Symptom

This issue occurs when using the command-line profile creation tool
(manageprofiles.sh or manageprofiles.bat) in WebSphere Application Server V7.0.

Immediately after running the command, it produces an error, and the command has no effect. Here is an excerpt of the error which is printed to the console. The particularly relevant portion is in bold text:

java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0
(Native Method)
sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke
(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke
(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke
(Method.java:597)
......
Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/eclipse/emf/ecore/EFactory
java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1
(Native Method)
java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass
(ClassLoader.java:621)
org.eclipse.osgi.internal.baseadaptor.DefaultClassLoader.defineClass
(DefaultClassLoader.java:160)
org.eclipse.osgi.baseadaptor.loader.ClasspathManager.defineClass
(ClasspathManager.java:550)


The log generated by this failed profile creation attempt is located in <product_root>/logs/manageprofiles, and is named <profile_name>_create.log. The log contains the error printed above.

This particular error also causes a different log file to be generated. This other log file is not normally significant in profile creation issues, but it is particularly significant for this error. The log file is located in <product_root>/configuration, and the file name is a large number, such as "125196154191846980.log". This log contains more information which is relevant to the true root cause of the problem.

Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: The platform metadata area could not be written:
<user_home>/workspace/.metadata.  By default the platform writes its content under the current working directory when the platform is launched.  Use the -data parameter to specify a different content area for the platform.
org.eclipse.core.internal.runtime.DataArea.assertLocationInitialized
(DataArea.java:55)
org.eclipse.core.internal.runtime.DataArea.getStateLocation
(DataArea.java:77)

In the actual error message, the <user_home> is printed as the full path to the home directory of the user running the manageprofiles process.

Note that the error message mentions a "-data" parameter, suggesting that the parameter could be used to resolve the problem. This error message is generated internally by the framework which the profile tools use, and so that suggestion cannot help resolve this particular problem. Disregard that part of the error message.