WebFOCUS Troubleshooting Tips

In this section:

Troubleshooting WebFOCUS requires considering all the places where a problem can occur. These include the following:


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General Tips

Try some of these solutions when troubleshooting WebFOCUS problems:

  1. Clear your web browser cache and close all browser instances. Often, even after you have taken steps to correct a problem, the page or pages that contained the original problem still reside in cache.
  2. Ensure all components are started and listening on their expected ports. The WebFOCUS web application may take some time to load.
  3. Ensure you typed the correct URL. WebFOCUS URLs are case-sensitive.
  4. If your web server is not listening on port 80, make sure you are calling with the correct port in the URL.
  5. Ensure that the correct application names are listed in your WebFOCUS Reporting Server APP PATH. This is defined in:
    /install_directory/ibi/srv81/wfs/etc/edasprof.prf

    This may be the problem if you receive a Resource not found message.

  6. Be aware that WebFOCUS does not support two concurrent Microsoft Internet Explorer sessions from a single PC. This is due to an Internet Explorer cookie management limitation. When you run two browser sessions simultaneously from the same machine, messages appear, such as file not found.
  7. Turn on tracing through the WebFOCUS Administration Console.
  8. Clear the cache in your application server after completing the upgrade installation. For example, if you are using Apache Tomcat, the cache can be cleared by manually deleting any subdirectories that correspond to the context roots that you deployed (for example, /ibi_apps, /ibi_html, and /ibi_help), which are located in the following directory:
    /{TOMCAT_HOME}/work/Catalina/localhost
  9. In the WebFOCUS Administration Console, click Diagnostics on the left and use the available options to troubleshoot.
  10. Restart all components, especially your web and/or application servers.

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Web Browser Issues

Reference:

If you are planning to use WebFOCUS products, note that browsers released after the production date of a WebFOCUS version are subject to certification. Certification is done with the current release level of WebFOCUS, App Studio, and Developer Studio. For additional information, see Web Browser Support for WebFOCUS, which can be accessed by clicking on the following URL:

https://techsupport.informationbuilders.com/tech/wbf/wbf_tmo_027.html

Note: Some browsers may function differently depending on the operating system. See the WebFOCUS Release Notes for detailed information on known issues related to browser version or configuration.



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Reference: Firefox Support

For information on supported Firefox browser versions, see Web Browser Support for WebFOCUS, which can be accessed by clicking on the following URL.

https://techsupport.informationbuilders.com/tech/wbf/wbf_tmo_027.html

The following settings are required to use Firefox with Dashboard:


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JVM Support Issue with IBM WebSphere Application Server

How to:

WebFOCUS 8 requires Java VM Version 1.6 or higher on the system that is hosting the application server where the WebFOCUS Client web application is displayed and the ReportCaster Distribution Server is installed.



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Procedure: How to Verify JVM Version

There are two methods for verifying the Java VM version installed on the machine where the WebFOCUS client is deployed.


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Web and Application Server Debugging

In this section:

Ensure your web and application servers are configured as explained in Configuring Web and Application Servers.

Since WebFOCUS relies on processing by the Java VM, web server, and application server (or servlet container), their debugging tools and log files can help troubleshoot common WebFOCUS issues. Review the documentation for your web and application servers for information on their tracing and log files.



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Java Memory Issues

Setting some Java VM options can improve performance and correct problems with the application server. The most common settings involve the size of the Java heap and stack, which determine memory availability for Java programs and the Java VM. Errors can occur if not enough memory is available, and the heap size impacts performance, since it determines how often garbage collection occurs.

If you run into performance problems or receive out of memory exceptions, you can adjust these sizes. The following are the most common Java VM options related to memory settings. Replace the ### with the size you wish to set:

-Xss####M

Sets the Java thread stack size.

-Xmx####M

Sets the maximum Java heap size.

-Xms####M

Sets the initial Java heap size. This should be at least 1024 MB (1 GB).

The size is normally set in Megabytes, for example:

-Xms1024M
-Xmx2048M

To view your current Java VM memory settings, access the WebFOCUS Administration Console. In the left pane of the console, expand the Diagnostics node and click JVM Property Info, as shown in the following image.

The Java VM memory settings for your environment are displayed in the right pane, as shown in the following image.

Optimum sizes vary depending on your total memory, the needs of your application, how many other processes require memory, the type of Java VM, and other considerations. A good starting place is to set the minimum to 1/8 of the total RAM and set the maximum to 1/4 of total RAM.

Where to set these and other Java VM options, depend on your application server.


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Managed Reporting Issues

File permissions, deployment of the WebFOCUS web application, or the Java plug-in browser are common causes of the following problems:

Do the following to troubleshoot these errors.

  1. Ensure file permissions are set for WebFOCUS directories. The processes that run your web and application servers require write access to WebFOCUS Client directories.
  2. Ensure the WebFOCUS web application is deployed by running the tests in Configuring Web and Application Servers.
  3. If you have installed and uninstalled multiple versions of WebFOCUS on your machine, ensure the correct version of the web application is loaded.
  4. Try manually reloading the WebFOCUS web application. You may wish to undeploy and then redeploy it.

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Character Set Issues

WebFOCUS and ReportCaster expect an ISO8859-1 based character set. However, some systems may default to using Unicode (ISO 10646/UTF-8) instead. If this is the case, some characters, such as subscripts, may appear as a question mark (?) or other unexpected symbols in your reports. To correct this, set the LANG environment variable to specify the correct ISO8859-1 character set for your language. On Solaris systems, also set the LC_ALL environment variable to specify the correct ISO8859-1 character set. For example, English on Solaris is:

export LANG=en_US.ISO8859-1
export LC_ALL=en_US.ISO8859-1

Set the LANG and LC_ALL variables so they are available to the Java VM running your application server and Distribution Server. Where to set this varies depending on your application server, but you can normally export and set the variables in the application server startup script. For the Distribution Server, you can export and set this in schbkr script.


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Using the jar Utility

How to:

A jar utility is installed with the Java JDK. It lets you create, extract, and edit the contents of JAR, WAR, EAR, ZIP, RAR, and other archive files. If you deploy the WebFOCUS web application as a WAR file, the jar utility lets you change the webfocus.war file contents.



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Procedure: How to Edit the WebFOCUS Web Application

The WebFOCUS web application is provided as both an expanded directory and a WAR file:

/install_directory/ibi/WebFOCUS81/webapps/webfocus.war
/install_directory/ibi/WebFOCUS81/webapps/webfocus

The easiest way to edit the web application is the following:

  1. Undeploy the webfocus.war file from your application server.
  2. Rename the webfocus.war file to webfocus-old.war. This ensures you have a back up and can keep track of where the latest version resides.
  3. Edit or add files to the expanded webfocus directory and subdirectories. You should do this even if you deploy the WAR file instead of the expanded directories. This ensures that service packs maintain your changes. When you apply a service pack, any changes must be in the expanded directories to be maintained.
  4. Navigate to the webfocus directory. For example:
    /install_directory/ibi/WebFOCUS81/webapps/webfocus
  5. Use the jar command to create a new webfocus.war file that contains the contents of the webfocus directory and sub-directories. For example:
    jar cvf ../webfocus.war *

    This creates a webfocus.war file containing all files and subdirectories in your current directory. The webfocus.war file will be located one directory above your current location because you prefaced it with "../".

  6. Redeploy the WebFOCUS web application to your application server.

You can edit the ReportCaster web application in the same fashion.



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Procedure: How to Execute the jar Utility

The options for using the jar commands are useful to know.


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Silent Installation Path Issues

A path issue can generate an error during the silent installation of a distribution server.

When running the silent parameter file, you may see the following messages:

./install[924]: var_asgn_file: not found.

To solve this problem, you must add . (dot) to your UNIX PATH statement.

This is an example of the syntax:

export PATH=.:$PATH

Verifying the setting should show new path as:

.: /usr/java6/jre/bin:/usr/bin

You should then be able to run the silent installation.


WebFOCUS