Problems with sending SOAP messages asynchronously

[robbika]

I've come across a problem with sending asynchronous SOAP messages.

I've noticed this because I closed a Catalog Task that would close a Requested Item and a Request, that I knew would send out a SOAP message to another system (a B2B link with another system). The message is constructed and sent in a Business Rule. The relevant part of the script in the Business Rule is:

var response = s.post(true);

where 's' is the SOAP message and using s.post(true) means the message should be asynchronously inserted into the ECC Queue and then something else on the ECC Queue would deal with it. So, changing the status of a ticket thus causing a message to be posted to the ECC Queue, the web page should return immediately. In a synchronous interaction, I'd expect the web page not to return until the SOAP message has been sent synchronously.

What seems to happen currently, even though we are using 'post(true') is that the web page does not return until the SOAP transaction has happened or at least fails.

I know this because I put a ticket to closed, hit 'save', and the page did not return for more than 2 minutes. Curious about this, I looked at 'stats.do' on another page and looked at the currently executing Java stacktrace, and it was clear that the code was waiting for a SOAP response. Looking into the ECC Queue, indeed the message appeared there, and indeed failed with a timeout.

Questions:

- are my assumptions true? Should 'post(true)' put a message on the ECC Queue and then return leaving the queue to process it asyncrhonously?

- the Business Rules that all send message are 'after' BRs. Should they me 'async'? (If so I have some issues with that with journal fields maybe).

Has anyone else seen this behaviour? Are we doing something wrong?

Because of this behaviour we have many many issues. We recieve SOAP messages from systems that cause ticket to be created or ticket states to changes, sending out SOAP message to other system. This is all supposed to be event driven and asynchronous. If part of it isn't, runs synchronously, and has a timeout, then part of the overall system is going to fail, which indeed it is does on occasion.

This is in Dublin with the latest hotfixes.

[philtap2017]

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