How to catch failing connections in classes that implement AbstractCursorItemReader?

[deebo]

edit: hmpf can't edit the nonsensical thread title

I am using a StoredProcedureItemReader to read data from an Oracle stored procedure.

The problem is the connection will be over a vpn, and when the vpn is not up, the error that happens is not available to a step listener via onReadError(), but this happens:

ERROR 15.04.2010 13:53:58: -- org.springframework.batch.core.step.AbstractStep - Encountered an error executing the step
org.springframework.batch.item.ItemStreamException: Failed to initialize the reader
.
.
.
.
Caused by: java.sql.SQLException: Io exception: The Network Adapter could not establish the connection

It seems the reader opens the connection during initializing, which means the exception wont end up in a StepListener.

so how to solve this? I need to catch basically all exceptions and make sure they're properly logged and notified about via email.

edit: current config if it helps any:

all this works fine if the connection is up when the job starts, if its down, the exceptions go unnoticed by the listener

<b:job id="my-job" incrementer="jobParametersIncrementer" restartable="false">
        <b:step id="my-step-id" parent="baseStep" > 
            <b:tasklet>
                <b:chunk reader="myReader" writer="myWriter" />
                <b:listeners>
                    <b:listener ref="listener" />
                </b:listeners>
            </b:tasklet>
        </b:step>
</b:job>

<bean id="listener" class="my.package.MyFailureLoggerListener">
        <property name="errorChannel" ref="errorChannel" /> <!-- spring integration default error channel -->
</bean>

<bean id="myReader" parent="baseReader" p:procedureName="mystoredprocedure">
        <property name="parameters">
        <list>
            ...
        </list>
        </property>
        <property name="preparedStatementSetter">
            <bean class="my.Package.MyParameterSetter" />
        </property>
</bean>

<bean id="baseReader" class="org.springframework.batch.item.database.StoredProcedureItemReader" abstract="true">
        <property name="dataSource" ref="myDataSource"/>
        <property name="refCursorPosition" value="3"/>
        <property name="rowMapper">
            <!-- preserves column order -->
            <bean class="org.springframework.jdbc.core.ColumnMapRowMapper"/>
        </property>
</bean>

[deebo]

OK since noone answered me, I went throught the listener interfaces and found that this job is better done via a JobListener anyhow

    public void afterJob(JobExecution exec) {
        if (exec.getExitStatus().equals(ExitStatus.FAILED) {
            for (Throwable t : exec.getAllFailureExceptions()) {
                log.info("ERROR HAPPENED: ",t);
            }
        }
    }

edit:
Except the problem with this is that i don't have access to the chunk data in case of write errors...
Anyone know what kind of errors go outside the scope of ItemReadListener and ItemWriteListener so I can come to some kind of a compromise?