I'm trying to work out where a lot of the memory in my app is going and while doing some profiling I'm noticing that any data objects that are loaded by NHibernate are hanging around once the request (is asp.net), and therefore session, has ended. Tracing it back, there are various things that seem to be doing it, like the "SingleTableEntityPersister" and the "StatefulPersistenceContext". I've disabled 2nd level caching for now, but they're still being held on to
Any ideas?
The session is being correctly disposed:
if (session != null)
{
if (session.Transaction != null && session.Transaction.IsActive)
{
session.Transaction.Rollback();
}
else
{
session.Flush();
}
session.Close();
session.Dispose();
}
NHibernate tracks all changes that are made to objects, that means that if you do:
user.FirstName = "name"
it will make the appropriate update in the DB.
But to track this NH needs references to all your objects. To get not tracked entities you can either use IStatelessSession or remove object from the session using the Evict method.
When session is disposed it releases all the tracked entities. So check if session is deleted properly and transaction is closed
Related
I start my question from an example. I think it will be more simple.
What i want to do, is send REQUEST_1 from my Android device to asp page, which is waiting for JSON request, for example {"Year":2012}. Page takes this json string, and saves it to the object (example arraylist).
After a minute, I send REQUEST_2 to the same ASP page with data: {"Command","WhatIsCurrentYear"}, and I then want to get response: {"Year",2012} (which should still be stored in the arraylist).
Is there a chance to do this?
Session has a property Session.TimeOut. Session expires after the time expires. By default in asp.net session Timeout time is 20 mintues Also if user closes the browser session also expires if it's mode is InProc ( Cookies or without cookies ). In InProc session provider IIS could recycle the application pool at any moment (period of inactivity, certain CPU/memory thresholds are reached, ...) without warning voiding the contents of this session.
Variables are initialized on every post back, so if previously you had saved data in an array list object it is lost. To save data during postbacks you can use ViewState.
I created a class for accessing the session
public static IPerson User
{
get
{
if (HttpContext.Current.Session == null || HttpContext.Current.Session[UserConstant] == null)
return new Student();
return (IPerson)HttpContext.Current.Session[UserConstant];
}
set
{
HttpContext.Current.Session[UserConstant] = value;
}
}
You can replace IPerson with whatever object you want.
I've got quite a lot of code on my site that looks like this;
Item item;
if(Cache["foo"] != null)
{
item = (Item)Cache["foo"];
}
else
{
item = database.getItemFromDatabase();
Cache.insert(item, "foo", null, DateTime.Now.AddDays(1), ...
}
One such instance of this has a rather expensive getItemFromDatabase method (which is the main reason it's cached). The problem I have is that with every release or restart of the application, the cache is cleared and then an army of users come online and hit the above code, which kills our database server.
What is the typical method of dealing with these sorts of scenarios?
You could hook into the Application OnStart event in the global.asax file and call a method to load the expensive database calls in a seperate thread when the application starts.
It may also be an idea to use a specialised class for accessing these properties using a locking pattern to avoid multiple database calls when the initial value is null.
I check a session object and if it does exist then call another method which would use that object indirectly. Although the second method would access this object in a few nanoseconds I was thinking of a situation when the object exactly expires between two calls. Does Session object extends its lifetime on every read access from code for preventing such a problem ? If not how to solve the problem ?
If you are going to say why I don't pass the retrieved object from first method to second one, this is because I pass the ASP.NET Page object which carries many other parameters inside it to second method and if I try to pass each of them separately, there would be many parameters while I just pass one Page object now.
Don't worry, this won't happen
If I understand your situation it works sort of this way:
Access a certain page
If session is active it immediately redirects to the second page or executes a certain method on the first page.
Second page/method uses session
You're afraid that session will expire between execution of the first and second method/page.
Basically this is impossible since your session timer was reset when just before the first page starts processing. So if the first page had active session then your second page/method will have it as well (as long as processing finishes before 20 minutes - default session timeout duration).
How is Session processed
Session is processed by means of an HTTP Module that runs on every request and before page starts processing. This explains the behaviour. If you're not familiar with HTTP Modules, then I suggest you read a bit about IHttpModule interface.
It's quite difficult to understand your question, IMHO, but I will try.
From what I understand, you're doing something like:
string helloWorld = string.Empty;
if (this.Session["myObject"] == null)
{
// The object was removed from the session or the session expired.
helloWorld = this.CreateNewMyObject();
}
else
{
// Session still exists.
helloWorld = this.Session["myObject"].ToString(); // <- What if the session expired just now?
}
or
// What if the session existed here...
if (this.Session["myObject"] == null)
{
this.Session["myObject"] = this.CreateNewMyObject();
}
// ... but expired just there?
string helloWorld = this.Session["myObject"].ToString();
I thought that Session object is managed by the same thread as the page request, which would mean that it is safe to check if object exists, than use it without a try/catch.
I were wrong:
For Cache objects you have to be aware of the fact that you’re dealing essentially with an object accessed across multiple threads
Source: ASP.NET Cache and Session State Storage
I were also wrong about not reading to carefully the answer by Robert Koritnik, which, in fact, clearly answers the question.
In fact, you are warned about the fact that an object might be removed during page request. But since Session lifespan relies on page requests, it would mean that you must take in account the removal of session variables only if your request takes longer than the session timeout (see How is Session processed in the answer by Robert Koritnik).
Of course, such situation is very rare. But if in your case, you are pretty sure that the page request can take longer than 20 minutes (default session timeout), than yes, you must take in account that an object may be removed after you've checked if it exists, but before you really use it.
In this situation, you can obviously increment the session timeout, or use try/catch when accessing the session objects. But IMHO, if the page request takes dozens of minutes, you must consider other alternatives, as Windows services, to do the work.
I'm having difficulties understanding what the problem here is but let me try it again referring to thread safety.
Thread safety issue
If this is a thread safety issue, you can always issue a lock when creating a certain session object so other parallel requests won't run into a problem by double creating your object.
if (obj == null)
{
lock (objLock)
{
if (obj == null)
{
obj = GenerateYourObject();
}
}
}
Check lock documentation on MSDN if you've never used it before. And don't forget to check other web resources as well.
We have a data driven ASP.NET website which has been written using the standard pattern for data caching (adapted here from MSDN):
public DataTable GetData()
{
string key = "DataTable";
object item = Cache[key] as DataTable;
if((item == null)
{
item = GetDataFromSQL();
Cache.Insert(key, item, null, DateTime.Now.AddSeconds(300), TimeSpan.Zero;
}
return (DataTable)item;
}
The trouble with this is that the call to GetDataFromSQL() is expensive and the use of the site is fairly high. So every five minutes, when the cache drops, the site becomes very 'sticky' while a lot of requests are waiting for the new data to be retrieved.
What we really want to happen is for the old data to remain current while new data is periodically reloaded in the background. (The fact that someone might therefore see data that is six minutes old isn't a big issue - the data isn't that time sensitive). This is something that I can write myself, but it would be useful to know if any alternative caching engines (I know names like Velocity, memcache) support this kind of scenario. Or am I missing some obvious trick with the standard ASP.NET data cache?
You should be able to use the CacheItemUpdateCallback delegate which is the 6th parameter which is the 4th overload for Insert using ASP.NET Cache:
Cache.Insert(key, value, dependancy, absoluteExpiration,
slidingExpiration, onUpdateCallback);
The following should work:
Cache.Insert(key, item, null, DateTime.Now.AddSeconds(300),
Cache.NoSlidingExpiration, itemUpdateCallback);
private void itemUpdateCallback(string key, CacheItemUpdateReason reason,
out object value, out CacheDependency dependency, out DateTime expiriation,
out TimeSpan slidingExpiration)
{
// do your SQL call here and store it in 'value'
expiriation = DateTime.Now.AddSeconds(300);
value = FunctionToGetYourData();
}
From MSDN:
When an object expires in the cache,
ASP.NET calls the
CacheItemUpdateCallback method with
the key for the cache item and the
reason you might want to update the
item. The remaining parameters of this
method are out parameters. You supply
the new cached item and optional
expiration and dependency values to
use when refreshing the cached item.
The update callback is not called if
the cached item is explicitly removed
by using a call to Remove().
If you want the cached item to be
removed from the cache, you must
return null in the expensiveObject
parameter. Otherwise, you return a
reference to the new cached data by
using the expensiveObject parameter.
If you do not specify expiration or
dependency values, the item will be
removed from the cache only when
memory is needed.
If the callback method throws an
exception, ASP.NET suppresses the
exception and removes the cached
value.
I haven't tested this so you might have to tinker with it a bit but it should give you the basic idea of what your trying to accomplish.
I can see that there's a potential solution to this using AppFabric (the cache formerly known as Velocity) in that it allows you to lock a cached item so it can be updated. While an item is locked, ordinary (non-locking) Get requests still work as normal and return the cache's current copy of the item.
Doing it this way would also allow you to separate out your GetDataFromSQL method to a different process, say a Windows Service, that runs every five minutes, which should alleviate your 'sticky' site.
Or...
Rather than just caching the data for five minutes at a time regardless, why not use a SqlCacheDependency object when you put the data into the cache, so that it'll only be refreshed when the data actually changes. That way you can cache the data for longer periods, so you get better performance, and you'll always be showing the up-to-date data.
(BTW, top tip for making your intention clearer when you're putting objects into the cache - the Cache has a NoSlidingExpiration (and a NoAbsoluteExpiration) constant available that's more readable than your Timespan.Zero)
First, put the date you actually need in a lean class (also known as POCO) instead of that DataTable hog.
Second, use cache and hash - so that when your time dependency expires you can spawn an async delegate to fetch new data but your old data is still safe in a separate hash table (not Dictionary - it's not safe for multi-reader single writer threading).
Depending on the kind of data and the time/budget to restructure SQL side you could potentially fetch only things that have LastWrite younger that your update window. you will need 2-step update (have to copy dats from the hash-kept opject into new object - stuff in hash is strictly read-only for any use or the hell will break loose).
Oh and SqlCacheDependency is notorious for being unreliable and can make your system break into mad updates.
what happens if an user trying to read HttpContext.Current.Cache[key] while the other one trying to remove object HttpContext.Current.Cache.Remove(key) at the same time?
Just think about hundreds of users reading from cache and trying to clean some cache objects at the same time. What happens and is it thread safe?
Is it possible to create database aware business objects in cache?
The built-in ASP.Net Cache object (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.web.caching.cache.aspx) is thread-safe, so insert/remove actions in multi-threaded environments are inherently safe.
Your primary requirement for putting any object in cache is that is must be serializable. So yes, your db-aware business object can go in the cache.
If the code is unable to get the object, then nothing / null is returned.
Why would you bother to cache an object if you would have the chance of removing it so frequently? Its better to set an expiration time and reload the object if its no longer in the cache.
Can you explain "DB aware object"? Do you mean a sql cache dependency, or just an object that has information about a db connection?
EDIT:
Reponse to comment #3.
I think we are missing something here. Let me explain what I think you mean, and you can tell me if its right.
UserA checks for an object in cache
("resultA") and does not find it.
UserA runs a query. Results are
cached as "resultA" for 5 minutes.
UserB checks for an object in cache
("resultA") and does find it.
UserB uses the cached object "resultA"
If this is the case, then you dont need a Sql Cache dependency.
Well i have a code to populate cache:
string cacheKey = GetCacheKey(filter, sort);
if (HttpContext.Current.Cache[cacheKey] == null)
{
reader = base.ExecuteReader(SelectQuery);
HttpContext.Current.Cache[cacheKey] =
base.GetListByFilter(reader, filter, sort);
}
return HttpContext.Current.Cache[cacheKey] as List<CurrencyDepot>;
and when table updated cleanup code below executing:
private void CleanCache()
{
IDictionaryEnumerator enumerator =
HttpContext.Current.Cache.GetEnumerator();
while (enumerator.MoveNext())
{
if (enumerator.Key.ToString().Contains(_TableName))
{
try {
HttpContext.Current.Cache.Remove(enumerator.Key.ToString());
} catch (Exception) {}
}
}
}
Is this usage cause a trouble?