Why Amazon SQS messages drop Consumer get no message - amazon-web-services

I am sending message on sqs queue and strangely message are getting dropped or deleted before consumer reads it.
I have logged activity, I can see message successfully going on queue but consumer not getting it.
What can be the reason?
This post is related , but op resolved it in private so sadly no solution

This does not happen. Something in your system is deleting the messages.
It could be that you are viewing them in the console, which could trigger the Visibility Timeout. During that timeout, the messages will be invisible ("In Flight"), waiting for the requesting process to delete them once processed.
The flow is:
SendMessage pushes message to the queue ("Messages Available")
ReceiveMessage retrieves message from the queue ("Messages In Flight")
Application processes message (message remains invisible)
If the message visibility timeout is exceeded, the message re-appears on the queue
DeleteMessage deletes the message from the queue

Related

How to keep SQS message alive when it fails?

I am using SQS to hold http requests. How can I keep the message alive (in the queue) to be re-processed when the request fails, without another process grabbing it?
The typical process is:
A message is placed into the Amazon SQS queue
A worker process calls ReceiveMessage() to retrieve a message from the queue
The message is temporarily marked as 'invisible' (in-flight) so that other workers cannot see the message
If the worker successfully processes the message, it calls DeleteMessage() to permanently remove the message
If the worker does not respond within the Invisibility Timeout period (eg if it fails), the message will reappear on the queue. The message can then be grabbed by another worker.
If a Dead Letter Queue has been configured, then a message that is retrieved from the queue more than a defined number of times will be moved to the Dead Letter Queue for separate investigation or re-processing.
Your question seems to fit the scenario for using a Dead Letter Queue.

When should I delete messages in SQS?

My application consists of:
1 Amazon SQS message queue
n workers
The workers have the following logic:
1. Wait for message from SQS queue
2. Perform task described in message
3. Delete the message from the SQS queue
4. Go to (1)
I want each message to be received by only one worker to avoid redundant work.
Is there a mechanism to mark a message as "in progress" using SQS, so that other pollers do not receive it?
Alternatively, is it appropriate to delete the message as soon as it is received?
1. Wait for message from SQS queue
2. Delete the message from the SQS queue
3. Perform task described in message
4. Go to (1)
If I follow this approach, is there a way to recover received but unprocessed messages in case a worker crashes (step (3) fails)?
This question is specific to Spring, which contains all sorts of magic.
An SQS message is considered to be "inflight" after it is received from a queue by a consumer, but not yet deleted from the queue. These messages are not visible to other consumers.
In SQS messaging, a message is considered in "inflight" if:
You the consumer have received it, and
the visibility timeout has not expired and
you have not deleted it.
SQS is designed so that you can call ReceiveMessage and a message is given to you for processing. You have some amount of time (the visibility timeout) to perform the processing on this message. During this "visibility" timeout, if you call ReceiveMessage again, no worker will be returned the message you are currently working with. It is hidden.
Once the visibility timeout expires the message will be able to be returned to future ReceiveMessage calls. This could happen if the consumer fails in some way. If the process is successful, then you can delete the message.
The number of messages that are hidden from ReceiveMessage call is the "inflight" number. Currently a SQS queue is set by default to allow a max of 120,000 messages to be "inflight".
http://docs.amazonwebservices.com/AWSSimpleQueueService/latest/SQSDeveloperGuide/AboutVT.html
There will be ReciepientHandle String which will be sent with the message. It will be having a expiry time based on queue visibility timeout.
You can use the this ReciepientHandle to delete message from queue

Is it possible to load the same message from AWS SQS more than once

I have an SQS FIFO queue which we send bunch of ids for processing on the other end. We have 4 workers digesting the message. Once the worker receives the message, it deletes the msg and stores these ids until it hits a limit before performing actions.
What I've noticed is that some ids are received more than once when each id is only sent once. Is it normal?
Your current process appears to be:
A worker pulls (Receives) a message from a queue
It deletes the message
It performs actions on the message
This is not the recommended way to use a queue because the worker might fail after it has deleted the message but before it has completed the action. Thus, the message would be "lost".
The recommended way to use a queue would be:
Pull a message from the queue (makes the message temporarily invisible)
Process the message
Delete the message
This way, if the worker fails while processing the message, it will automatically "reappear" on the queue after the invisibility period. The worker can also send a "still working" signal to keep the message invisible for longer while it is being processed.
Amazon SQS FIFO queues provide exactly-once processing. This means that a message will only be delivered once. (However, if the invisibility period expires before the message is deleted, it will be provided again.)
You say that "some ids are received more than once". I would recommend adding debug code to try and understand the circumstances in which this happens, since it should not be happening if the messages are deleted within the invisibility period.

Amazon SQS - Make message invisible for x seconds

I have an Amazon SQS Queue and I am trying to make it work this way:
When a new message added to the queue, only the first client who received that message will start work
For others, the message will be invisible for period of time
Is it possible to do this using Visibility Timeout?
When a consumer receives and processes a message from SQS queue, the message still remains in the queue (until it is deleted by the consumer). To make sure that other consumers don't process the same message, you can set visibility timeout of the queue. Once the message has been processed by the consumer, you can delete the message from the queue. For the duration of the visibility timeout, no other consumer will be able to receive and process the same message.
There is no other way to "lock" the message except setting a long Visibility Timeout, with a maximum 12 hour timeout.
However, if your real concern also including error/crashing, you can make use of the Dead-Letter-Queue redrive policy, to deal with queue contents that fail to be process indefinitely.

Does "SentTimestamp" attribute of AWS SQS message change after visibility timeout?

While using AWS SQS, does "SentTimestamp" attribute of a message change after it is received from the queue, but not deleted and returned back to the queue after the visibility timeout expired?
No, and that behavior would be undesirable because SentTimestamp specifically describes when the message was first sent to the queue.
This documentation that describes the visibility timeout offers some insight:
Immediately after the component receives the message, the message is
still in the queue. However, you don't want other components in the
system receiving and processing the message again. Therefore, Amazon
SQS blocks them with a visibility timeout, which is a period of time
during which Amazon SQS prevents other consuming components from
receiving and processing that message.
The important takeaway here is that the message never really leaves the queue, it is simply hidden from other clients that are receiving messages. So message contents like the MessageID and SentTimeout won't change. On the other hand, things related to receiving the message like RecieptHandle and Receive Count do change each time the message is received.
You can self-verify this from the AWS web console by:
Creating a message in a queue.
Viewing the message.
Waiting for the visibility timeout to expire. Once it has, open the SQS console again in a new tab.
Viewing the message again, in the new tab. Compare the contents of both received messages.