Java web app experiencing sporadic PostgreSQL connection issues

I’m working on a website registration system and running into a weird problem. The code usually works fine but sometimes it fails when checking if an email is already in the database. Here’s a snippet of what I’m doing:

String userEmail = request.getParameter("email");
String sqlCheck = "SELECT * FROM users WHERE email = ?";
PreparedStatement checkStatement = connection.prepareStatement(sqlCheck);
checkStatement.setString(1, userEmail);
ResultSet results = checkStatement.executeQuery();

if (results.next()) {
    // Email exists, handle accordingly
} else {
    // Continue with registration
}

The error message says something about an I/O problem when talking to the database. It mentions either a closed stream or socket. This happens randomly and always at the same spot in the code.

I’m using PostgreSQL version 8.1.23. Any ideas what might be causing this? Is it a connection pooling issue maybe? Or could it be a problem with how I’m handling the database connection?

Really scratching my head over this one. Any tips or suggestions would be great!

hey, i’ve seen this before. sounds like ur connection is timing out. try increasing the connection timeout setting in ur db config. also, make sure ur closing connections properly after each query. old postgres versions can be finicky, so upgrading might help too. good luck!

Hmm, have you checked your network stability? sometimes flaky connections can cause these weird issues. What about server load? Maybe the database is getting overwhelmed at peak times?

have you tried logging the exact time when these errors occur? That could give us more clues about whats going on. Oh, and are you using any specific connection pooling library?

This issue sounds like it could be related to connection pooling or how connections are being managed. PostgreSQL 8.1.23 is quite old and no longer supported, which might be contributing to the problem. I’d recommend upgrading to a more recent version if possible.

In the meantime, you could try implementing a connection retry mechanism. Wrap your database operations in a try-catch block and attempt to reconnect if an exception occurs. Also, ensure you’re properly closing connections, statements, and result sets in a finally block to prevent resource leaks.

If you’re not already using one, consider implementing a connection pool like HikariCP or Apache DBCP. These can help manage connections more efficiently and handle intermittent issues more gracefully.

Lastly, check your database logs for any clues about what might be causing the connections to drop. There could be network issues, server-side timeouts, or other factors at play.