Troubleshooting unified authoring in IBM App Connect or IBM API Connect

About this task

When you create and start an API flow in your App Connect Designer instance, the API is added automatically to a Product. That Product is then published in a Catalog that is provided for a provider organization in API Connect. The Product also becomes visible on the API Connect Developer Portal if a site is enabled for the Catalog.

App Connect automatically discovers the provider organizations in API Connect that the user has access to in the same region as the App Connect instance. You can specify settings for publishing the API to a preferred API Connect instance and provider organization. You can also choose Catalog and Gateway targets, the containing Product and Plan for the published API, and a consuming application.

Note:

• The publishing preferences are based on the user who is logged in.
• If you start an API flow without specifying publishing preferences, the API is published to the Default Plan in an auto-generated Product in a Sandbox Catalog in any of your discovered API Connect instances.

When you try to start an API flow in your App Connect Designer instance, the API might fail to start. You might see a message that the API can't be published to API Connect.

Your API might not be started for the following reasons.

• One or more of the target applications in the flow in App Connect Designer might have issues.
• The API can't be published to API Connect because one or more of your specified publishing targets were not discovered.

To resolve the issue, complete the following steps.

1. Try to restart the API from your App Connect Designer instance.
2. If the problem persists, try one or more of the following steps.
   • Check whether the logs contain any applicable error messages, and try to resolve those errors.

     To access your logs, see Viewing log messages in the log viewer.

   • Check that your API flow has no validation errors.

     For more information, see Validating that your flow is ready to run.

   • Verify that your API Connect instance is still available and running.

     If the instance is no longer running, restart it, and then restart the API flow. If the API Connect instance no longer exists, you can publish to a Product in another API Connect instance by updating the API gateway settings for the flow and then restarting the flow. The instance of API Connect must be in the same region as your App Connect Enterprise as a Service instance.

   • Verify that your preferences for a Catalog, Space, Gateway service, Product, Plan, and application, are still available in your API Connect instance. You set these preferences in the API gateway settings panel in Designer. If necessary, update the API gateway settings for the flow and then restart it.
   • Verify that you have the necessary permissions to publish APIs to the selected Catalog in the provider organization of which you are the owner or a member. If you're a member, verify that you are assigned the Developer role at the provider organization level. For more information, see Creating a provider organization and API Connect user roles in the API Connect documentation.
   • Check that integration authoring is still enabled for your App Connect instance. On the Designer tab of the API editor, click the Change API gateway settings icon , and if unified authoring is disabled, enable it, then click Save. If you enabled integrated authoring some time ago, try disabling it, save your changes, then re-enable it.

About this task

When you stop the API in App Connect Designer, the Product (and API) in the API Manager user interface and the Developer Portal site are deleted automatically.

Note: A user who doesn't have access to API Connect can stop the flow in App Connect. However, the API remains published in API Connect.

When you try to stop an API flow in your App Connect Designer instance, you might see a message that states that the API was stopped in Designer, but other errors occurred. Or the message might indicate that the API can't be stopped.

Errors might occur for the following reasons.

• Your login session might be expired.
• The API can't be unpublished (deleted) from your API Connect instance because one or more of your specified publishing targets were not discovered.

To resolve the issue, complete the following steps.

1. Try to stop the API again from your App Connect Designer instance. Refresh the browser window or tab to verify that your login session is not expired.
2. If the problem persists, try one or more of the following steps.
   • Check whether the logs contain any applicable error messages, and try to resolve those errors.

     To access your logs, see Viewing log messages in the log viewer.

   • Check whether your API Connect instance is still available and running.
     If the instance is no longer running, restart it, and then check for the published API. You can delete the API manually from the API Manager UI in API Connect by completing these steps.

     1. From the navigation pane, click the Manage icon .
     2. Open the Catalog and locate the published Product that contains the API. On the Products tab, the Product title is shown either as API_flow_name (Created by App Connect Designer) or Product name - API_flow_name (Created by App Connect Designer).
     3. Click the options icon that is associated with the Product, and then use the Retire and Delete menu options to remove the Product and API from the Catalog (and Developer Portal).

     If the API Connect instance no longer exists, no further action is needed.

   • Verify that you have the necessary permissions to retire and delete APIs in the selected Catalog in the provider organization. For more information, see API Connect user roles in the API Connect documentation.
   • Check whether your preferences for a Catalog, Space, Gateway service, Product, Plan, and application are still available in your API Connect instance. For example, perhaps the Product or Catalog in which the API was published was deleted independently from API Connect. You set preferences in the API gateway settings panel in Designer.

     To restart the API in Designer later, check and update the API gateway settings for the flow before you restart it. For example, if the previously selected Product (or Product version) in the API gateway settings panel is no longer available, choose another available version of the Product, or a different Product.