Akka remoting between different version

Question

I was trying to use remoting between different akka versions. I have an application running akka 2.2.1 on scala 2.10.2 and an application running akka 2.0.5 on scala 2.9.2. The second app uses a library which is not available for scala 2.10.2, so I cannot simply update the app, neither downgrade the other one. I get a message error saying that the message was not delivered.

To test it, I created a dummy 2.2.1 akka application sending a String to a 2.0.5 akka actor which prints it to the console. To avoid the missing sender, the 2.2.1 app sends a message to an actor which routes it to an actor in the other version.

Are there any known compatibility issues between the two versions?

I already took care of conf files, changing netty and stuff, so it should only be a matter of versions. The dummy apps works fine if they have the same akka versions.

I can provide the error logs if you need them.

Answer 1

The remote communication protocol of Akka is not (yet) compatible between versions, meaning that what you observe is intentional. We need to wait at least one more major release before we can start stabilizing and then freeze the protocol to allow future interoperability. We recommend decoupling components using REST APIs for now and using remoting only where lockstep updates are possible.