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Heh no, this was the actual bug (that it was reading "random" data from memory on the first iteration). I just hadn't noticed the issue until this "random memory" contained fragments of invalid json.

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Could you elaborate on this? If the random data isn't caused by the JVM not filling a buffer with zeros (which I'm sure it does) how is the data actually leaking? Do you share byte[] arrays between threads or recycle them once a thread dies?

Were you or the network library reusing buffer objects (to avoid reallocating them), so the random data was leftover from an early socket read? I'm surprised the JVM would allocate a new buffer object with non-zero data.

Yeah, he was almost certainly reusing his byte[]s. My takeaway is that if you program a high-level language as if it's C, expect C-like bugs.

Likely reusing his directly allocated ByteBuffer and not checking the number of bytes that he filled it with.

From what I remember, directly allocated ByteBuffers are not guaranteed to be zeroed.

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