Error: Connection close: Read failed. Possible end of stream encountered

Question

I tried to upload file via my web application and received the following message: Connection close: Read failed. Possible end of stream encountered.

This behavior is observed multiple time, works on tomcat6 web server while continuously fails on WebSphere, that makes me think that the problem should be on back-end side, rather than on browser side. This is the error message:

org.apache.commons.fileupload.FileUploadBase$IOFileUploadException: Processing of multipart/form-data request failed. Connection close: Read failed.  Possible end of stream encountered. 
    at org.apache.commons.fileupload.FileUploadBase.parseRequest(FileUploadBaseo.java:359)
    at org.apache.commons.fileupload.servlet.ServletFileUpload.parseRequest(ServletFileUpload.java:126)
    at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:595)
    at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:668)
    at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper.service(ServletWrapper.java:1230)
    at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper.handleRequest(ServletWrapper.java:779)
    at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapper.handleRequest(ServletWrapper.java:478)
    at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.servlet.ServletWrapperImpl.handleRequest(ServletWrapperImpl.java:178)
    at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.filter.WebAppFilterManager.invokeFilters(WebAppFilterManager.java:1071)
    at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.webapp.WebApp.handleRequest(WebApp.java:3815)
    at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.webapp.WebGroup.handleRequest(WebGroup.java:304)
    at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.WebContainer.handleRequest(WebContainer.java:981)
    at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.WSWebContainer.handleRequest(WSWebContainer.java:1662)
    at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.channel.WCChannelLink.ready(WCChannelLink.java:200)
    at com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpInboundLink.handleDiscrimination(HttpInboundLink.java:453)
    at com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpInboundLink.handleNewRequest(HttpInboundLink.java:515)
    at com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpInboundLink.processRequest(HttpInboundLink.java:306)
    at com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpICLReadCallback.complete(HttpICLReadCallback.java:84)
    at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.WorkQueueManager.requestComplete(WorkQueueManager.java:558)
    at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.WorkQueueManager.attemptIO(WorkQueueManager.java:608)
    at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.WorkQueueManager.workerRun(WorkQueueManager.java:985)
    at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.WorkQueueManager$Worker.run(WorkQueueManager.java:1074)
    at com.ibm.ws.util.ThreadPool$Worker.run(ThreadPool.java:1702)
Caused by: java.io.IOException: Connection close: Read failed.  Possible end of stream encountered. 
    at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.WorkQueueManager.attemptIO(WorkQueueManager.java:727)
    at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.WorkQueueManager.processWork(WorkQueueManager.java:342)
    at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.NioTCPReadRequestContextImpl.processSyncReadRequest(NioTCPReadRequestContextImpl.java:75)
    at com.ibm.ws.tcp.channel.impl.TCPReadRequestContextImpl.read(TCPReadRequestContextImpl.java:111)
    at com.ibm.ws.http.channel.impl.HttpServiceContextImpl.fillABuffer(HttpServiceContextImpl.java:4175)
    at com.ibm.ws.http.channel.impl.HttpServiceContextImpl.readSingleBlock(HttpServiceContextImpl.java:3407)
    at com.ibm.ws.http.channel.impl.HttpServiceContextImpl.readBodyBuffer(HttpServiceContextImpl.java:3513)
    at com.ibm.ws.http.channel.inbound.impl.HttpInboundServiceContextImpl.getRequestBodyBuffer(HttpInboundServiceContextImpl.java:1791)
    at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.channel.WCCByteBufferInputStream.bufferIsGood(WCCByteBufferInputStream.java:371)
    at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.channel.WCCByteBufferInputStream.read(WCCByteBufferInputStream.java:265)
    at com.ibm.ws.webcontainer.srt.http.HttpInputStream.read(HttpInputStream.java:322)
    at org.apache.commons.fileupload.MultipartStream$ItemInputStream.makeAvailable(MultipartStream.java:959)
    at org.apache.commons.fileupload.MultipartStream$ItemInputStream.read(MultipartStream.java:887)
    at java.io.InputStream.read(InputStream.java:82)
    at org.apache.commons.fileupload.util.Streams.copy(Streams.java:94)
    at org.apache.commons.fileupload.util.Streams.copy(Streams.java:64)
    at org.apache.commons.fileupload.FileUploadBase.parseRequest(FileUploadBase.java:354)
    ... 27 more

Answer 1

Based on the limited information here it will be very difficult to identify a cause. Common suspects would be hitting time limits for either the duration of the request or starting the response back to the WebSphere plugin in the IBM HTTP Server (if being used); or possibly the size of the upload.

Not much else to go on here.