Troubleshooting Tips

Since Tomcat runs as a service, Tomcat Java settings and other parameters are written into the registry. They can be configured through the Apache Tomcat Properties window. If Tomcat was installed by Information Builders software, you can launch this from the Start menu by selecting Tomcat Configuration Utility, under the Information Builders app. If Tomcat was preinstalled, the Service Name may be different, for example, Apache Tomcat 8.5 Tomcat8.

If you need to adjust the Java release, click the Java tab to change where Tomcat looks for Java components.

If the App Studio installation configured Tomcat for you, the Tomcat Java VM memory settings are automatically increased. This is done because default application server Java VM memory options may not be sufficient for some WebFOCUS features. If you need to troubleshoot further or if you manually install Tomcat or another application server, you may need to manually increase the Java VM memory options.

The most common Java VM options you need to set 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.

The following are the most common Java VM options related to memory settings. Replace the ### with the size you wish to set:

-Xmx###M

Sets the maximum Java heap size. It is common to make this 1/4 of the system RAM.

-Xms###M

Sets the initial Java heap size. It is common to make this 1/8 of the system RAM.

-Xss###M

Sets the Java thread stack size. You do not need to set this unless you are fine tuning your environment.

The size is normally set in megabytes, for example:

-Xms256M
-Xmx512M

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.

• For Tomcat on Windows, you can set these options using the Apache Tomcat Properties window.
  1. If Tomcat was installed by Information Builders software, from the Start menu, select Tomcat Configuration Utility, under the Information Builders app. If Tomcat was preinstalled, the Service Name may be different, for example, Apache Tomcat 8.5 Tomcat8.
  2. Click the Java tab.
  3. In the Initial memory pool (-Xms) field, specify the initial Java heap size in megabytes. For example:

     256

  4. In the Maximum memory pool (-Xmx) field, specify the maximum Java heap size in megabytes. For example:

     512

  5. Click OK.
  6. Restart Tomcat.

• For other application servers, refer to your application server documentation.

If you encounter issues during the launch of the App Studio product, click the Start button on the taskbar, and in the list of installed applications, expand the Information Builders app. Select the WebFOCUS 82 App Studio folder, double-click the WebFOCUS App Studio Utilities folder, and run the product with the WebFOCUS App Studio (Safe Mode) executable.

If App Studio terminates unexpectedly, the product generates a log file and captures information that you can submit to the Information Builders Customer Support team for analyses. When this situation occurs, a message displays, with the location where the log file is created.

The name of the App Studio fault log file is AppStudioFault.log. The file is is saved in the My Documents folder.

The My Documents folder is used as a unified location for storing personal data and, by default, is configured to point to the local machine on folder C:\Users\user_ID\Documents\. You can configure this location to point to a different folder, another drive, or another computer on your network. For some organizations, the My Documents folder location may be set by using a group policy, in which case its properties cannot be changed.

If you close App Studio and then cannot restart it, you may need to manually stop the underlying AppStudio.exe process. To do this:

1. Press Ctrl + Alt + Delete and choose Task Manager.
2. Click the Processes tab.
3. Find and select an AppStudio.exe Image Name if it appears.

   Note: You can click the Image Name column to sort by name.

4. Click End Process.

You should be able to restart App Studio if no AppStudio.exe processes appear.

Developers can use Chrome™, Firefox®, Edge®, Internet Explorer®, or the internal viewer when running reports. To use Chrome or Firefox, the product requires registration of the IBIWebBrowserDrivers_dotnet_35.dll .NET module that is included with the product.

To register this file, .NET version 4.0 is required. This version of .NET is preinstalled on most machines. If your machine does not have this .NET version, it will be installed during the App Studio installation process and the module needed to support multiple browsers will get registered.

If the registration of the module fails, the developer will not be able to switch browsers. To address this issue, the developer must register the required module manually. To do this, open a Command Window, with the option Run as administrator, and run the following commands:

%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\RegAsm
C:\ibi\AppStudio82\bin\ibiwebbrowserdrivers_dotnet_35.dll /u

A message should display that the file unregistered successfully.

Then run:

%SystemRoot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\RegAsm
C:\ibi\AppStudio82\bin\ibiwebbrowserdrivers_dotnet_35.dll

A message should display that the file registered successfully.

where:

%SystemRoot%

Is the location of the Windows folder on your machine. This includes the drive and path. It is usually the C drive. For example, C:\Windows.

Selenium is a suite of tools specifically for automating web browsers. Selenium support is included with App Studio, however, if a customer installs a new browser version it may not work with App Studio. In this case, the Selenium support modules can be updated manually which may resolve the issue.

1. Go to the http://seleniumhq.org/download web site.
2. Under the Selenium Client & WebDriver Language Bindings section look for the C# line and click the Download link to get the ZIP file.
3. Unzip the file on the desktop machine.
4. Backup the WebDriver.dll and WebDriver.Support.dll files in the AppStudioxx\bin folder.
5. From the unzipped file location, go into the net40 folder and copy the WebDriver.dll and WebDriver.Support.dll files into the AppStudioxx\bin folder.
6. Restart App Studio and test the installed browser version.

   If there is still a problem, open a support case.

Note: If the user is using Microsoft Edge, they may need to get an updated driver from Microsoft which is usually available on the Microsoft web site.