Transcoding Technology logging and tracing

 

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Transcoding Technology sends events to the message and trace logs. Message logging records informational messages about normal operations as well as warnings and error messages. Tracing provides more detailed information for troubleshooting problems. Messages are translated into the language specified for the machine. Trace records are not translated. By default, message logging is turned on and tracing is turned off. We can turn tracing on and off by selecting the TranscodingTraceLogger component in the Enable Tracing page in the Administration Portal.

To enable tracing...

  1. Download the following files into portal_server_root /IBM Trans/etc/ras: 
    TranscoderRASTraceLogger.properties 
TranscoderTraceMaskFilter.properties

  2. Restart IBM WebSphere Portal.

 

Message logging

Message categories

Three categories of messages are written to the message log file:

  • Information: records normal events. Use these messages to determine whether expected operations occur, for example, to verify that a configuration change takes place as expected.

  • Warning: indicates a possible problem. Requests might still be handled successfully.

  • Error: indicates a definite problem requiring administrator attention. Requests will probably not be handled successfully.

 

Message files

Message files are created in the portal_server_root /IBM Trans/log directory. The first message file created is named TranscoderMessages1.log. When the maximum size is reached, this file will be renamed to TranscoderMessages.log and a new TranscoderMessages1.log file is created for new messages. The default message file size is 512 kilobytes. See the WebSphere Portal documentation for information regarding changing the file size. TranscoderMessages1.log is always the newest file.

 

Viewing messages

We can view the messages in the active log file, TranscoderMessages1.log. We can also open the other message files with the favorite editor.

 

Tracing

Tracing records the specific behavior of Transcoding Technology, recording information useful in the diagnosis of problems.

 

Trace files

Trace files are created in the portal_server_root /IBM Trans/log directory. The first trace file created is named TranscoderTrace1.log. When the maximum size is reached, this file will be renamed to TranscoderTrace2.log and a new TranscoderTrace1.log file created for new messages. The default trace file size is 512 kilobytes. See the WebSphere Portal documentation for information regarding changing the file size. TranscoderTrace1.log is always the newest file.

When the maximum number of trace files has been filled, the oldest file will be deleted, the suffix number of each remaining file will be increased by one, and a new TranscoderTrace1.log will be created for new messages. A new file is begun when Transcoding Technology is restarted. The default number of trace files is 3. See the WebSphere Portal documentation for information regarding changing the maximum number of trace files.

 

Enabling Request Viewer for Transcoding Technology

The Request Viewer for Transcoding Technology is disabled by default. The following messages in the appserver-out.log related to the Request Viewer should be ignored if you are not using the transcoding request viewer monitor.

IPX1041 The plugin named com.ibm.wbi.viewer.ViewerServerPlugin could not be initialized. TPX1084E Underlying error detail: com.ibm.wbi.PluginException: RMI is disabled.

To enable Request Viewer, perform the following tasks:

  1. Stop WebSphere Portal.

  2. Change the working directory to where the transcoding component is installed. Transcoding is installed in portal_server_root /IBM Trans on Windows, AIX, x86 Linux, zLinux, and Sun Solaris environments

  3. Change the transcoding configuration to enable RMI registry and two of the transcoding plugins, DatabaseWatcher and ViewerServer by performing the following steps.

    • To change the transcoding configuration on Linux:

      1. Edit /localConfig.prop to change the enableRMI parameter: enableRMI=true

      2. Edit etc/config/servlet/registry.prop to add the following string at the bottom: ibm/ViewerServerPlugin=true

      3. Edit etc/config/servlet/ENVIRONMENT.prop to change the enableRMI parameter: enableRMI=true

    • To change the transcoding configuration on all other operating systems:

      1. Execute ExportResources to export the necessary transcoding configuration to WTPResources.xml file under the root directory of Transcoding Technology

        ./ExportResources.sh -rt setup -rt plugin,DatabaseWatcherPlugin,ViewerServerPlugin

      2. Open WTPResources.xml for editing and make the following changes.

        • Enable DatabaseWatcher and ViewerServer plugin by adding the following line to each <Plugin> tag:

          <Enable>true</Enable>

        • Enable RMI registry by making sure there is <Enable>true</Enable> line after the <RMIRegistry> tag. Below is an example showing the partial contents of WTPResources.xml with changes in bold. 

          <Plugin>
<Enable>true</Enable>  
<Folder<IBM </Folder>  
<SelectorName>ViewerServerPlugin</SelectorName>
...  
</Plugin>  
<Plugin>      
<Enable>true</Enable> 
 <Folder>IBM </Folder>  
<SelectorName> DatabaseWatcherPlugin</SelectorName>
...  
</Plugin>  
<Setup>      
...  
<RMIRegistry>      
<Enable>true</Enable>     
...  
</RMIRegistry>      
...  
</Setup>

      3. Import the changes back into transcoding using the following command from the root directory of Transcoding Technology

        • UNIX:

          ./ImportResources.sh

        • Windows:

          ImportResources.bat

  4. Copy ViewerServerPlugin.jar from the plugins folder as ibm_ViewerServerPlugin.jar under addedPluginJars in the root directory of Transcoding Technology.

    • UNIX:

      cp plugins/ViewerServerPlugin.jar addedPluginJars/ibm_ViewerServerPlugin.jar

    • Windows:

      copy plugins\ViewerServerPlugin.jar addedPluginsJars\ibm_ViewerServerPlugin.jar

  5. Extract StartRegistry.sh script (StartRegistry.bat for Windows) from wtpscripts.jar in the root directory of Transcoding Technology using the following command.

    • UNIX:

      jar xvf wtpscripts.jar StartRegistry.sh

    • Windows:

      jar xvf wtpscripts.jar StartRegistry.bat

    On Unix platforms, set the file permission to execution after extractions. For example: chmod +x RequestViewer.sh

    On Linux, set the file permission to execution after extractions. Enter the command: chmod ugo=rwx RequestViewer.sh

  6. Always verify that the RMI registry is started before starting WebSphere Portal by running following command from the root directory of Transcoding Technology.

    • UNIX:

      ./StartRegistry.sh -k

    • Windows:

      StartRegistry.bat -k

  7. Restart WebSphere Portal.

Step 6 must be performed each time before starting Portal Server. We can do this by modifying the startup/login script on the platform to include StartRegistry script. (10553)

 

Run Request Viewer

  1. Extract RequestViewer.sh (RequestViewer.bat for Windows) from wtpscripts.jar in portal_server_root /IBM Trans. Use the following command:

    • UNIX:

      jar xvf wtpscripts.jar RequestViewer.sh

    • Windows:

      jar xvf wtpscripts.jar RequestViewer.bat

    Each time a navigation page is requested from a wml device, the contents of that page will be shown in Request Viewer. If a portlet is requested, one entry will show up for the page itself, then another if the portlet goes through transcoding. Therefore, you see the state of the request as it completes the transcoding process.

  2. Launch RequestViewer by running the following command from portal_server_root /IBM Trans :

    • UNIX:

      ./RequestViewer.sh

    • Windows:

      RequestViewer.bat

 

Gathering troubleshooting data

If you have a problem while running Transcoding Technology, there is a certain set of information that will be useful in troubleshooting. The RASCollect program will package the necessary files and settings to make it easy to gather diagnostic information. If we need to use this function, execute RASCollect.bat on Windows NT or Windows 2000 or RASCollect.sh on AIX, Solaris, Linux, or z/OS. This will create a zip or tar file that we can send to the service representative. The file will be created in the Transcoding Technology log directory. It will be named RASCollect.zip on Windows NT, Windows 2000, Linux, or z/OS and RASCollect.tar on AIX or Solaris.

 

Parent Topic

Transcoding

 

Parent Topic

Logging and tracing