It stops trying whenever a connection is established. It will restart to try reconnect to the server when previpously open connection is droppped. 

since: 1.2.15 -

 public SocketAppender() 
{

}

 public SocketAppender(InetAddress address,
    int port) 
{
    this.address = address;
    this.remoteHost = address.getHostName();
    this.port = port;
    connect(address, port);
}

Connects to remote server at address and port.

 public SocketAppender(String host,
    int port) 
{
    this.port = port;
    this.address = getAddressByName(host);
    this.remoteHost = host;
    connect(address, port);
}

Connects to remote server at host and port.

 public  void activateOptions() 
{
    connect(address, port);
}

Connect to the specified RemoteHost and Port.

 public  void append(LoggingEvent event) 
{
    if(event == null)
      return;
    if(address==null) {
      errorHandler.error("No remote host is set for SocketAppender named \""+
			this.name+"\".");
      return;
    }
    if(oos != null) {
      try {
	if(locationInfo) {
	   event.getLocationInformation();
	}
    if (application != null) {
        event.setProperty("application", application);
    }
	oos.writeObject(event);
	//LogLog.debug("=========Flushing.");
	oos.flush();
	if(++counter  >= RESET_FREQUENCY) {
	  counter = 0;
	  // Failing to reset the object output stream every now and
	  // then creates a serious memory leak.
	  //System.err.println("Doing oos.reset()");
	  oos.reset();
	}
      } catch(IOException e) {
	oos = null;
	LogLog.warn("Detected problem with connection: "+e);
	if(reconnectionDelay  > 0) {
	  fireConnector();
	} else {
	    errorHandler.error("Detected problem with connection, not reconnecting.", e,
	               ErrorCode.GENERIC_FAILURE);
	}
      }
    }
}

 public  void cleanUp() 
{
    if(oos != null) {
      try {
	oos.close();
      } catch(IOException e) {
	LogLog.error("Could not close oos.", e);
      }
      oos = null;
    }
    if(connector != null) {
      //LogLog.debug("Interrupting the connector.");
      connector.interrupted = true;
      connector = null;  // allow gc
    }
}

Drop the connection to the remote host and release the underlying connector thread if it has been created

 public synchronized  void close() 
{
    if(closed)
      return;
    this.closed = true;
    cleanUp();
}

Close this appender.

This will mark the appender as closed and call then #cleanUp method.

  void connect(InetAddress address,
    int port) 
{
    if(this.address == null)
      return;
    try {
      // First, close the previous connection if any.
      cleanUp();
      oos = new ObjectOutputStream(new Socket(address, port).getOutputStream());
    } catch(IOException e) {
      String msg = "Could not connect to remote log4j server at ["
	+address.getHostName()+"].";
      if(reconnectionDelay  > 0) {
        msg += " We will try again later.";
	fireConnector(); // fire the connector thread
      } else {
          msg += " We are not retrying.";
          errorHandler.error(msg, e, ErrorCode.GENERIC_FAILURE);
      } 
      LogLog.error(msg);
    }
}

  void fireConnector() 
{
    if(connector == null) {
      LogLog.debug("Starting a new connector thread.");
      connector = new Connector();
      connector.setDaemon(true);
      connector.setPriority(Thread.MIN_PRIORITY);
      connector.start();
    }
}

 static InetAddress getAddressByName(String host) 
{
    try {
      return InetAddress.getByName(host);
    } catch(Exception e) {
      LogLog.error("Could not find address of ["+host+"].", e);
      return null;
    }
}

 public String getApplication() 
{
    return application;
}

Returns value of the Application option.

 public boolean getLocationInfo() 
{
    return locationInfo;
}

Returns value of the LocationInfo option.

 public int getPort() 
{
    return port;
}

Returns value of the Port option.

 public int getReconnectionDelay() 
{
    return reconnectionDelay;
}

Returns value of the ReconnectionDelay option.

 public String getRemoteHost() 
{
    return remoteHost;
}

Returns value of the RemoteHost option.

 public boolean requiresLayout() 
{
    return false;
}

The SocketAppender does not use a layout. Hence, this method returns false.

 public  void setApplication(String lapp) 
{
    this.application = lapp;
}

The App option takes a string value which should be the name of the application getting logged. If property was already set (via system property), don't set here.

 public  void setLocationInfo(boolean locationInfo) 
{
    this.locationInfo = locationInfo;
}

The LocationInfo option takes a boolean value. If true, the information sent to the remote host will include location information. By default no location information is sent to the server.

 public  void setPort(int port) 
{
    this.port = port;
}

The Port option takes a positive integer representing the port where the server is waiting for connections.

 public  void setReconnectionDelay(int delay) 
{
    this.reconnectionDelay = delay;
}

The ReconnectionDelay option takes a positive integer representing the number of milliseconds to wait between each failed connection attempt to the server. The default value of this option is 30000 which corresponds to 30 seconds.

Setting this option to zero turns off reconnection capability.

 public  void setRemoteHost(String host) 
{
    address = getAddressByName(host);
    remoteHost = host;
}

The RemoteHost option takes a string value which should be the host name of the server where a SocketNode is running.