Moving to 3.0.1 GA - how to fix converter errors [Answer]

Correct. The development of the 3.0.1 release included at least 3 iterations of the install process for the browser add-on. As a result, moving from milestone to milestone involved various clean up steps. There is a good document describing the uninstall and install process that also includes some troubleshooting tips here:

https://jazz.net/wiki/bin/view/Main/RRCBrowserAddOns#4_2_Unable_to_install_Browser_Ad

That said, the browser plugin has nothing to do with the converter or viewing diagrams. View mode is completely handled by the converter war which is running on the server. You may view diagrams without ever installing the browser plugin. In contrast, editing diagrams does require the browser plugin and is handled completely on the client side (once installed). The plugin is actually retrieved from the server at install time (first time you attempt to edit a diagram).

One other tip, if you can't see the diagram in view-mode, but are able to edit, then the browser plugin is successfully installed and working and it is the server side converter war that is failing.

Hope some of that background helps.

One other tip, if you can't see the diagram in view-mode, but are able to edit, then the browser plugin is successfully installed and working and it is the server side converter war that is failing.

Yes, but for completeness let me mention one (temporary) issue: When using FireFox 4 there is a bug; you have to resize the browser window to get the browser to display the visual artifact. (FF 4 isn't a supported browser yet but seems to works with only this one irritant). .

Correct. The development of the 3.0.1 release included at least 3 iterations of the install process for the browser add-on. As a result, moving from milestone to milestone involved various clean up steps. There is a good document describing the uninstall and install process that also includes some troubleshooting tips here:

https://jazz.net/wiki/bin/view/Main/RRCBrowserAddOns#4_2_Unable_to_install_Browser_Ad

That said, the browser plugin has nothing to do with the converter or viewing diagrams. View mode is completely handled by the converter war which is running on the server. You may view diagrams without ever installing the browser plugin. In contrast, editing diagrams does require the browser plugin and is handled completely on the client side (once installed). The plugin is actually retrieved from the server at install time (first time you attempt to edit a diagram).

One other tip, if you can't see the diagram in view-mode, but are able to edit, then the browser plugin is successfully installed and working and it is the server side converter war that is failing.

Hope some of that background helps.

Hi Stef

Good point about the converter.war. We may be running into the problem there. I suspect it is a JRE version problem though - any hints on checking what is causing a converter.war to fail? Our server is RHEL (not Windows).

anthony

Hi Stef

Good point about the converter.war. We may be running into the problem there. I suspect it is a JRE version problem though - any hints on checking what is causing a converter.war to fail? Our server is RHEL (not Windows).

anthony

I'm a bit confused as I thought you posted earlier that things were working. Are you still having issues with the view mode for diagrams?

The most common reason for the converter to not function properly, specifically on linux, is the result of not having the necessary graphical packages (the converter is still dependent on the Eclipse SWT library), and have seen this for servers that are configured to be headless. The packages we most often discover as needing to be added are the following:

- gtk2 (and it's dependencies)
- xorg-x11-server-Xvfb
- libXtst
- compat-libstdc++

Not having the last one can result in a JRE related error due to a problem with it not being able to use the so.6 version of libstdc++ and thus needing to install the .5 version.

Depending upon how you start the server, you may also need to export the DISPLAY. This is very similar to what was necessary in 2.x and described by the following technote:

https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?q1=RN2.0.0.1&rs=3499&uid=swg21410023&cs=utf-8&lang=en&loc=en_US

Hope all this helps.

Hi Stef

Good point about the converter.war. We may be running into the problem there. I suspect it is a JRE version problem though - any hints on checking what is causing a converter.war to fail? Our server is RHEL (not Windows).

anthony

I'm a bit confused as I thought you posted earlier that things were working. Are you still having issues with the view mode for diagrams?

The most common reason for the converter to not function properly, specifically on linux, is the result of not having the necessary graphical packages (the converter is still dependent on the Eclipse SWT library), and have seen this for servers that are configured to be headless. The packages we most often discover as needing to be added are the following:

- gtk2 (and it's dependencies)
- xorg-x11-server-Xvfb
- libXtst
- compat-libstdc++

Not having the last one can result in a JRE related error due to a problem with it not being able to use the so.6 version of libstdc++ and thus needing to install the .5 version.

Depending upon how you start the server, you may also need to export the DISPLAY. This is very similar to what was necessary in 2.x and described by the following technote:

https://www-304.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?q1=RN2.0.0.1&rs=3499&uid=swg21410023&cs=utf-8&lang=en&loc=en_US

Hope all this helps.

Thanks for the pointer - the lack of libraries may well be the problem.

The original post was when I was able to fix my own machine - the followup was another system. Apologies for any confusion

anthony

Thanks for the pointer - the lack of libraries may well be the problem.

The original post was when I was able to fix my own machine - the followup was another system. Apologies for any confusion

anthony

Understood. I have a couple of scripts I'll send you that you can execute which will tell us if the system is in a state for the converter to function properly (without actually using the converter).

Understood. I have a couple of scripts I'll send you that you can execute which will tell us if the system is in a state for the converter to function properly (without actually using the converter).

Are those scripts available publicly Stef?
We've seen this issue as well in a 3.0.1.2 system.

Are those scripts available publicly Stef?
We've seen this issue as well in a 3.0.1.2 system.

There is actually a publicly available diagnostic tool you can use here.