Android NullPointerException being thrown in Synchronized Method

Question

I have an android app written in java.

The app basically connects to a device which sends the app messages. The app waits for the messages to come in and then reports them, before processing each message.

I have a Connection class and a Listener class.

The Connection class is started via the constructor, which sets up the Listener class to listen for messages coming in from the device.

When a message comes in, the Listener sends the message to a method in the Connection class, reportMessage(). This is where the message is processed.

The Listener class is on a separate thread.

The code is shown below.

public class Connection 
{
    private String response;
    private String newResponse;

    private DataInputStream reader;

    private DataOutputStream writer; 

    private Socket socket;

    private boolean keepListening;

    private Listener listener;

    public Connection (String _ipAddress, int portNumber)
    {
        try 
        {
            socket = new Socket(_ipAddress, _port);   //Connect to the server and its socket

            writer = new DataOutputStream(socket.getOutputStream()); //Connect to the server to receive and send messages

            reader = new DataInputStream(socket.getInputStream());

            listener = new Listener(reader, this); //Create a new listener for the client

            new Thread(listener).start(); //Set the listener off running
        } 
        catch (Exception e) 
        {
            ...
        } 
    }

    public synchronized void reportMessage(String message)
    {
        try
        {
            if("".equals(newResponse))
            {
                newResponse = new String();
            }

            newResponse = newResponse + message;

            System.out.println("Message Received: " + newResponse);

            processMessage(); //Process the message
        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            response = e.getCause().toString();
        }
    }
}

public class Listener implements Runnable 
{
    private DataInputStream reader = null;

    private boolean keepListening;

    private String serverMessage;

    private Connection connection;

    public Listener (DataInputStream inFromServer, Connection connection)
    {
        reader = inFromServer;
                               //Get the client connection's message transfer
        keepListening = true;

        this.connection = connection;
    }

    public void run()
    {
        while (keepListening)
        {
            try
            {
                if (reader.available() > 0)
                {
                    byte[] readInData = new byte[reader.available()];  //Initialise the array

                    reader.read (readInData);  //Read in the data

                    serverMessage = Utils.byteToString(readInData);

                    connection.reportMessage(serverMessage);   //Report the message
                }
            }
            catch (IOException e)
            {
                System.out.println("Error reading." + e.getLocalizedMessage().toString());

                keepListening = false;
            }

            keepListening = connection.getKeepListening();
        }
    }
}

This works well for a time, then sometimes I receive an error which crashes the program.

When running in debug mode, I get a NullPointerException thrown on whatever is the first line of reportMessage() in the Connection class.

The program is suspended on whatever line is the first line, whether it is a System.out.println or a line of actual code.

And the error doesn't get caught by the try and catch. It crashes the program and there is no handling of the error even though it occurs in the try and catch.

This leads me to believe the error is not being thrown by anything in the reportMessage() method. If this is the case, then perhaps the error is being thrown in the Listener class .run().

However, I cannot see where any NullPointerException can be thrown from, as I have tried to make all the checks and when it is thrown, it is thrown when there are messages being sent.

The debugger says "An exception stack trace is not available".

The LogCat says:

  08-21 10:35:57.894: E/AndroidRuntime(1118): FATAL EXCEPTION: Thread-12
  08-21 10:35:57.894: E/AndroidRuntime(1118): java.lang.NullPointerException
  08-21 10:35:57.894: E/AndroidRuntime(1118):atCom.que.wifiaudio.Connection.reportMessage(Connection.java:339)
  08-21 10:35:57.894: E/AndroidRuntime(1118):   at com.que.wifiaudio.Listener.reportIncomingMessage(Listener.java:93)
  08-21 10:35:57.894: E/AndroidRuntime(1118):   at com.que.wifiaudio.Listener.run(Listener.java:67)

  08-21 10:35:57.894: E/AndroidRuntime(1118):   at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:1102)

Can anyone help me?

I need to know what is throwing the NullPointerException and how to stop it!

Answer 1

Turns out it was the

catch (Exception e)
{
    response = e.getCause().toString();
}

The processData() method was throwing an exception which was being caught, but the Exception's cause was Null, which was throwing the error.