Exceptions thrown in Thread Constructors

Question

Hi,
Im having a problem with exceptions been thrown during thread constructors... mainly that when it happens, the JVM still seems to track the dud thread as an active thread (See example code below).
As you can see, the thread throws an exception during creation, and hence never gets created as such (mt stays null). Yet Thread.activeCount() reports that its still hanging around somewhere, yet it cant be referenced. Unfortunately this is resulting in me getting a rather large buildup of these duds, as its part of a "retry" phase in my software.
Any thoughts/comments/suggestions?
Thanks,
Roger.
import java.net.Socket;
public class myMain
    public myMain()
        myThread mt=null;
        while (true) try
            System.out.println(Thread.activeCount());
            Thread.sleep(100);
            mt = new myThread();
        catch (Exception ex)
            System.out.println(mt);
            System.err.println(ex);
    public static void main (String[] args)
        new myMain();
public class myThread extends Thread
    public myThread() throws Exception
        throw new Exception();
}

Answer 1

It's not hard to obtain this reference (for instance we can catch exception in the constructor and do something before rethrowing it) - but what can we do with this reference? There's no way to destroy the thread object save starting it. But this is really ugly (but works):
public class NewThreadException {
     public static class myThread extends Thread {
          protected boolean stillborn;
         public myThread() throws Exception
              super(new ThreadGroup("My Group"), "My Thread");
              try {
                  throw new Exception();
              } catch (Exception e) {
                   stillborn=true;
                   start();
                   throw e;
         public void run() {
              if (stillborn) return;
     public static void main(String[] args) {
        myThread mt=null;
        while (true) try
            System.out.println(Thread.activeCount());
            Thread.sleep(100);
            mt = new myThread();
        catch (Exception ex)
            System.out.println(mt);
            System.err.println(ex);
}BTW there's already one private stillborn in Thread class itself.