Unresponsive WebSphere® Application Server

The Product Master pseudo-user on the application server must have the following mentioned environment variables that are configured before starting Product Master.

Symptoms

If the following variables are not set before starting Product Master, the application server can not start. Pseudo-user environment variables:
  • TOP is the top directory of your Product Master installation
  • DB2_HOME is necessary for DB2® client binaries
  • JAVA_HOME is necessary for the Java™ SDK
  • PATH must include $DB2_HOME/bin and should include $JAVA_HOME/bin

Causes

There are two potential causes:
  • The application server becomes unresponsive. Although it is possible to ping the server, users cannot log into their environment and the administrator cannot log in to the application server.
  • The app_server service cannot be started (with an Oracle database) on some systems if the environment variables cause the command-line arguments to exceed 4000 characters.

Diagnosing the problem

See whether a user recently started an unusually large job. If the job was intentional, review the script that is used by the job.

Resolving the problem

The total length of the command-line arguments exceeds the maximum length of 4000 characters that are allowed by some operating systems. Create a symbolic link with a short path to the installation directory for the product. By shortening the path by using the symbolic link, the command-line arguments do not exceed the 4000 character limit for the operating system.