Apache/Tomcat error - wrong pages being delivered

Question

This error has been driving me nuts. We have a server running Apache and Tomcat, serving multiple different sites. Normally the server runs fine, but sometimes an error happ

Answer 1

Could it be the thread-safety of your servlets?

Do your servlets store any information in instance members.

For example, something as simple as the following may cause thread-related issues:

public class MyServlet ... {
    private String action;

    public void doGet(...) {
         action = request.getParameter("action");
         processAction(response);
    }

    public void processAction(...) {
         if (action.equals("foo")) {
             // send foo page
         } else if (action.equals("bar")) {
             // send bar page
         }
     }
}

Because the serlvet is accessed by multiple threads, there is no guarantee that the action instance member will not be clobbered by someone elses request, and end up sending the wrong page back.

The simple solution to this issue is to use local variables insead of instance members:

public class MyServlet ... {
    public void doGet(...) {
         String action = request.getParameter("action");
         processAction(action, response);
    }

    public void processAction(...) {
         if (action.equals("foo")) {
             // send foo page
         } else if (action.equals("bar")) {
             // send bar page
         }
     }
}

Note: this extends to JavaServer Pages too, if you were dispatching to them for your views?