For which JMS exceptions do I have to reconnect?

Question

Hi,
          I have a plain Java application that listens to a JMS queue on BEA WebLogic 7.0. I would like to automatically reconnect whenever it is necessary, e.g. in case of a restart.
          My question: Is it necessary to reconnect whenever an JMS exception is received in the ExceptionListeners of the Connection/Session?
          Or in other words: Can/Should I call the reconnect code (close session, close connection, connect again) on all exceptions that I receive in the listeners or are there some exceptions that can/should be ignored, e.g. there was some problem that is signaled to the listeners but the connection/session/queue is still working and reconnecting can be avoided?
          If so, how can the "serious" exceptions be determined? By the type (e.g. weblogic.jms.common.LostServerException)?
          Of course, I would like to avoid a reconnect, because it seems to be an expensive call.
          Thanks for any help,
          Peter

Answer 1

I think that except in the cases of multicast pub/sub "DataOverrun" and "SequenceGap" exceptions and applications that throw RuntimeExceptions or Errors from "onMessage()" , exception listeners exceptions are infrequent and, in my experience, pretty much always indicative of a true failure that requires reconnect (machine or server failure).
          Unfortunately, I don't think there is a way to distinguish application generated RuntimeExceptions/Errors from other JMS exceptions thrown to onException(). (Best practice, don't allow apps to do this.)