Troubleshooting
Problem
MustGather information aids in problem determination and save time resolving cases. API Connect Support can understand better the problem and save time analyzing the data.
Resolving The Problem
You can select your IBM API Connect version to collect the MustGather information.
In the "Intro to IBM API Connect MustGather & Hints and Tips" Tab you can find the following:
- Gathering information to open a support ticket
- Gathering general problem description information
- How to submit diagnostic data to IBM Support
- General IBM Support hints and tips
Gathering information to open a support ticket
A valid IBM customer number, contact name, email address, and phone number are important to validate the entitlement and contact information.
Refer the section "Accessing Software Support" in the IBM Software Support Handbook to have the full list of information necessary to open a support ticket.
To determinate the correct Severity of your concern for your business, refer the IBM Software Support Handbook.
The following information is relevant to justify the Severity of the concern and discuss the priority with development team.
- Describe the Business Impact this problem is having specifying current and future Business Impact
- Please indicate any project deadlines
- Which is the current impact on the users: How many users are affected
- Specify if the issue is in Development, Test, Pre-Prod or Production environment
IBM Support Handbooks
A guide to best practices and procedures when working with IBM support for each type of product (Software and Appliances)
Gathering general problem description information
If you did not yet provided this information, please answer to the questions below to allow IBM support to investigate your problem. This will expedite problem resolution.
Please DO NOT send any confidential information from your company.
1. Description of the problem
- Fully describe the problem you are experiencing (please provide the full error messages).
- What were you attempting when the problem occurred?
- When did you first noticed it?
- When applicable, please provide a list of steps to recreate the problem (screen images will help to identify more details)
- Define the scope of the issue: How many objects (machines, servers, APIs, Products...) have the issue? Could you identify some difference between the object with the issue and the one without? This could help to find the possible cause.
A video together with the problem description and steps can help to identify other important details.
This tool allow you to record your screen while recreating a problem locally:
Recording Your Screen To Share With Support
2. Product version and fix pack
For Management servers:
- Log on to the Cloud Management Console, navigate to the Services page, and capture the version information by clicking on the 'Server Information' icon; or
- Log on to the Management command line interface (CLI) and enter the command: system show version
For Gateway servers (DataPower):
- Log on to the Cloud Management Console, navigate to the Services page, and capture the version information by clicking on the 'Server Information' icon; or
- Log on to the DataPower command line interface (CLI) and enter the command: show version
3. Are you able to recreate the problem?
Is it repeatable or a one-time problem? If it can be repeated or recreated easily, please provide detailed steps and artifacts so IBM Support can attempt to recreate this internally.
When you reproduce the issue and you need to send logs to IBM Support please provide the start and finish time of the test, this helps to search the error in the logs.
4. Do you have a work around in place?
If yes, please provide full details.
5. Has anything recently changed in the environment prior to the problem starting?
- Has anything recently changed in the environment prior to seeing the problem starting?
- Have you applied fixes or fix packs?
- Have any settings been changed?
- Have any APIs or API operations been updated?
6. Provide an overall description of your cloud topology
- How many DataPower gateways?
- How many Management servers?
- How many Developer portal servers?
Please specify the clusters and how many servers per cluster are defined in your topology. If you have a load balance please specify.
Having a description of the architecture helps to identify possible causes.
7. Provide details of the hosting environment
- Are you using VMware, XEN or physical appliance?
- Please provide the version of the hosting environment that you are using
Depending on the concern and version used, refer to the specific API Connect MustGather and provide the data requested and logs.
How to submit diagnostic data to IBM Support
After you have collected the preceding information, and the support ticket is opened, you can follow the instructions in: exchanging information with IBM Technical Support for problem determination
For more details see submit diagnostic data to IBM (ECuRep) and Enhanced Customer Data Repository (ECuRep) secure upload.
If you are using IBM Community Portal, update the case to indicate that data has been sent.
General IBM Support hints and tips
Here you can find a list of useful links for IBM API Connect and the Support processes:
- Fix Central - You can download the firmware images from IBM Fix Central to upgrade your API Connect servers.
- IBM API Connect Documentation - API Connect product documentation.
- IBM API Connect version 2018.x software and hardware requirements - IBM API Connect Version 2018 requirements.
- IBM API Connect version 5.0 software and hardware requirements - IBM API Connect Version 5.0 requirements.
- IBM API Management version 4.0 software and hardware requirements - IBM API Connect Version 4.0 requirements.
- IBM API Management version 3.0 software and hardware requirements - IBM API Connect Version 3.0 requirements.
- My Notifications - Sign up for My Notification to receive a customized weekly email from IBM support for your Product. Learn about announcements and important technical support information.
- IBM Electronic Support link - The various options to obtain Support through the web.
- IBM Support Portal - IBM Support Portal home page.
- IBM Support Handbook - A guide to best practices and procedures when working with IBM Support for each type of product.
- IBM Community Portal - IBM Web tool to open and update cases. If you need help with the IBM Community Portal tool, contact mysphelp@us.ibm.com
- IBM Phone Contact - IBM Support Worldwide Contacts.
- Support Forums - Support Forums - Find Answers, Ask Questions, Share Expertise about IBM products.
- DeveloperWorks - Find tutorials, tools, and communities for developers.
- Request for Enhancement (RFE) Community - Submit or vote for a product requirement.
You can search for requirements similar to yours or open a new requirement through the IBM's Request for Enhancement (RFE) Community.
Opening an RFE allows you to communicate directly with product management and community peers.
Here the link to the RFE process:
How to create and manage Enhancement Requests in the Rational RFE Community
- Software lifecycle - To verify if the installed product version is end of support (EoS).
- IBM API Connect v5.0.x Support Lifecycle - To verify the Long Term Supported (LTS) Releases.
- Recording Your Screen To Share With Support - This tool allow you to record your screen while recreating a problem locally or to share a set of steps with IBM Support.
- Report Security Vulnerabilities - To protect our customers, IBM does not publicly disclose or confirm security vulnerabilities until IBM has conducted an analysis of the product and issued fixes and/or mitigations. This document MustGather: Security Vulnerability issues for API Connect & DataPower Gateways describes the MustGather process for opening a security vulnerability case with IBM Support.
- For a listing of all technotes, downloads, and educational materials search the following:
IBM API Connect product support site
IBM API Management product support site
Was this topic helpful?
Document Information
Modified date:
18 February 2021
UID
swg22005938