[jetty-users] HTTP/2 transparancy (longish)

[Silvio Bierman <sbierman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello all,

I use an Jetty 9.3 embedded and have done some testing with HTTP/2 
recently. I added the necessary code but implemented a run-time flag to 
indicate the use of HTTP/2 so I could easily turn it on/off.

All the tests we have done ourselves have shown a 100% transparency for 
the HTTP version that is used. Not the slightest difference in 
functional behavior and zero errors in the logs.

We have two types of users. One type uses our system to define websites 
and related surveys and reporting dashboards. The second type are the 
members or research panels or survey invitees that visit the websites, 
take part in forum discussions and fill out surveys.

So last week we decided to try HTTP/2 in the wild. We ran two of our 
application servers with HTTP/2 enabled. And then the problems started.

One group of the first type of users (all from the same office location) 
experienced serious non-intermittent faulty behavior while most other 
type 1 users had no problems at all but for them some of the type 2 
users reported problems.

The errors are all over the place and make little sense to us. Form 
posts with headers or parameter values missing etc.

After disabling HTTP/2 things went back to normal...

Since it is impossible for us to reproduce the problems this is hard to 
pin point. I could add logging and have the users try again but I am a 
bit reluctant to do this unless I am sure it I will be able to resolve 
the issue.

Is there any explanation why this would happen to some users and not to 
others? One user had a consistent problem using his desktop browser 
(Chrome) while thing where fine on his phone and tablet (using a 
different network connection). At the same exactly the same thing worked 
fine for me with my Chrome browser.

Thanks in advance.

Cheers,

Silvio