(Sidenote: If you don't need support for old browsers (or any browsers for that matter, since your client is a native mobile app) then you may consider using WebSocket which is an open standard. Socket.io is usually used to have a WebSocket-like functionality on browsers that don't support WebSocket. WebSocket on the other hand is an open standard, has a wide support (not only in browsers) and it has a better performance. See this answer for more details.)
Now, since you are already using Socket.io then here is how you can diagnose the problem. I would try to connect from a browser, which is a main way to connect with Socket.io, and see if that works. If it doesn't then it would mean that there's a problem in your server code. If it does then it could mean that there's a problem in your client. That would be the first thing to check. Going from there you can narrow the problem and hopefully fix it.
If you want to have a starting point with some working code using Socket.io, both server-site (Node.js) and client-side (browser vanilla JavaScript), then you can see the examples that I wrote originally for this answer, that are available on GitHub and on npm:
Socket.IO Server
Socket.IO server example using Express.js:
var path = require('path');
var app = require('express')();
var http = require('http').Server(app);
var io = require('socket.io')(http);
app.get('/', (req, res) => {
console.error('express connection');
res.sendFile(path.join(__dirname, 'si.html'));
});
io.on('connection', s => {
console.error('socket.io connection');
for (var t = 0; t < 3; t++)
setTimeout(() => s.emit('message', 'message from server'), 1000*t);
});
http.listen(3002, () => console.error('listening on http://localhost:3002/'));
console.error('socket.io example');
Source: https://github.com/rsp/node-websocket-vs-socket.io/blob/master/si.js
Socket.IO Client
Socket.IO client example using vanilla JavaScript:
var l = document.getElementById('l');
var log = function (m) {
var i = document.createElement('li');
i.innerText = new Date().toISOString()+' '+m;
l.appendChild(i);
}
log('opening socket.io connection');
var s = io();
s.on('connect_error', function (m) { log("error"); });
s.on('connect', function (m) { log("socket.io connection open"); });
s.on('message', function (m) { log(m); });
Source: https://github.com/rsp/node-websocket-vs-socket.io/blob/master/si.html
You can compare the same code with WebSocket versions:
WebSocket Server
WebSocket server example using Express.js:
var path = require('path');
var app = require('express')();
var ws = require('express-ws')(app);
app.get('/', (req, res) => {
console.error('express connection');
res.sendFile(path.join(__dirname, 'ws.html'));
});
app.ws('/', (s, req) => {
console.error('websocket connection');
for (var t = 0; t < 3; t++)
setTimeout(() => s.send('message from server', ()=>{}), 1000*t);
});
app.listen(3001, () => console.error('listening on http://localhost:3001/'));
console.error('websocket example');
Source: https://github.com/rsp/node-websocket-vs-socket.io/blob/master/ws.js
WebSocket Client
WebSocket client example using vanilla JavaScript:
var l = document.getElementById('l');
var log = function (m) {
var i = document.createElement('li');
i.innerText = new Date().toISOString()+' '+m;
l.appendChild(i);
}
log('opening websocket connection');
var s = new WebSocket('ws://'+window.location.host+'/');
s.addEventListener('error', function (m) { log("error"); });
s.addEventListener('open', function (m) { log("websocket connection open"); });
s.addEventListener('message', function (m) { log(m.data); });
Source: https://github.com/rsp/node-websocket-vs-socket.io/blob/master/ws.html
I hope this can help you evaluate whether staying with Socket.io or going with WebSocket is the right decision for you, and will give you some working client-side code to test your backend. The code is released under the MIT license (open source, free software) so feel free to use it in your project.
