RxJava timeout and kill underlying thread - timeout

We are doing a simple timeout() call on a Flowable.
Flowable.fromCallable(() -> callToExternalService())
.timeout(500, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS)
The timeout itself works fine, but we noticed that the timed out call callToExternalService, which sometimes could take minutes, even if it is discarded, doesn't free up the thread where it is running on, until it completes fully, and by doing so it's wasting resources. In our case, if the call times out, the thread can be killed straightaway, and so it shouldn't wait for the call to finish.
Is there a way to achieve this?

Add .subscribeOn(Schedulers.io()) (or some other scheduler) before the .timeout

Related

what does AWAIT_TIME exactly mean in the Azure profiler?

I am looking at my performance profile of one of my slowest requests, and I see an AWAIT_TIME of more than 6 seconds, but I am not able to get any more information regarding it. How do I figure out what exactly the process is "waiting on"?
From Azure's documentation:
Waiting (AWAIT_TIME)
AWAIT_TIME indicates the code is waiting for another task to complete. This typically happens with C# 'await' statement. When the code does a C# 'await', the thread unwinds and returns control to the thread-pool, and there is no thread that is blocked waiting for the 'await' to finish. However, logically the thread that did the await is 'blocked' waiting for the operation to complete. The AWAIT_TIME indicates the blocked time waiting for the task to complete.+
Blocked Time
BLOCKED_TIME indicates the code is waiting for another resource to be available, such as waiting for a synchronization object, waiting for a thread to be available, or waiting for a request to finish.
So it's waiting on something necessary to continue with processing. We have had the same problem of long AWAIT_TIME with file uploads and it turned out the request was waiting for the Request's stream to be read (ReadAsMultiPartAsync() for us)... If you look at the code in RecASPRequest and _RtlUserThreadStart, you'll probably the culprit...

Ruby Timeout and Sleeping Threads

When inside a sleeping thread, does Ruby Timeout still count down?
I would like to have some threads timeout after a length of time, but only if the thread has been actively running.
As it might be easily read in Timeout#timeout source code, there is no magic: another thread is being started, slept and terminated.
So, the answer to your question is: the timeout is the real time timeout and it does not depend on any other thread lifecycles.

Suspending already executing task NSOperationQueue

I have problem suspending the current task being executed, I have tried to set NSOperationQueue setSuspended=YES for pausing and setSuspended=NO for resuming the process.
According to apple docs I can not suspend already executing task.
If you want to issue a temporary halt to the execution of operations, you can suspend the corresponding operation queue using the setSuspended: method. Suspending a queue does not cause already executing operations to pause in the middle of their tasks. It simply prevents new operations from being scheduled for execution. You might suspend a queue in response to a user request to pause any ongoing work, because the expectation is that the user might eventually want to resume that work.
My app needs to suspend the time taking upload operation in case of internet unavailability and finally resume the same operation once internet is available. Is there any work around for this? or I just need to start the currently executing task from zero?
I think you need to start from zero. otherwise two problems will come there. If you resume the current uploading you cant assure that you are not missed any packets or not. At the same time if the connection available after a long period of time, server may delete the data that you uploaded previously because of the incomplete operation.
Whether or not you can resume or pause a operation queue is not your issue here...
If it worked like you imagined it could (and it doesn't) when you get back to servicing the TCP connection it may very well be in a bad state, it could have timed out, closed remotely...
you will want to find out what your server supports and use the parts of a REST (or similar) service to resume a stalled upload on a brand new fresh connection.
If you haven't yet, print out this and put it on the walls of your cube, make t-shirts for your family members to wear... maybe add it as a screensaver?

how to schedule after the current thread has terminated?

I am creating a user defined thread library. I use Round-Robin scheduling algorithm and use the context switching method. But, I am unable to know what to do when a thread finishes its execution before the allotted time slot. The program is getting terminated. I actually want to reschedule all the threads, by calling the schedule function when the current thread gets terminated.
I found two ways to overcome this problem.
By calling explicitly thread_exit function at the end of the function that is being executed by the current thread.
By changing the stack contents such that the thread_exit function gets executed after the current function gets terminated.
But I am unable to find how to apply these solutions....
Anybody out there... plz help me...
It sounds like you have a bit of a design flaw. If I'm understanding you correctly, you're trying to implement a solution where you have threads that can be allocated to perform some task and after the task is complete, the thread goes idle waiting for the next task.
If that's true, I think I would design something like a daemon process or service that manages a queue for tasks coming in, a pool of threads responsible for executing the tasks with a controller that listens for new tasks.

Sleep performance

I am developing a program in c++ and I have to implement a cron. This cron should be executed every hour and every 24 hours for different reasons. My first idea was to make an independent pthread and sleep it during 1h every time. Is this correct? I mean, is really efficient to have a thread asleep more than awake? What are the inconvenients of having a thread slept?
I would tend to prefer to have such a task running via cron/scheduler since it is to run at pre-determined intervals, as opposed to in response to some environmental event. So the program should just 'do' what ever it needs to do, and then be executed by the operating system as needed. This also makes it easy to change the frequency of execution - just change the scheduling, rather than needing to rebuild the app or expose extra configurability.
That said, if you really, really wanted to do it that way, you probably would not sleep for the whole hour; You would sleep in multiple of some smaller time frame (perhaps five minutes, or what ever seems appropriate) and have a variable keeping the 'last run' time so you know when to run again.
Sleep() calls typically won't be exceptionally accurate as far as the time the thread ends up sleeping; it depends on what other threads have tasks waiting, etc.
There is no performance impact of having a thread sleeping for a long time, aside of the fact that it will occupy some memory without doing anything useful. Maybe if you'd do it for thousands of threads there would be some slow down in the OS's management of threads, but it doesn't look like you are planning to do that.
A practical disadvantage of having a thread sleep for long is, that you can't do anything with it. If you, for example, want to tell the thread that it should stop because the application wants to shut down, the thread could only get this message after the sleep. So your application either needs a very long time to shut down, or the thread will need to be stopped forcefully.
My first idea was to make an independent pthread and sleep it during 1h every time.
I see no problem.
Is this correct? I mean, is really efficient to have a thread asleep more than awake?
As long as a thread sleeps and doesn't wake up, OS wouldn't even bother with its existence.
Though otherwise, if thread sleeps most of its life, why to have a dedicated thread? Why other thread (e.g. main thread) can't check the time, and start a thread to do the cron job?
What are the inconvenients of having a thread slept?
None. But the fact that the sleeping thread cannot be easily unblocked. That is a concern if one needs proper shutdown of an application. That is why it is a better idea to have another (busy) thread to check the time and start the cron job when needed.
When designing your solution keep these scenarios in mind:
At 07:03 the system time is reset to 06:59. What happens one minute later?
At 07:03 the system time is moved forward to 07:59. What happens one minute later?
At 07:59 the system time is moved forward to 08:01. Is the 08:00-job ever executed?
The answers to those questions will tell you a lot about how you should implement your solution.
The performance of the solution should not be an issue. A single sleeping thread will use minimal resources.

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