Diagnosing problems

You can use problem determination to understand why your application, or server, is not working.

Why and when to perform this task

Diagnosing problems can aid you in understanding why your enterprise application or server is not working and can help you resolve problems. Unlike performance tuning, which focuses on solving problems associated with slow processes and un-optimized performance, problem determination focuses on finding solutions to functional problems. For more information about diagnosing problems, see the Diagnosing problems (using diagnosis tools) section in the WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment documentation.

Steps for this task

  1. Investigate common problems organized according to functional areas within IBM® WebSphere® Process Server in Troubleshooting by function.
  2. If you already have an error message and want to quickly look up its explanation and recommended response, see the Messages section of the WebSphere Process Server documentation.
  3. For help in knowing where to find error and warning messages, interpreting messages, and configuring log files, expand the Diagnosing problems (using diagnosis tools) section in the WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment documentation table of contents and select Diagnosing problems with message logs.
  4. Difficult problems can require the use of tracing, which exposes the low-level flow of control and interactions between components. For help in understanding and using traces, expand the Diagnosing problems (using diagnosis tools) section in the WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment documentation table of contents and select Working with trace.
  5. For help in adding log and trace capability to your own application, see Adding logging and tracing to your application.
  6. For help in using settings or tools to help you diagnose the problem, expand Diagnosing problems (using diagnosis tools) section in the WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment documentation table of contents and select Working with troubleshooting tools. Some of these tools are bundled with the product, and others are downloadable.
  7. To find out how to look up documented problems, common mistakes, WebSphere Process Server prerequisites, and other problem-determination information available on the WebSphere Process Server public Web site, or to obtain technical support from IBM, see Obtaining help from IBM.
  8. The IBM Developer Kit and Runtime Environment, Java™ 2 Technology Edition, Version 1.4.2 Diagnostics Guide describes debugging techniques and the diagnostic tools that are available to help you solve problems with Java. It also gives guidance on how to submit problems to IBM. You can find the guide at IBM developer kits: Diagnosis documentation Web site.
  9. For current information available from IBM Support on known problems with WebSphere Process Server and their resolutions, see the WebSphere Process Server support page.

Last updated: Tue 31 Oct 2006 09:53:28

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