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Can't connect to websocket

I'm new to Blockchain and I want to understand how to use JS to open a Websocket, the code is from Blockcypher.com docs https://www.blockcypher.com/dev/dash/?javascript#using-websockets
// Get latest unconfirmed transactions live
var ws = new WebSocket("wss://socket.blockcypher.com/v1/dash/main");
var count = 0;
ws.onmessage = function (event) {
var tx = JSON.parse(event.data);
var shortHash = tx.hash.substring(0, 6) + "...";
var total = tx.total / 100000000;
var addrs = tx.addresses.join(", ");
$('#browser-websocket').before("<div>Unconfirmed transaction " + shortHash + " totalling " + total + "DASH involving addresses " + addrs + "</div>");
count++;
if (count > 10) ws.close();
}
ws.onopen = function(event) {
ws.send(JSON.stringify({event: "unconfirmed-tx"}));
}
The browser console displays this error: Firefox can’t establish a connection to the server at wss://socket.blockcypher.com/v1/dash/main.
Note: I have a token provided by Blockcypher but the code example they provide doesn't ask for any token. Is the code bad? is it missing something?

The problem is not in your code but with the server not responding as expected.
It could be a server issue or you may need to be pre approved to access the resource (assuming they are whitelisting IP addresses which I doubt).
Also, check out the rest of the code, it has a placeholder for a token that you may need to connect (the error you see now is way before the token is requested).
You can always change the server name to one of many test servers out there like wss://echo.websocket.org and see the error changing from "Can't establish connection" to something related to the rest of the code.

JavaScript issue with import/export modules and Globally defined variables

(note, I'm using Node.js to create a telnet server and handle user input)
I'm having issues using variables/arrays in javascript inside functions in other scripts.
Let me set a simpler example:
var connections = []
is an array in my main.js
Broadcast.js is a function I put in a separate module and attempt to use the broadcast() function in my main.js.
The error I get is stating that connections is undefined. How do get Broadcast.js able to see the connections array in the main.js
~~
For example in my main.js I set an array to handle clients connecting to a server
//point to Telnet library
const Telnet = require('ranvier-telnet');
const logger = require('./logger.js')
var outspeak = []
var connections = []
var clients = []
let server = new Telnet.TelnetServer(rawSocket => {
let telnetSocket = new Telnet.TelnetSocket();
//attaching socket
telnetSocket.attach(rawSocket);
//setting telnet options
telnetSocket.telnetCommand(Telnet.Sequences.WILL, Telnet.Options.OPT_EOR);
//giving clients a name
telnetSocket.name = rawSocket.remoteAddress + ":" + rawSocket.remotePort
//pushing client names to array
clients.push(telnetSocket.name);
//pushing client connections to an array
connections.push(rawSocket);
console.log(`${telnetSocket.name} has connected`)
logger(`${telnetSocket.name} has connected`)
broadcast(telnetSocket.name + " connected.")
telnetSocket.on('data', function (data) {
//broadcast (telnetSocket.name + ">" + data, telnetSocket);
}
function broadcast (message, sender) {
connections.forEach(function (connection) {
//don't want to send it to sender
if (connection === sender) return;
connection.write(`${message} \n`);
});
}
Now inside my main script, I could called that array/push to that array, read from that array, as long as I type out the function inside the main.js file.
And it can easily use the broadcast function.
Now I want to make it more advance and make reduce my lines on my main.js
but once I separate the broadcast function into it's own module.
use strict'
//broadcast function
function broadcast (message, sender) {
connections.forEach(function (connection) {
//don't want to send it to sender
if (connection === sender) return;
connection.write(`${message} \n`);
});
}
module.exports = broadcast
I get a connection undefined error any time I try to invoke that broadcast function. It's like my global variable/array can't be seen by broadcast.js function.
this is how I'm invoking it
// handle input
telnetSocket.on('data', function (data) {
broadcast (telnetSocket.name + ">" + data, telnetSocket);
});
And yes, const broadcast = require('./broadcast.js'); as been added to the file at the top.
Here's the broken code complete:
'use strict'
//point to Telnet library
const Telnet = require('ranvier-telnet');
const logger = require('./logger.js');
const broadcast = require('./broadcast.js');
var connections = []
var clients = []
//had to call message as global variable
//Asan's timestamp functionm
//telnetstuff
console.log("Starting...");
let server = new Telnet.TelnetServer(rawSocket => {
let telnetSocket = new Telnet.TelnetSocket();
//attaching socket
telnetSocket.attach(rawSocket);
//setting telnet options
telnetSocket.telnetCommand(Telnet.Sequences.WILL, Telnet.Options.OPT_EOR);
//giving clients a name
telnetSocket.name = rawSocket.remoteAddress + ":" + rawSocket.remotePort
//pushing client names to array
clients.push(telnetSocket.name);
//pushing client connections to an array
connections.push(rawSocket);
console.log(`${telnetSocket.name} has connected`)
logger(`${telnetSocket.name} has connected`)
broadcast(telnetSocket.name + " connected.")
// handle input
telnetSocket.on('data', function (data) {
broadcast (telnetSocket.name + ">" + data, telnetSocket);
});
//removing client/connection from array
rawSocket.on('end', function () {
clients.splice(clients.indexOf(telnetSocket), 1);
connections.splice(connections.indexOf(rawSocket), 1);
broadcast(telnetSocket.name + " has left.\n");
logger(telnetSocket.name + " has left.");
console.log(telnetSocket.name + " has left.");
});
}).netServer
server.listen(4000);
console.log('ServerRunning...');
logger('>Server started.');
What I'm missing here? Also I apologize in advance this is my first question ever asked and I've gone through as much I could today to even figure out how to ask my question, maybe I'm not using correct lingo/terms? any help is appreciative.
refactor\broadcast.js:5
connections.forEach(function (connection) {
^
ReferenceError: connections is not defined

In nodejs, when you declare a variable not inside any function definitions, it is scoped to the file only. (This is different from browser javascript.) If you want something to be accessible from outside, you need to export it:
module.exports.connections = connections;
Then import it into the other file:
const connections = require(myFile);
This will work as long as you don't try to set the value of the variable in either file, but if you do that they'll end up pointing to separate objects. But mutating it, calling methods on it, etc should work fine.

WebSocket Javascript client not receiving messages from server

I've got a Java web application deployed on a local GlassFish 4.1 server that implements WebSockets to inter-operate with the web client. I'm able to successfully execute client-to-server communication over the socket, but server-to-client communication doesn't work for some reason.
The Java code that sends messages to the client:
try
{
String msg = ServerClientInteropManager.toResponseJSON(response);
parentSession.getBasicRemote().sendText(msg);
FLAIRLogger.get().info("Sent response to client. Message: " + msg);
}
catch (IOException ex) {
FLAIRLogger.get().error("Couldn't send message to session " + parentSession.getid() + ". Exception - " + ex.getMessage());
}
The Javascript code:
pipeline_internal_onMessage = function(event)
{
var msg = JSON.parse(event.data);
console.log("Received message from server. Data: " + event.data);
};
function pipeline_init()
{
if (PIPELINE !== null || PIPELINE_CONNECTED === true)
{
console.log("Pipline already initialized");
return false;
}
else
{
var pipelineURI = "ws://" + document.location.host + document.location.pathname + "webranker";
console.log("Attempting to establish connection with WebSocket # " + pipelineURI);
if ('WebSocket' in window)
PIPELINE = new WebSocket(pipelineURI);
else if ('MozWebSocket' in window)
PIPELINE = new MozWebSocket(pipelineURI);
else
{
console.log("FATAL: No WebSockets support");
alert("This browser does not support WebSockets. Please upgrade to a newer version or switch to a browser that supports WebSockets.");
return false;
}
// the other event listeners get added here
PIPELINE.onMessage = pipeline_internal_onMessage;
PIPELINE_CONNECTED = true;
window.onbeforeunload = function() {
pipeline_deinit();
};
console.log("Pipeline initialized");
return true;
}
}
The onMessage function is never fired, even when the server successfully calls the sendText() method. Using the AsyncRemote yields the same results. The onError listeners on both ends don't report anything either. This is my first time working with sockets so I might be missing something elementary.

replace
PIPELINE.onMessage = pipeline_internal_onMessage
with
PIPELINE.onmessage = pipeline_internal_onMessage
Please refer here for more.

If Websocket connection can't be established do something else

I'm currently running into a problem you guys might be able to help me with..
I'm using websockets to connect to a custom server. Now i want to integrate a second Server IP if the first one isn't available.
How is it possible to detect, that the connection couldn't be made because the server isn't reachable? When I enter a wrong ws://url in my script, Chrome for example gives me the following error:
WebSocket connection to 'wss://1234/' failed: Error in connection establishment: net::ERR_NAME_NOT_RESOLVED
in Firefox it's something complete different. Do you guys of any method to catch this error with Javascript?
Basically when the ws:// url can't be reached, i want to change a variable with a different Server-IP and try it with this one again...
Thanks for your help!

It seems there's no way to catch the problem on instantiation, even though the magical JavaScript black box somehow seems to know the problem occurs on the new WebSocket.
To detect this error, use the following:
ws = new WebSocket(server);
ws.onerror = function (evt) {
if (ws.readyState == 3) {
//Connection closed.
}
}

thanks #orbitbot,
I'm using a framework called jwebsocket (jwebsocket.org). My Code is basically this:
serverstate = "0";
console.log(serverstate);
function logon() {
if(serverstate == "0") {
lURL = "wss://testurl-one:9797";
} else if (serverstate == "1") {
lURL = "wss://testurl-two:9797";
}
var gUsername = "user";
var lPassword = "pass";
console.log( "Connecting to " + lURL + " and console.logging in as '" + gUsername + "'..." );
var lRes = lWSC.logon( lURL, gUsername, lPassword, {
// OnOpen callback
OnOpen: function( aEvent ) {
console.log( "jWebSocket connection established." );
},
// OnMessage callback
OnMessage: function( aEvent, aToken ) {
var lDate = "";
if( aToken.date_val ) {
lDate = jws.tools.ISO2Date( aToken.date_val );
}
console.log( "jWebSocket '" + aToken.type + "' token received, full message: '" + aEvent.data + "' " + lDate + "" );
console.log(aToken);
}
},
// OnClose callback
OnClose: function( aEvent ) {
console.log( "Disconnected from Server" );
console.log("Using next server..");
serverstate = "1";
console.log(serverstate);
console.log("Trying to connect to next server");
logon();
},
// OnClose callback
OnError: function( aEvent ) {
console.log ("Some error appeared");
}
});
console.log( lWSC.resultToString( lRes ) );
}
Of course this would work so far. My Problem is that im using websockets to open a connection, get some information, and after that close the connection again.
since this code will always be fired if the server connection is closed (which in many cases i want to..) i can't use it like that...
any other ideas on this problem ?

I got it.. for everyone else who's interested:
When connection is made you receive a message from there server. So if the server is not available.. there'll be no message. So i just added a variable to the "OnMessage" Part.. and in the disconnect i check if a message was received. If not the server isn't there.. if yes, everything works fine..

Assuming your code is something like this,
var host = 'ws://a.real.websocket.url';
var socket = new WebSocket(host);
... you just need to surround the call to new WebSocket with a try/catch block, something like this
try {
var socket = new WebSocket(host);
} catch (e) {
// inspect e to understand why there was an error
// and connect to another url if necessary
}
That being said, it might be easier to work with a websockets library such as Socket.IO or SockJS (https://github.com/sockjs/sockjs-client), which then would change your reconnection code logic to whatever the libraries provide.

How to detect client disconnection from node.js server

I am new to node.js. How to detect client is disconnected from node.js server .
Here is my code:
var net = require('net');
var http = require('http');
var host = '192.168.1.77';
var port = 12345;//
var server = net.createServer(function (stream) {
stream.setEncoding('utf8');
stream.on('data', function (data) {
var comm = JSON.parse(data);
if (comm.action == "Join_Request" && comm.gameId =="game1") // join request getting from client
{
var reply0 = new Object();
reply0.message = "WaitRoom";
stream.write(JSON.stringify(reply0) + "\0");
}
});
stream.on('disconnect', function() {
});
stream.on('close', function () {
console.log("Close");
});
stream.on('error', function () {
console.log("Error");
});
});
server.listen(port,host);
How to know client side internet disconnection.

The best way to detect "dead sockets" is to send periodic application-level ping/keepalive messages. What that message looks like depends on the protocol you're using for communicating over the socket. Then it's just a matter of using a timer or other means of checking if you've received a "ping response" within a certain period of time after you sent the ping/keepalive message to the client.
On a semi-related note, it looks like you're using JSON messages for communication, but you're assuming a complete JSON string on every data event which is a bad assumption. Try using a delimiter (a newline is pretty common for something like this, and it makes debugging the communication more human-readable) instead.
Here is a simple example of how to achieve this:
var PING_TIMEOUT = 5000, // how long to wait for client to respond
WAIT_TIMEOUT = 5000; // duration of "silence" from client until a ping is sent
var server = net.createServer(function(stream) {
stream.setEncoding('utf8');
var buffer = '',
pingTimeout,
waitTimeout;
function send(obj) {
stream.write(JSON.stringify(obj) + '\n');
}
stream.on('data', function(data) {
// stop our timers if we've gotten any kind of data
// from the client, whether it's a ping response or
// not, we know their connection is still good.
clearTimeout(waitTimeout);
clearTimeout(pingTimeout);
buffer += data;
var idx;
// because `data` can be a chunk of any size, we could
// have multiple messages in our buffer, so we check
// for that here ...
while (~(idx = buffer.indexOf('\n'))) {
try {
var comm = JSON.parse(buffer.substring(0, idx));
// join request getting from client
if (comm.action === "Join_Request" && comm.gameId === "game1") {
send({ message: 'WaitRoom' });
}
} catch (ex) {
// some error occurred, probably from trying to parse invalid JSON
}
// update our buffer
buffer = buffer.substring(idx + 1);
}
// we wait for more data, if we don't see anything in
// WAIT_TIMEOUT milliseconds, we send a ping message
waitTimeout = setTimeout(function() {
send({ message: 'Ping' });
// we sent a ping, now we wait for a ping response
pingTimeout = setTimeout(function() {
// if we've gotten here, we are assuming the
// connection is dead because the client did not
// at least respond to our ping message
stream.destroy(); // or stream.end();
}, PING_TIMEOUT);
}, WAIT_TIMEOUT);
});
// other event handlers and logic ...
});
You could also just have one interval instead of two timers that checks a "last data received" timestamp against the current timestamp and if it exceeds some length of time and we have sent a ping message recently, then you assume the socket/connection is dead. You could also instead send more than one ping message and if after n ping messages are sent and no response is received, close the connection at that point (this is basically what OpenSSH does).
There are many ways to go about it. However you may also think about doing the same on the client side, so that you know the server didn't lose its connection either.