Kafka Consumer - StringIndexOutOfBoundsException from EmbeddedHeadersMessageConverter

I’m troubleshooting an issue with my spring-cloud project where despite binding successfully to my Kafka cluster, producing and consuming messages, the consumer is throwing an exception in my logs.

I dug into KafkaMessageChannelBinder and EmbeddedHeadersMessageConverter. It seems like it is expecting a header on my message where one may not exist? I sent these messages from the Kafka console producer.

Here’s the stacktrace:

2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT 2015-11-24 20:30:29.892 ERROR 36 ---  --- [pool-2-thread-1] fkaMessageChannelBinder$ReceivingHandler : Could not convert message: 6D794B61666B614D65737361676546726F6D436F6E736F6C6550726F6475636572
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT java.lang.StringIndexOutOfBoundsException: String index out of range: 123
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at java.lang.String.checkBounds(String.java:385)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at java.lang.String.<init>(String.java:425)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at org.springframework.cloud.stream.binder.EmbeddedHeadersMessageConverter.oldExtractHeaders(EmbeddedHeadersMessageConverter.java:131)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at org.springframework.cloud.stream.binder.EmbeddedHeadersMessageConverter.extractHeaders(EmbeddedHeadersMessageConverter.java:104)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at org.springframework.cloud.stream.binder.kafka.KafkaMessageChannelBinder$ReceivingHandler.handleRequestMessage(KafkaMessageChannelBinder.java:845)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at org.springframework.integration.handler.AbstractReplyProducingMessageHandler.handleMessageInternal(AbstractReplyProducingMessageHandler.java:99)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at org.springframework.integration.handler.AbstractMessageHandler.handleMessage(AbstractMessageHandler.java:127)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at org.springframework.integration.channel.FixedSubscriberChannel.send(FixedSubscriberChannel.java:69)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at org.springframework.integration.channel.FixedSubscriberChannel.send(FixedSubscriberChannel.java:63)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at org.springframework.messaging.core.GenericMessagingTemplate.doSend(GenericMessagingTemplate.java:115)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at org.springframework.messaging.core.GenericMessagingTemplate.doSend(GenericMessagingTemplate.java:45)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at org.springframework.messaging.core.AbstractMessageSendingTemplate.send(AbstractMessageSendingTemplate.java:105)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at org.springframework.integration.endpoint.MessageProducerSupport.sendMessage(MessageProducerSupport.java:105)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at org.springframework.integration.kafka.inbound.KafkaMessageDrivenChannelAdapter.access$300(KafkaMessageDrivenChannelAdapter.java:43)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at org.springframework.integration.kafka.inbound.KafkaMessageDrivenChannelAdapter$AutoAcknowledgingChannelForwardingMessageListener.doOnMessage(KafkaMessageDrivenChannelAdapter.java:171)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at org.springframework.integration.kafka.listener.AbstractDecodingMessageListener.onMessage(AbstractDecodingMessageListener.java:50)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at org.springframework.integration.kafka.listener.QueueingMessageListenerInvoker$KafkaMessageDispatchingSubscriber.onNext(QueueingMessageListenerInvoker.java:138)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at org.springframework.integration.kafka.listener.QueueingMessageListenerInvoker$KafkaMessageDispatchingSubscriber.onNext(QueueingMessageListenerInvoker.java:127)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at reactor.core.processor.util.RingBufferSubscriberUtils.route(RingBufferSubscriberUtils.java:62)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at reactor.core.processor.RingBufferProcessor$BatchSignalProcessor.run(RingBufferProcessor.java:786)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
2015-11-24T14:30:29.89-0600 [App/0]      OUT 2015-11-24 20:30:29.893 ERROR 36 ---  --- [pool-2-thread-1] com.foo.KafkaConsumer                    : *** KafkaConsumer payload message myKafkaMessageFromConsoleProducer

That message was produced by using this command from the Kafka command line tools: ./kafka-console-producer.sh --broker-list=10.245.0.11:9092 --topic bar4 Then, entering the text message of myKafkaMessageFromConsoleProducer and hitting enter.

As you can see from the last line of the stacktrace, it retrieved my message. And, I can see it from Java. But, it’s logging out this exception for the header which could really be a problem for my logs. But, I’m probably misunderstanding something about headers.

Setup: I’m running this locally on my Linux Mint workstation with BOSH and Cloud Foundry installed. I’ve pushed my Spring Boot app using cf push. And, I’m binding to Kafka using my custom service broker. The Kafka cluster has been pushed via BOSH directly and functions normally from the command line tools. It’s using the Open JDK Buildpack with CF, Java8, BOSH 1.3123.0, cf version 6.13.0-e68ce0f-2015-10-15T22:53:58+00:0.

I pushed a small repository that reproduces this exception for me. See com.foo.KafkaConsumer: https://github.com/Blackbaud-KevinHutson/spring-cloud-kafka-sample

Thanks for any info you can provide. If I just need to override something that would also be acceptable.

Thanks! Kevin

[mbogoevici]

Hi, the correct property name is now:

spring.cloud.stream.bindings.input.consumer.headerMode=raw

Our documentation for RC2 missed it. Also see https://github.com/spring-cloud/spring-cloud-stream/issues/477

[devrajram]

Although this is very old post but here is the property for YAML, currently:

spring:
  cloud:
    stream:
      bindings:
        input:
          consumer: 
            header-mode: raw

Hope this helps some one.