| 152 | 152 | `connectionLost` is called when the platform notifies Twisted that the TCP connection has been closed. TCP connections are closed in one of two ways. They can either be closed "actively" - by one side of the connection sending a close message to the other side - or they can be closed by timeout - one side deciding that the other side has taken too long to respond and interpreting this to mean that the other side is no longer paying attention to the connection. However, for the timeout case, it is important to understand that if an application is not sending data over the connection, '''there is no response''' to ''take too long'' so no timeout will ever occur. This means that if a network error disrupts a connection but the application is not sending data over it, it's possible for `connectionLost` to never be called. However, if the application is sending data over it, then the timeout will eventually expire. TCP uses very large timeouts in order to account for very poor networks. If you rely on TCP timeouts, expect as much as two hours (the precise amount is platform specific) to pass between when the disruption occurs and when `connectionLost` is called. If this is too long, you may want to use an application-level ''keep alive'' mechanism to discover lost connections earlier. This just involves sending simple messages back and forth over a connection. If it ever takes longer than whatever amount of time you decide is appropriate for your application to receive a response to one of these messages, consider the connection lost. |
