Stop and re-start JCo Idoc Server

Question

Hi
I created a JCO IDoc server (using the JCoIDocServer class) , so far it works fine for me to send and receive IDocs to R/3. The only issue is when I try to start and stop the JCO Idoc server at runtime. When I call the Stop method(). It seems like the service is stopped but if i call a Start method after that( even on a completely new class instance) I'm getting a nullpointer exception. I have seen documents on JCOServer says that use suspend method for stop the server, but this is not available for the JCoIDocServer class. How can I stop a server which is running, programaticalluy and restart it again ? (I dont mind if I have to reinstantiate the whole server class) . I use JCO and  IDoc libaray version 3.0 . Please help
Thanks

Answer 1

Hi,
Try using the abort() after your stop in a "if" condition. You need to provide a message as a parameter for the abort() method, so that the remote SAP System (in case the IDoc Server is still connected to it) knows the reason why the IDoc server shutdown without any warning.
So your code should look something like this (warning pseudo-code ) -
server.stop();
if(server.alive())
       server.abort("Forcing shutdown because its wakey wakey eggs and beccy time!");
Try logging the status of the server after the stop() and abort() methods to know what the server is doing. I hate people using the suspend() method to "stop" the server, because it does not stop the server. It only suspends operations, so your connection and session to the remote SAP System remains open.
After the time out (can be hours) on the remote System, the connection is closed, but until then, the remote SAP System keeps expecting your server to talk back to it. Open sessions are of course more dangerous than runaway trains, so avoid the suspend() method if you can.
T00th
Edited by: Sameer Jagirdar on Jan 21, 2010 1:14 PM --> fixed the code display thingy.
Edited by: Sameer Jagirdar on Jan 21, 2010 1:15 PM