Gui freezes only when using multiple frames and 'while' socket is listening

Hi,

I've been searching for hours to solve this problem. Tested a lot of things but haven't figured it out. I hope someone here can help me.

I'm writing a Server-Client Chat application. User must be able to select what to run: Client, Server, or both. So I made a 'Launcher' Class with a JFrame.

Then I have 2 classes Clientwindow and Serverwindow wich extend an abstract class chatwindow. With that abstract class extending a JFrame.

In the Serverwindow Class there's a listening while loop:

while(listening){
Serverthread(serversocket.accept(),this).start();
}

wich starts a new thread for the client.

So far so good, but now I have a weird combination of facts...

- If I only start the Serverwindow without the Launcher: No problem
- If I try to start Serverwindow and Clientwindow at the same time: Only Serverwindow appears
- If I start Serverwindow with the Launcher (JFrame): Both frames freeze and program hangs
- If I start Serverwindow without the while loop: No problem

thanks for the help

It is very hard to know your problems without the actual code or the runnable program...

Hi Karel,

Welcome to JavaRanch!

Roseanne is right, of course, but I can make a good guess: you put the "accept()" loop above right into an event handler of your GUI. Note that all events get handled on the same thread; by putting an infinite loop in an event handler, you prevent the GUI from ever receiving another event, and so the program appears to "freeze".

There's no way around it: you must create a dedicated thread for the server loop to run in. You probably have to do the same thing for the client, if the client sits in a loop reading and writing. Since you're apparently already creating threads to handle the server connections, this shouldn't be a problem for you.

thanks for the quick reply's

I was already thinking to put the server in another thread on its own.

Here's the full program (some names are in dutch):

http://users.pandora.be/karel.tavernier/extra/chatprog/chatprog.zip

It's a project for school. Other people made it by starting te whole program 2 times, first selecting server and connect, second selecting client and connect.

If I should do it like them now, I'll have to rewrite the whole thing.