Bytes lost during stream conversion

Hi. I am trying to make a server/client finance-application with the use of PHP-GTK and especially the Gtk::io_add_watch()-functionallity. However sometimes I get an error saying that some bytes were lost during stream convertions, when I close down the watch to read from the socket manually? I figured that these bytes which were lost must have been in some kind of buffer, and when I remove the watch, then this buffer is removed? Is it possible to retreive these bytes before removing the watch itself? Like some kind of "get_buffered_bytes()"-function? Or can anyone point me in the direction of how to properly handle socket-connections in PHP-GTK, so I dont run into the "lost bytes"-problem? -- Regards Kasper Johansen