[flink] #31390 emit watermark with empty source

[je-ik]

Closes #31390

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[je-ik]

R: @Abacn

The PVR test seems to be stuck at ViewTest.testTriggeredLatestSingleton. I can observe this locally on both master and release-2.56.0 branches. Does this check completed successfully recently?

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[je-ik]

The PVR test seems to be stuck at ViewTest.testTriggeredLatestSingleton. I can observe this locally on both master and release-2.56.0 branches. Does this check completed successfully recently?

Hm, it passed on second run.

[Abacn]

Thanks, taking a look

At the same time, have a couple of questions (not directly related to the change)

• This sounds similar to #30969, what is the difference here ?

• I also observed similar issue on JmsIO on Dataflow runner ("watermark does not increase when there is no incoming data for a while") and the fix #30337 didn't work. I am wondering if #31390 is generic at SDK level and a fix could posed in general ?

[je-ik]

* This sounds similar to [[runners-flink] Fix watermark emission for empty splits (#29816) #30969](https://github.com/apache/beam/pull/30969), what is the difference here ?

The fix in #30969 was related, but different. Source can be empty temporarily or finally. The fact, that the source is empty for ever is signaled by watermark going to infinity. Then the split can be closed (and this results in watermark move, because closed split does not hold watermark anymore).

This PR fixes the other case - when the source is not emitting any data, but does not move watermark to infinity, but rather uses some idle source policy. Before this PR no watermark was emitted downstream until at least one element was emitted from the source. This is fixed now.

* I also observed similar issue on JmsIO on Dataflow runner  ("watermark does not increase when there is no incoming data for a while") and the fix [[DRAFT] Attempt fix Jms watermark #30337](https://github.com/apache/beam/pull/30337) didn't work. I am wondering if [[Bug]: FlinkRunner does not emit watermark with empty source #31390](https://github.com/apache/beam/issues/31390) is generic at SDK level and a fix could posed in general ?

All these fixes relate to Flink only. These issues were introduced by source refactoring in FlinkRunner, so nothing that can be extended to a general case.