HttpsURLConnection stalling out when getInputStream() is called

Question

[Java 1.5; Eclipse Galileo]

HttpsURLConnection seems to stall when the getInputStream() method is called. I've tried using different websites to no avail (currently https://www.google.com). I should point out I'm using httpS.

The code below has been modified based on what I've learned from other StackOverflow answers. However, no solutions I've tried thus far have worked.

I'd be very grateful for a nudge in the right direction :)

public static void request( URL url, String query ) 
{
try{

    HttpsURLConnection connection = (HttpsURLConnection) url.openConnection();

    //connection.setReadTimeout( 5000 ); //<-- uncommenting this line at least allows a timeout error to be thrown

    connection.setDoInput(true); 
    connection.setDoOutput(true);
    connection.setUseCaches(false);  
    System.setProperty("http.keepAlive", "false");


    connection.setRequestMethod( "POST" );


    // setting headers
    connection.setRequestProperty("Content-length",String.valueOf (query.length()));
    connection.setRequestProperty("Content-Type","application/x-www-form-urlencoded"); //WAS application/x-www- form-urlencoded
    connection.setRequestProperty("User-Agent", "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98; DigExt)");

    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
    System.out.println( "THIS line stalls" + connection.getInputStream() );
    ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

}catch( Exception e ) {
    System.out.println( e ); 
    e.printStackTrace(); 
}

Typical errors look like:

java.net.SocketTimeoutException: Read timed out
at java.net.SocketInputStream.socketRead0(Native Method)
at java.net.SocketInputStream.read(SocketInputStream.java:129)
at com.sun.net.ssl.internal.ssl.InputRecord.readFully(InputRecord.java:293)
at com.sun.net.ssl.internal.ssl.InputRecord.read(InputRecord.java:331)
at com.sun.net.ssl.internal.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.readRecord(SSLSocketImpl.java:782)
at com.sun.net.ssl.internal.ssl.SSLSocketImpl.readDataRecord(SSLSocketImpl.java:739)
at com.sun.net.ssl.internal.ssl.AppInputStream.read(AppInputStream.java:75)
at java.io.BufferedInputStream.fill(BufferedInputStream.java:218)
at java.io.BufferedInputStream.read1(BufferedInputStream.java:256)
at java.io.BufferedInputStream.read(BufferedInputStream.java:313)
at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.parseHTTPHeader(HttpClient.java:681)
at sun.net.www.http.HttpClient.parseHTTP(HttpClient.java:626)
at sun.net.www.protocol.http.HttpURLConnection.getInputStream(HttpURLConnection.java:983)
at sun.net.www.protocol.https.HttpsURLConnectionImpl.getInputStream(HttpsURLConnectionImpl.java:234)
at https_understanding.HTTPSRequest.request(HTTPSRequest.java:60)
at https_understanding.Main.main(Main.java:17)

Answer 1

connection.setDoOutput(true);

This means that you have to open, write to, and close the connection's output stream before you attempt to read from its input stream. See the docs.

Answer 2

Also don't set the content-length header. Java will do that for you.