FULL PRODUCT VERSION :
Tested in 1.5.0_02-b09

ADDITIONAL OS VERSION INFORMATION :
Appears to be a problem in Java library, so applicable to all OSs.

A DESCRIPTION OF THE PROBLEM :
FilterOutputStream silently ignores exceptions when doing a flush on close.
This can hide IO problems such a full disk. The particular case where it got
me was using a ZipOutputStream over a BufferedOutputStream.


REPRODUCIBILITY :
This bug can be reproduced always.

---------- BEGIN SOURCE ----------
import java.io.*;
import java.util.zip.*;
class test
{
  static class LimitOutputStream extends OutputStream
  {
    public void write(int n) throws IOException
    {
      num++;
      check();
    }

    public void write(byte[] buf) throws IOException
    {
      num += buf.length;
      check();
    }
    
    public void write(byte[] buf, int off, int len) throws IOException
    {
      num += len;
      check();
    }

    void check() throws IOException
    {
      if (num > 80)
      {
        //System.out.println("Limit.check: " + num);
        //Thread.dumpStack();
        throw new IOException("all full!");
      }
    }
        
    int num;
  }
  
  public static void main(String[] args)
    throws Exception
  {
    ZipOutputStream out =
      new ZipOutputStream(
      new BufferedOutputStream(
      new LimitOutputStream()));
    out.putNextEntry(new ZipEntry("entry"));
    for(int i=0; i<10000; ++i)
      out.write(new byte[100]);
    out.closeEntry();
    // out.flush(); without this line the close appears to silently work
    out.close();
  }
}
---------- END SOURCE ----------

CUSTOMER SUBMITTED WORKAROUND :
You must explicitly flush() before close() if want to have an underlying
exception raised.

Release Regression From : 1.4.2_09
The above release value was the last known release where this
bug was known to work. Since then there has been a regression.