WebAppInvoker X Unexpected, java.lang.IllegalStateException: ERROR: Cannot set header. Response already committed

[Brian Ortner]

I don't mind admitting my stupidity if it will save someone else some
hassle.

(note: there may be other solutions)

We found we got the error below with increasing frequency (as load
increased) and kept looking at the jsps/servlets/classes to try to figure
out what was causing it.

Finally, we had two programmers do nothing but try to track down the
problem.

Our setup is (testing environment):

AppServer: WAS 3.5.2
Platform: Solaris (with 2.7) ulta 10 clone
1GB

WebServer: IHS 1.3.12.2
Platform: Solaris (with 2.7) ulta 5
512 MB

InstantDB

Using OSE between WebServer and AppServer

WebServer in DMZ

What they finally found was that the WebApp contained the jsps, servlets,
jar files, AND images. When WAS tried to server the images (if they were
anything but very small images) it would give the error below. (they had
slowly removed code trying to find the problem. Of course they freaked when
they found it was a src="./images/center.gif" call that choked the system).
They proved it to be the problem by simply typing the direct path to the
image in the URL.

Note: the center.gif image was the largest image (a hefty 40k for a web page
I consider to be too large). Smaller images "sometimes" did not produce the
error.

The solution was to change the src path for the images to start at "/" and
to move all the images to the web server.

This dramatically improved the image loading (like, duh!) and the error
messages magically went away.

here's to a good night's sleep for someone else.

b

========================== ERROR =========================================

[01.03.06 17:58:49:784 GMT+02:00] 9b2572 WebAppInvoker X Unexpected internal
engine error while processing request
java.lang.IllegalStateException: ERROR:
Cannot set header. Response already committed.
at java.lang.Throwable.fillInStackTrace(Native Method)
at java.lang.Throwable.fillInStackTrace(Compiled Code)
at java.lang.Throwable.<init>(Compiled Code)
at java.lang.Exception.<init>(Compiled Code)
at java.lang.RuntimeException.<init>(Compiled Code)
at java.lang.IllegalStateException.<init>(Compiled Code)
at com.ibm.servlet.engine.srt.SRTServletResponse.setHeader(Compiled
Code)
at
com.ibm.servlet.engine.srt.SRTServletResponse.setContentType(Compiled Code)
at
com.ibm.servlet.engine.srt.SRTServletResponse.initForNextResponse(Compiled
Code)
at
com.ibm.servlet.engine.srt.SRTConnectionContext.prepareForNextConnection(Com
piled Code)
at
com.ibm.servlet.engine.srt.WebAppInvoker.handleInvocationHook(Compiled Code)
at
com.ibm.servlet.engine.invocation.CachedInvocation.handleInvocation(Compiled
Code)
at
com.ibm.servlet.engine.invocation.CacheableInvocationContext.invoke(Compiled
Code)
at
com.ibm.servlet.engine.srp.ServletRequestProcessor.dispatchByURI(Compiled
Code)
at
com.ibm.servlet.engine.oselistener.OSEListenerDispatcher.service(Compiled
Code)
at
com.ibm.servlet.engine.oselistener.SQEventListenerImp$ServiceRunnable.run(Co
mpiled Code)
at
com.ibm.servlet.engine.oselistener.SQEventListenerImp.notifySQEvent(Compiled
Code)
at
com.ibm.servlet.engine.oselistener.serverqueue.SQEventSource.notifyEvent(Com
piled Code)
at
com.ibm.servlet.engine.oselistener.serverqueue.SQWrapperEventSource$SelectRu
nnable.notifyService(Compiled Code)
at
com.ibm.servlet.engine.oselistener.serverqueue.SQWrapperEventSource$SelectRu
nnable.run(Compiled Code)
at
com.ibm.servlet.engine.oselistener.outofproc.OutOfProcThread$CtlRunnable.run
(Compiled Code)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:479)