powertac/powertac-server — Issue #492: Sample Broker seems to get lost when it gets out of sync
Author: jecollins
Created: 2012-02-16 18:22:36+00:00
State: open
Labels: Broker, Bug

I ran a sim last night with both server and sample broker on my desktop machine. Around timeslot 414, the server took nearly 5 seconds, and the sample broker's orders were still arriving when the market clearing began. Some of the orders ended up in the next market clearing, and the broker appears to have choked on one or more of the resulting market transactions. Eventually the server choked on a NPE:

```
Exception in thread "Thread-10" java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.powertac.server.BrokerProxyService.localSendMessage(BrokerProxyService.java:94)
at org.powertac.server.BrokerProxyService.broadcastMessage(BrokerProxyService.java:149)
at org.powertac.server.WeatherService.activate(WeatherService.java:152)
at org.powertac.server.CompetitionControlService.step(CompetitionControlService.java:557)
```