish retries the error free execution of the timeout callback method once again. If a rollback again occurs Glassfish expunges the timer.

I filed an issue in the Glassfish issue tracker not to expunge the timer in case of an excpetion. Glassfish seems to be the only application server who expunges a timer in case of an application exception. See glassfish #20749: Glassfish expunges timer even if callback method keeps its contract for more details. May you would like to vote for my issue.

I also filed an issue on the EJB specification to clarify how the EJB container should behave in such situations. See ejb-spec #111: Please clearify the behaviour of an container if an application exception is thrown during the execution of a timer callback method for more details.

Answer 2

I'd use a different approach.

Instead of throwing an exception directly from the scheduled method, try to introduce a level of indirection as in:

...
@Inject RealWorkHere realImplementation;

@Schedule(second = "*/5", minute = "*", hour = "*", persistent = false)
public void myTimerMethod(){
  try{
     realImplementation.myTimerMethodImpl()
  }catch (Exception x){
   // hopefully log it somewhere
  }
}
...

where RealWorkHere is the bean with the actual implementation as in:

@Stateless
public class RealWorkHere{
   @TransactionAttribute(REQUIRES_NEW)
   public void myTimerMethod() throws Exception {

   }
}

This comes with the benefit of:

• Not throwing an exception in a container-initated transaction (thus avoiding the expunging)
• Better logging of the Exception
• Clear demarcation of the 'real' business transaction

See also

• ejb-spec #111: Please clearify the behaviour of an container if an application exception is thrown during the execution of a timer callback method