Troubleshooting and support
This section provides information about how to troubleshoot a problem with your IBM® software.
Troubleshoot problems with your IBM software, using the problem determination tools provided with the product. For example, you can debug applications, add logging and tracing to your application, diagnose problems, use diagnosis tools, and troubleshoot WebSphere applications.
Subtopics
- How do I troubleshoot?
Follow these shortcuts to get started quickly with popular tasks. Debugging applications
To debug your application, you must use a development environment like the IBM® Rational® Application Developer for WebSphere to create a Java™ project. You must then import the program that you want to debug into the project.Adding logging and tracing to your application
You can add logging and tracing to applications to help analyze performance and diagnose problems in WebSphere Application Server.Configuring Java logging with the administrative console
Java logging provides a standard logging API for your applications. Before applications can log diagnostic information, you need to specify how you want the server to handle log output and what level of logging you require.Using High Performance Extensible Logging to troubleshoot applications
You can use High Performance Extensible Logging (HPEL) to help diagnose problems in WebSphere Application Server.Using Cross Component Trace to troubleshoot applications
You can use Cross Component Trace (XCT) to help diagnose problems in WebSphere Application Server.Using sensitive log and trace guard
You can protect information with the sensitive log and trace guard. The sensitive log and trace guard prevents loggers from writing sensitive information in your log and trace files.Diagnosing problems (using diagnosis tools)
Various diagnosis tools are provided to help you determine the source and impact of problems occurring in your application serving environment.Using basic or traditional message logs to troubleshoot applications
WebSphere Application Server can write system messages to several general purpose logs, including JVM, process, and IBM service logs, which can be examined for problem determination.Working with trace
Use trace to obtain detailed information about running the WebSphere Application Server components, including application servers, clients, and other processes in the environment.Troubleshooting class loaders
Class loaders find and load class files. For a deployed application to run properly, the class loaders that affect the application and its modules must be configured so that the application can find the files and resources that it needs. Diagnosing problems with class loaders can be complicated and time-consuming. To diagnose and fix the problems more quickly, use the administrative console class loader viewer to examine class loaders and the classes loaded by each class loader.Choosing and using diagnosis tools and controls on z/OS
The following is a description of the types of tools and controls you can use for diagnosing and managing problems in the product environment.Using RMF
RMF™ can usually be started with the simple 'S RMF' command from the MVS™ console.Collecting job-related information with the System Management Facility (SMF)
SMF can be enabled to collect and record system and work-related information on the WebSphere for z/OS® system. This information can be used to bill users, report system reliability, analyze your configuration, schedule work, identify system resource usage, and perform other performance-related tasks that your organization may require.Choosing diagnostic information sources
You can use a variety of diagnostic information sources to view application data and troubleshoot problems.Configuring the hang detection policy
The hang detection option for WebSphere Application Server is turned on by default. You can configure a hang detection policy to accommodate your applications and environment so that potential hangs can be reported, providing earlier detection of failing servers. When a hung thread is detected, WebSphere Application Server notifies you so that you can troubleshoot the problem.Automation and recovery scenarios and guidelines
The following section provides information on how to monitor and recover WebSphere Application Server for z/OS and the subsystems it uses.Working with troubleshooting tools
WebSphere Application Server includes a number of troubleshooting tools that are designed to help you isolate the source of problems. Many of these tools are designed to generate information to be used by IBM Support, and their output might not be understandable by the customer.Working with Diagnostic Providers
Diagnostic Providers enable you to query the startup configuration, current configuration, and current state of a diagnostic domain. In addition, Diagnostic Providers can also provide access to any self diagnostic tests that are available from a diagnostic domain.Troubleshooting help from IBM
If you are not able to resolve a WebSphere Application Server problem by following the steps described in the troubleshooting topics, by looking up error messages in the message reference, or by looking for related documentation on the online help or the IBM support page, contact IBM Technical Support.Configuring the memory leak policy
The leak detection policy for the WebSphere® Application Server is turned off by default. You can configure a leak detection, prevention, and action policy to accommodate your applications and environment so that potential memory leaks are reported and acted upon. Leak detection, prevention, and proactive fixing provides for protection and resiliency for servers that face persistent out of memory errors. When a classloader memory leak is detected, WebSphere Application Server notifies you with informational messages in the log and by taking JVM heapdumps so that you can troubleshoot the problem. Optionally, you might also choose to have WebSphere Application Server mitigate, and if possible, fix the memory leak using reflection and other techniques.Collecting Java dumps and core files using the administrative console
You can use the Java runtime environment to create dump and core files to help with troubleshooting. You can use the administrative console to trigger the creation of these dumps and core files.Directory conventions
References in product information to app_server_root, profile_root, and other directories imply specific default directory locations. Become familiar with the conventions in use for WebSphere Application Server.Troubleshooting ActivitySessions
This page provides a starting point for finding information about ActivitySessions, a WebSphere extension for reducing the complexity of commitment rules and limitations that are associated with one-phase commit resources.Troubleshooting application profiling
This page provides a starting point for finding information about application profiling, a WebSphere extension for defining strategies to dynamically control concurrency, prefetch, and read-ahead.Troubleshooting batch applications
You can troubleshoot batch application issues using logging and tracing, or reviewing solutions to problems.Troubleshooting applications that use the Bean Validation API
The Bean Validation API is introduced with the Java Enterprise Edition 6 platform as a standard mechanism to validate Enterprise JavaBeans in all layers of an application, including, presentation, business and data access. Before the Bean Validation specification, the JavaBeans were validated in each layer. To prevent the reimplementation of validations at each layer, developers bundled validations directly into their classes or copied validation code, which was often cluttered. Having one implementation that is common to all layers of the application simplifies the developers work and saves time.Troubleshooting client applications
This page provides a starting point for finding information about application clients and client applications. Application clients provide a framework on which application code runs, so that your client applications can access information on the application server.Troubleshooting data access resources
This page provides a starting point for finding information about data access. Various enterprise information systems (EIS) use different methods for storing data. These backend data stores might be relational databases, procedural transaction programs, or object-oriented databases.Troubleshooting dynamic caching
This page provides a starting point for finding information about the dynamic cache service, which improves performance by caching the output of servlets, commands, web services, and JavaServer Pages (JSP) files.Troubleshooting EJB applications
This page provides a starting point for finding information about enterprise beans.Troubleshooting messaging resources
This page provides a starting point for finding information about the use of asynchronous messaging resources for enterprise applications with WebSphere Application Server.Troubleshooting naming and directory
This page provides a starting point for finding information about naming support. Naming includes both server-side and client-side components. The server-side component is a Common Object Request Broker Architecture (CORBA) naming service (CosNaming). The client-side component is a Java Naming and Directory Interface (JNDI) service provider. JNDI is a core component in the Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) programming model.Troubleshooting Object Request Broker (ORB)
This page provides a starting point for finding information about the Object Request Broker (ORB). The product uses an ORB to manage communication between client applications and server applications as well as among product components. These Java Platform, Enterprise Edition (Java EE) standard services are relevant to the ORB: Remote Method Invocation/Internet Inter-ORB Protocol (RMI/IIOP) and Java Interface Definition Language (Java IDL).Troubleshooting OSGi applications
This page provides a starting point for finding out how to troubleshoot OSGi applications.Troubleshooting security
Troubleshooting service integration
This page provides a starting point for finding information about service integration.Troubleshooting service mapping
This page provides a starting point for finding out how to troubleshoot service mapping.Troubleshooting Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) applications
This page provides a starting point for finding information about SIP applications, which are Java programs that use at least one Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) servlet written to the JSR 116 specification.Troubleshooting transactions
This page provides a starting point for finding information about Java Transaction API (JTA) support. Applications running on the server can use transactions to coordinate multiple updates to resources as one unit of work, such that all or none of the updates are made permanent.Troubleshooting web applications
This page provides a starting point for finding information about web applications, which are comprised of one or more related files that you can manage as a unit, including:Troubleshooting web services
This page provides a starting point for finding information about web services.


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