IBM Support

Collect troubleshooting data for the deprecated desktop Process Designer in IBM Business Automation Workflow

Troubleshooting


Problem

The desktop Process Designer is deprecated. The web Process Designer is the primary modeling and designing tool in IBM® Business Automation Workflow and IBM® Business Process Manager. See the IBM Documentation on IBM Process Designer for more details.
Gather this documentation before contacting support to expedite the troubleshooting process.

Diagnosing The Problem

NOTE:
Application design questions are beyond the scope of the support team. For those questions, we recommend the following options:

Resolving The Problem

Collect the following troubleshooting data for desktop Process Designer:
  • Business Impact
  • Problem description
  • Environment description
Diagnostic data from desktop Process Designer server 
  • ae.log file
  • orb* files
  • eclipse.ini file
  • /properties directory
  • /workspace directory
Diagnostic information from the Workflow Center 
  • versionInfo -fixpacks -ifixes  output
  • <node profile>/logs directory
As needed diagnostic information  
What to do next
  • Review the log files and traces to determine the source of the problem
  • Use Business Automation Workflow documentation or the support site to search for known issues
  • Open a support case and add the troubleshooting data to the case. You can also upload the data via ECURep. Please see this link for details.

General Diagnostic Information

Provide a detailed description of the problem with the steps that lead up to the issue whenever possible.
You can optionally send us the recording of your screen of the desktop Process Designer to help expedite the problem determination process.
The description needs to answer the following questions:
  • Was there any changes before the issue occurring?
  • Is the issue intermittent or recreatable? If intermittent, how often does it occur?
  • How does the issue impact your business?
  • Are there any deadlines that are affected by this problem?
  • Is the related Workflow Center clustered?
  • Is the desktop Process Designer connecting directly to a Workflow Center or through a web server?

Desktop Process Designer tracing and Fiddler capture

After the tracing is enabled, begin collecting a Fiddler capture. See details in this document for more details on Fiddler capture.
How to capture the desktop Process Designer tracing and Fiddler capture:
1. After the tracing is enabled and the Fiddler capture is started, restart desktop Process Designer to re-create the problem
2. Write down the system time stamp when the issue happens
3. Stop desktop Process Designer
4. Export the Fiddler capture
The ae.log and /workspace directory now contain the debug and error details.
Gather the Diagnostic Data from desktop Process Designer and the Fiddler .saz export.

SSL tracing

For Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or ORB issues in desktop Process Designer like SSLHandshakeExceptions, you can enable more tracing for the problem. 
  • For SSL tracing, edit the eclipse.ini file by adding this line:
    -Djavax.net.debug=true
  • For ORB tracing, edit the eclipse.ini file by adding the following lines:
    -Dcom.ibm.CORBA.Debug=true
    -Dcom.ibm.CORBA.CommTrace=true
    -Dcomm.ibm.CORBA.Debug.Output=client.log
How to capture SSL or ORB tracing:
1. Restart desktop Process Designer with the following command to send the console output to a file:
            <desktop Process Designer directory>\eclipse.exe > SSL.log 2>&1
2. Re-create the issue
3. Gather the Diagnostic data from desktop Process Designer including
  • SSL.log file
  • client.log file
  • /etc directory
  • /resources directory
4. Disable the trace
Note: The SSL.log is the file name that contains the SSL trace data. You can only capture this information to a file when using javaw.exe. When using java.exe to get javacore, the output goes to the console window.

Javacore and garbage collection (GC) for hangs, performance, and memory issues

For hang, performance, and memory issues, complete the following steps to gather more information:
1. Edit the eclipse.ini file to add the lines:
     -verbose:gc
     -Xverbosegclog:<full path to the verbosegc.log file>
     -Xdump:heap+java:events=user
     Note:  It is recommended to user the desktop Process Designer root for <full path to the verbosegc.log file>.
2. Edit the clipse.ini file and replace javaw.exe with java.exe
3. Restart desktop Process Designer and ensure that you do not close the extra command windows that is opened
4. Re-create the issue (or wait for the recurrence)
5. Generate a Javacore and heapdump by selecting the desktop Process Designer command window to focus and then hold down 
          <Ctrl> + <Break> keys to generate the dump
Note: The verbose gc log file shows the location and time when dumps are generated.
6. Gather tree or four Javacore with 30 to 60 seconds apart or evenly spaced out over the hang timeframe 
7. Gather the following files from the desktop Process Designer:
       verbose gc log file
       Javacore files
       Heapdump files if you are experiencing a JVM memory issue
 
After the data is captured, reverse the settings in steps 1 and 2. 

 

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Product Synonym

BAW, BPM

Document Information

Modified date:
14 September 2022

UID

swg21611598

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