MQSeries.net :: View topic - Zero-Byte (empty) messages generated

GarvAlbert · Posted: Wed Jun 20, 2007 7:09 am Post subject:

Hi, all

First time posting ...

We're having a strange problem where zero-byte messages are being pulled from a queue.

Due to a limitation of the COTS product we're using, and to integrate our MQ message processing with existing architecture, we're processing messages as follows, every 5 minutes:

1) PEEK the queue, n documents at a time (queuedepth = n < 1k).
Atomically:
A) Persist each message payload as an archive file on the filesystem
B) Process the data from this archive file
C) Log successful docs, empty docs, and invalid docs
2) GET n documents from Q (flushing processed docs)
A) issue MQGet
B) "Swallow" data.

This is perhaps not the cleanest way to do things, but our central issue is that we receive every once in a while (and consecutively) a batch of 3-5 zero-byte messages. Our handling is to log these and essentially ignore them. When doing parity/sanity checks with the data provider, the number and checksum on all the "good" messages matches everything they actually sent -- so in essence these "empty" messages are false positives.

Is there some intricacy involved in peeking/browsing that could cause this? Is this known behavior when there are network issues? Has anybody else witnessed this?