JTable Awt -Event Queue problem

Question

Hi
I've been looking everywhere for a solution to this, but can't seem to find one. I've got a JTable with an underlying model that is being continuously updated (every 100ms or so). Whenever I try to sort the JTable using TableRowSorter while the model is being added to I get
Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: -1
at java.util.Vector.elementAt(Vector.java:430)
at javax.swing.table.DefaultTableColumnModel.getColumn(DefaultTableColumnModel.java:277)
I don't understand this as in my custom table model I've added the fireTableChanged etc. in a SwingUtilities.invokeLater( ...) thread.
Has anyone else encountered this problem and found a solution? I'd be really grateful!
Thanks

Answer 1

Hi
Thanks for responding, I'm still a little confused. I've posted the code below for both the JTable and the TableModel. The tablemodel simply gets values from a vector which is being dynamically updated from outside the table - but whenever the vector is added to
The problem seems to only occur when I press the column header to sort the tables during the updates. My understanding is that the method refresh() should create a threadsafe update of the table - but somehow it refreshes the binding to the tablemodel and during this time the table returns a defaulttablemodel that doesn't correspond to the actual underlying data....I thought this kind of problem would be solved by invoking all updates on the swing event thread, but it seems to still produce the effect and I'm stumped!!
(The data is in an array called turns, and the addElement() in another class calls the refresh() method)
many thanks, in the hope that someone has the kindness and and benevolence to wade through the following code!
public class JContiguousTurnsListTable extends JTable {
private JContiguousTurnsListTableModel jctltm;
public JContiguousTurnsListTable(Conversation c) {
super();
jctltm = new JContiguousTurnsListTableModel(this,c);
this.setModel(jctltm);
setSize();
//this.setAutoResizeMode(AUTO_RESIZE_ALL_COLUMNS);
//this.setAutoCreateRowSorter(true);
TableRowSorter <TableModel> sorter = new TableRowSorter <TableModel>(jctltm);
//sorter.setSortsOnUpdates(true);
this.setRowSorter(sorter);
System.err.println("Setting up ");
private void setSize(){
TableColumn column = null;
for (int i = 0; i <11; i++) {
column = this.getColumnModel().getColumn(i);
if(i==1||i==2||i==3||i==4||i==8||i==9){
column.setPreferredWidth(50);
else if (i==0||i==5){
column.setPreferredWidth(180);
else if (i == 6) {
column.setPreferredWidth(150);
else if(i==10){
column.setPreferredWidth(250);
else
column.setPreferredWidth(100);
//column.setPreferredWidth(100);
//column.setMinWidth(100);
//column.setMaxWidth(100);
public String getColumnName(int column){
return jctltm.getColumnName(column);
public void refresh(){
this.jctltm.refresh();
----------------And the table model:
public class JContiguousTurnsListTableModel extends AbstractTableModel {
private Conversation c;
public JContiguousTurnsListTableModel(JTable jt,Conversation c) {
super();
this.c=c;
public void refresh(){
//System.out.println("Refresh");
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable(){public void run(){fireTableDataChanged();fireTableStructureChanged();} });
public boolean isCellEditable(int x, int y){
return false;
public String getColumnName(int column){
if(column==0){
return "Sender";
else if(column==1){
return "Onset";
else if (column==2){
return "Enter";
else if(column ==3){
return "E - O";
else if(column ==4){
return "Speed";
else if(column ==5){
return "Spoof Orig.";
else if(column ==6){
return "Text";
else if(column ==7){
return "Recipients";
else if(column ==8){
return "Blocked";
else if(column ==9){
return "Dels";
else if(column ==10){
return "TaggedText";
else if(column ==11){
return "ContgNo";
else if(column ==12){
return "Inconcistency";
else{
return " ";
public Object getValueAt(int x, int y){
try{ 
//System.out.println("GET VALUE AT "+x+" "+y);
Vector turns = c.getContiguousTurns();
if(x>=turns.size())return " ";
ContiguousTurn t = (ContiguousTurn)turns.elementAt(x);
if(y==0){
return t.getSender().getUsername();
else if(y==1){
return t.getTypingOnset();
else if(y==2){
return t.getTypingReturnPressed();
else if(y==3){
return t.getTypingReturnPressed()-t.getTypingOnset();
else if(y==4){
long typingtime = t.getTypingReturnPressed()-t.getTypingOnset();
if(typingtime<=0)return 0;
return ((long)t.getTextString().length())/typingtime;
else if(y==5){
return t.getApparentSender().getUsername();
else if(y==6){
return t.getTextString();
else if(y==7){
//System.out.println("GETTINGRECIP1");
Vector v = t.getRecipients();
String names ="";
// System.out.println("GETTINGRECIP3");
for(int i=0;i<v.size();i++){
Conversant c = (Conversant)v.elementAt(i);
// System.out.println("GETTINGRECIP4");
names = names+", "+c.getUsername();
// System.out.println("GETTINGRECIP5");
return names;
else if (y==8){
if (t.getTypingWasBlockedDuringTyping())return "BLOCKED";
return "OK";
else if(y==9){
return t.getNumberOfDeletes();
else if(y==10){
String returnText="";
Vector v = t.getWordsAsLexicalEntries();
for(int i=0;i<v.size();i++){
LexiconEntry lxe= (LexiconEntry)v.elementAt(i);
returnText = returnText+lxe.getWord()+" ("+lxe.getPartOfSpeech()+") ";
return returnText;
else if(y==11){
return t.getNumberOfTurns();
else if(y==12){
// System.out.println("CONTIGUOUS1");
String value ="";
boolean hasSameRecipients = t.getTurnsHaveSameRecipients();
boolean hasSameApparentOrigin = t.getTurnsHaveSameApparentOrigin();
if (hasSameRecipients&hasSameApparentOrigin){
value = "OK";
else if (hasSameRecipients&!hasSameApparentOrigin){
value = "Diff. O";
else if(!hasSameRecipients&hasSameApparentOrigin){
value = "Diff. Recip";
else {
value = "Diff O&R";
//System.out.println("CONTIGUOUS2");
return value;
return " ";
}catch (Exception e){
return "UI ERROR";
public Class getColumnClass(int column) {
Class returnValue;
if ((column >= 0) && (column < getColumnCount())) {
returnValue = getValueAt(0, column).getClass();
} else {
returnValue = Object.class;
return returnValue;
public int getRowCount(){
return this.c.getContiguousTurns().size();
public int getColumnCount(){
return 13;
}