NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra · critical · TraceRmiError

Could not respond during negotiation

Error message

Could not respond during negotiation

What it means

Thrown during TraceRmiHandler.negotiate() after the request was received and a reply built, but send(rep) returns false, meaning the response could not be written back to the peer. The handshake is therefore incomplete and the connection is unusable.

Source

Thrown at Ghidra/Debug/Debugger-rmi-trace/src/main/java/ghidra/app/plugin/core/debug/service/tracermi/TraceRmiHandler.java:523

		}
		finally {
			try {
				dispose();
			}
			catch (IOException e) {
				Msg.error(this, "Could not close socket after error", e);
			}
		}
	}

	protected void negotiate() {
		RootMessage req = receive();
		if (req == null) {
			throw new TraceRmiError("Could not receive negotiation request");
		}
		RootMessage rep = dispatchNegotiate.handle(req);
		if (!send(rep)) {
			throw new TraceRmiError("Could not respond during negotiation");
		}
	}

	private interface Dispatcher {
		RootMessage.Builder dispatch(RootMessage req, RootMessage.Builder rep) throws Exception;

		default String exceptionMessage(Throwable exc) {
			String msg = exc.getMessage();
			if (msg == null) {
				return exc.getClass().getCanonicalName();
			}
			return exc.getClass().getCanonicalName() + ": " + msg;
		}

		default RootMessage handle(RootMessage req) {
			String desc = toString(req);
			if (desc != null) {
				TimedMsg.debug(this, "HANDLING: " + desc);

View on GitHub (pinned to d5f144c24d)

Solutions

1. Increase the peer's handshake timeout so it waits for the reply.
2. Verify network stability between frontend and backend for transient drops.
3. Check the peer did not crash between request and reply (peer logs).
4. Re-establish the connection from scratch.

try {
    handler.run();
} catch (TraceRmiError e) {
    // reply could not be sent; peer likely disconnected; reconnect
}

When it happens

Trigger: The peer closed its side of the socket between sending the negotiation request and reading the reply; an IOException occurred while writing the reply; the output stream is broken.

Common situations: Peer timed out waiting and disconnected; network glitch mid-handshake; peer crashed right after sending its request; socket write buffer closed.

Related errors

• Could not receive negotiation request
• Could not send request
• Socket closed
• Usage: ghidra trace connect ADDRESS
• ADDRESS must be HOST:PORT

AI-assisted analysis of NationalSecurityAgency/ghidra@d5f144c24d (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c39f4bcc085d37d4. Report an issue: GitHub.