How to fix the "Socket Hangup Error " when large number of requests are made really quick

Question

I have a nodejs application that aggregates contents from various websites. Requests are made to fetch the feeds from different sources asynchronously using request streams. I get the socket hangup error pretty often when the requests are made.

err in accessing the link { Error: socket hang up
    at createHangUpError (_http_client.js:331:15)
    at TLSSocket.socketOnEnd (_http_client.js:423:23)
    at emitNone (events.js:111:20)
    at TLSSocket.emit (events.js:208:7)
    at endReadableNT (_stream_readable.js:1064:12)
    at _combinedTickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:139:11)
    at process._tickDomainCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:219:9) code: 'ECONNRESET' } https://arstechnica.com/?p=1488489 

Environment details: node version - v8.12.0

Tried out a few suggestions given in related SO posts, but I still get the same error. NodeJS - What does "socket hang up" actually mean?

import request from 'request';
import FeedParser from 'feedparser';

const extractor = require('unfluff');

export const getFeedsFromSource = function (urlfeed, etag, LastModified, callback) {
  console.log(urlfeed, etag, LastModified);
  const req = request({
    method: 'GET',
    url: urlfeed,
    headers: {
      'If-None-Match': etag,
      'If-Modified-Since': LastModified,
      Connection: 'keep-alive',
      ciphers: 'DES-CBC3-SHA',
    },
  });
  const feedparser = new FeedParser();
  const metaData = {};
  const htmlData = {};
  const feedData = {};
  // const pList = null;
  req.on('response', function (response) {
    const stream = this;
    if (response.statusCode === 304) {
      console.log('Source not modified: ', urlfeed);
    }
    if (response.statusCode === 200) {
      metaData.etagin = response.headers.etag;
      metaData.LastModifiedin = response.headers['last-modified'];
      metaData.LastModifiedLocal = response.headers['last-modified'];
      stream.pipe(feedparser).end();
    }
  });
  req.on('error', (err) => {
    console.log(`getFeed: err.message == ${err.message}`);
    callback(err);
  });
  // req.end();
  feedparser.on('readable', function () {
    try {
      const item = this.read();
      if (item !== null) {
        request({
          method: 'GET',
          url: item.link,
        }, (err, info) => {
          if (!err) {
            htmlData.body = info.body;
            const parsedData = extractor(htmlData.body, 'en');
            feedData.author = [];
            feedData.videos = [];
            feedData.feedtitle = parsedData.title;
            feedData.feedmainpicture = parsedData.image;
            feedData.feedsummary = parsedData.description;
            feedData.feedmaincontent = parsedData.text;
            feedData.author.push(item.author);
            if (item.author === null) {
              feedData.author = parsedData.author;
            }
            feedData.feedurl = item.link;
            feedData.copyright = item.meta.copyright;
            // feedData.videos = parsedData.videos;
            feedData.publishedDate = item.pubdate;
            if (item.categories.length > 0) {
              feedData.categories = item.categories;
              feedData.feedtags = item.categories;
            } else if (parsedData.keywords !== undefined) {
              feedData.categories = parsedData.keywords.split(' ').join('').split(',');
              feedData.feedtags = parsedData.keywords.split(' ').join('').split(',');
            } else {
              feedData.categories = [];
              feedData.feedtags = [];
            }
            metaData.sourcename = item.meta.title;
            callback(undefined, feedData, metaData);
          } else {
            console.log('err in accessing the link', err, item.link);
          }
        });
      }
    } catch (err) {
      console.log(`getFeed: err.message == ${err.message}`);
    }
  });
  feedparser.on('error', (err) => {
    console.log(`getFeed: err.message == ${err.message}`);
  });
  feedparser.on('end', () => {
    console.log('onend');
  });
};

Kindly help me out with this issue.

Answer 1

There are many reasons for socket hangup/reset in production apps. From your description I believe the cause isn't due to app overloading with requests (unless you're running a very slow machine). IMO, the most likely candidate is throttling by remote server due to too many connections from same ip (chrome opens upto 8 connections to any single server, you should try not to exceed this limit, despite each server having different limit), to solve this you should do one of the following:

• add host request pooling (basically set Agent.maxSockets)
• use proxy service (e.g. Luminati) to distribute requests over many source ips (more relevant for high concurrency requirements)

One more thing to remember, requests can fail for 'natural' networking reasons (e.g. bad\unstable internet connection, server busy spikes), you should always do at least one retry of request before giving up.