URLConnection to WebService gets FileNotFoundException

[Brock Jones]

I have a class that I use to generically connect and send data
to/receive data from web services. The base functionality is provided
by URLConnection.getInputStream() and URLConnection.getOutputStream().
For virtually everything I've tried it on, it works like a charm.
However, it seems to break using one particular service. When I try
to send the data to that particular service, closing the stream
results in a FileNotFoundException being thrown. The server logs an
ambiguous error type 500 for the connection attempt. There is nothing
special about this particular service -- it's virtually identical to
several other services I use regularly.

What follows is the gist of the code, dumbed down to the basics
(originally, I was using a BufferedOutputStream to write the POST
data).

If someone could *please* post a response to this message or send an
email to brockhjones (at) hotmail dot com, it would be appreciated
very much!

Thanks!
-Brock

public void processRequest( String strServiceUrl, String[] rgstrParams
)
{
URLConnection urlc = null;
String strUrl = strServiceUrl;
String strResponse = null;

try
{
try
{
// Create a URL object
URL url = new URL( strUrl );
// Open the URLConnection object
urlc = url.openConnection();
// Allow input
urlc.setUseCaches( false );
urlc.setDoInput( true );
}
catch( Exception e )
{
// failed to establish a connection
return;
}

if( urlc == null )
{
// failed to establish a connection
return;
}

if( ( m_rgstrParams != null ) && ( rgstrParams.length > 1 ) && ( (
rgstrParams.length % 2 ) == 0 ) )
{
// We've got data to send. Set up the URLConnection
// to allow output.
urlc.setDoOutput( true );

int iCount = rgstrParams.length / 2;
String strParams = "";
int idx = 0;
for( int i = 0; i < iCount; i++ )
{
if( i > 0 )
strParams += "&";

strParams += rgstrParams[idx++] + "=" + rgstrParams[idx++];
}


try
{
OutputStream ostream = urlc.getOutputStream();
ostream.write( strParams.getBytes() );
ostream.flush();
ostream.close();
}
catch( Exception e )
{
// failed to send data..
// continue on, try to read in data
}
}

// Now that we have (possibly) sent any necessary data *up* to the
web
// service, it's time to read the response from the server.
// The data that comes down will be in the form of an encrypted
string
// of name value pairs in the same format as an HTTP querystring
(i.e.,
// name1=value1&name2=value2)

// The string buffer we'll use to build up the response
StringBuffer sb = new StringBuffer("");

int iBytesRead = 0;
int iBufferLen = 128;

char[] rgc = null;
try
{
InputStream istream = urlc.getInputStream();

// Since we're reading in data from a remote source, we can't
// count on it all being available instantly. We'll read it
// into a buffer and read from the buffer
BufferedReader br = new BufferedReader( new InputStreamReader(
istream ) );

while( br.ready() || iBytesRead != -1 )
{
// Create our character buffer
rgc = new char[ iBufferLen ];
// Read the data into the buffer.
iBytesRead = br.read( rgc, 0, iBufferLen );
// Append the data onto our StringBuffer
if( iBytesRead > 0 )
sb.append( new String( rgc ).trim() );
}

// Close the BufferedReader
br.close();
// Close the stream
istream.close();
}
catch( Exception e )
{
// failed to read in response data
return;
}

// Create a string from the StringBuffer object.
strResponse = sb.toString();
System.out.println( strResponse );
}
catch( Exception e )
{
}

urlc = null;
}