I'd like to connect to a server, then do some stuff as soon as the connection is open. But if the connection stalls, I want to trap for that and not do the stuff, and perhaps cancel the waiting connection.

function doStuff () {
    var connection = new WebSocket('wss://someURL');

    //do some stuff here as soon as socket open but trap for stall
}

I was looking for some feature such as

connection.addEventListener('timeout',...);

because upon configuring my WS server to not respond (simulate a too slow server), Chrome's network inspector perpetually shows the connection as "Pending". For lack of that feature, my first pass is:

function doStuff () {
    var connection = new WebSocket('wss://someURL');
    connection.addEventListener('open', onOpen, false);

    var socketTimer = setTimeout(onNotResponding, 10000);

    function onOpen () {
        clearTimeout(socketTimer);
        //do my stuff here.
    }

    function onNotResponding () { 
        //the server is not responding, how do I "cancel" the connection request here? 
    }
}

I'd like to connect to a server, then do some stuff as soon as the connection is open. But if the connection stalls, I want to trap for that and not do the stuff, and perhaps cancel the waiting connection.

function doStuff () {
    var connection = new WebSocket('wss://someURL');

    //do some stuff here as soon as socket open but trap for stall
}

I was looking for some feature such as

connection.addEventListener('timeout',...);

because upon configuring my WS server to not respond (simulate a too slow server), Chrome's network inspector perpetually shows the connection as "Pending". For lack of that feature, my first pass is:

function doStuff () {
    var connection = new WebSocket('wss://someURL');
    connection.addEventListener('open', onOpen, false);

    var socketTimer = setTimeout(onNotResponding, 10000);

    function onOpen () {
        clearTimeout(socketTimer);
        //do my stuff here.
    }

    function onNotResponding () { 
        //the server is not responding, how do I "cancel" the connection request here? 
    }
}

• javascript
• websocket

3 Answers 3

(This is an answer to the question: the best way to wait for a websocket ... to bee available, which I thought was the intention of this post. Anyway, I'm leaving my answer here, perhaps other readers will find it useful).

Here is how I solved it:

var socket;

var socketOnMessage = function(msg) {
    console.log("received " + msg.data);
};

var socketOnOpen = function(msg) {
    console.log("websocket opened");
};

var socketOnClose = function(msg) {
    console.log('websocket disconnected - waiting for connection');
    websocketWaiter();
};

function websocketWaiter(){
    setTimeout(function(){
        socket = new WebSocket(websocketUrl);
        socket.onopen = socketOnOpen;
        socket.onclose = socketOnClose;
        socket.onmessage = socketOnMessage;
    }, 1000);
};

websocketWaiter();

In the onClose event handler, you call the websocketWaiter again.

In websocketWaiter, you must re-initialize the event handlers, because you created a new object.

A quick google search showed this.
https://developer.mozilla/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebSocket#close%28%29

connection.close();

Just to note that the pending connection you see in Chrome Developer Tools is the initial http connection which is then left open to allow for the web socket to have bidirectional munication. You will not see the real websocket traffic.

For that you can install the free WireShark network traffic sniffer looking at this solution here:

How to debug websockets with wireshark

You can also filter to show only WebSocket packets by using a display filter: (websocket)