Logging api hangs

Question

Im starting a java application from an applet calling Runtime.getRuntime().exec("java bla bla bla")
Worked fine until I implemented Java 1.4 logging api. Now the application hangs after writing a few info lines to a FileHandler log. It's clearly the logger that hangs because if I set log level = OFF the the program runs just fine.
Has anyone seen anything similar?
* To make it harder to debug, the problem only occurs when starting the application from an applet.

Answer 1

That might happen that spawn process generates lots of output.
Runtime.getRuntime().exec() returns object of type java.lange.Process. That object provide access to the stdout and stderror of the newly created process. If those streams are not cleaned properly then process will hang as soon as OS buffers of those stdout and stderr streams get full.
One way to work around it just read output from the process and throw it away. You can try using something like this:
package com.xxx;
import java.io.InputStream;
public class ProcessOutputWaster {
    public ProcessOutputWaster(Process process)
        throws Exception {
        createWorker(process.getErrorStream()).start();
        createWorker(process.getInputStream()).start();
    protected Worker createWorker(InputStream is) {
        return new Worker(is);
    protected static class Worker
              extends Thread {
        private InputStream inputStream_;
        public Worker(InputStream inputStream) {
            inputStream_ = inputStream;
        public void run() {
            if (getInputStream() != null) {
                try {
                    byte[] buffer = new byte[1024];
                    int read;
                    while(true) {
                        read = inputStream_.read(buffer);
                        if (read < 0)
                           break;
                catch(Exception ex) {
                    Handle the error some how. E.g. show the error box.
Process process = Runtime.getRuntime().exec(strCommand);
ProcessOutputWaster outputWaster = new ProcessOutputWaster(process);