Sockets write/close operations hangs application

Question

Hi!
I've got a trouble with my web-application. It'a s chat system, that uses Keep-Alive connections for messages output and that recieves messages through another socket.
Everything is fine with receiving messages. But after message is received, I need to send it to all recepients. So, I use Socket.write() method. If writing is failed, or user is logged off, I use Socket.close().
Problem is, that sometimes Socket.write() and Socket.close() are blocking their threads.
How can I avoid such a blocking behaviour?
If I'll rewrite everything to use not sockets, but socket channels, can it help to solve my problem?
Thanks.

Answer 1

If writes are blocking it can only mean that readers aren't reading. Fix that, and forget about the syncrhonization suggestion which is nonsense.
You can also use NIO in non-blocking mode to avoid blocking in writes, and it does lead to more scalable applications, but be prepared for about a 10x increase in complexity.