Troubleshooting help problems

IBM® Documentation has some requirements and limitations when accessed from Eclipse-based products. You might experience any of the following problems opening the helps or populating the web browser with help content.

  • The help content pane is empty.
  • A message indicates help is not available.
  • A message indicates a network error.
  • The browser opens with help content, but performance is slow.

For a list of the products in the Aqua product family that might be affected by the migration to IBM Documentation, see IBM Explorer for z/OS® Aqua Product Versions.

To solve some of the problems with IBM Documentation support for the IBM Explorer for z/OS Aqua product family, follow these guidelines:
Use a supported browser:
The following browsers have been tested with the product and can open IBM Documentation. Other browsers might not function correctly. To choose a browser:
  1. On the Preferences window, click General > Web Browser.
  2. Select Use external web browser, and then select one of these browsers.
    • Windows™: Chrome, Microsoft™ Edge
    • macOS: Chrome, Safari
    • Linux®: Chrome
Open IBM Documentation in an external browser
On Windows, you must set Help preferences to use an external browser. IBM Documentation does not support the internal Eclipse browser. On macOS and Linux, helps open in an external browser by default, and the preferences in this procedure are not available.
  1. Open the Preferences window and click Help in the navigation pane.
  2. From the Open help contents list, select In an external browser.
Update plugin_customization.ini
If you select Help > Help Contents to open the online help, you might see the message Help is unavailable. This issue is caused by an error in the product plugin_customization.ini file. To resolve this issue, do these steps:
  1. Edit this file:
    IBM Developer for zOS\plugins\com.ibm.developer.for.zos.product_16.0.0.202210132216\plugin_customization.ini
  2. Change the org.eclipse.help.base/help_home= parameter from this:
    org.eclipse.help.base/help_home=/com.ibm.wsentdev.doc/topics/kc_version_welcome_rdz.html
    to this:
    org.eclipse.help.base/help_home=/com.ibm.etools.getstart.wsentdev.doc/topics/aintro.html
  3. Restart the product.
  4. Click Help > Help Contents.
    The product overview page opens in the online help.
    Product overview page
Performance
You might notice a delay as the browser populates with the help content. The IBM Documentation team is aware of performance issues and is working to improve the speed of populating the help window.