Introduction to troubleshooting

Troubleshooting is a process and an activity that one never wants to go through since there is never a good time for a problem to occur. However, gaining better skills in problem determination, problem analysis and problem solving is a valuable discipline. This topic aims to give you a general understanding of a structured problem determination approach, which you can apply while using the Rational Software Development Platform.

Your success in eliminating a problem depends on a few factors:

Underlying all of these factors is your level of skills and experience with the type of technology and tooling your working with.

A basic troubleshooting strategy

When you are confronted with any software problem a basic troubleshooting strategy involves the following steps:

  1. Recording the symptoms
  2. Recreating the problem
  3. Eliminating possible causes
  4. Using diagnostic tools
It is important to adopt a systematic and thorough approach to dealing with problems as the slightest change, such as making an extra mouse click or adding an extra space when entering text can affect your results. If you take a systematic and methodical approach you will be, at the very least, more knowledge when speaking to a IBM Support representative.

Recording the symptoms of the problem

Depending on the type of problem you are having whether it be with your application, your server or your application development tools you will likely receive a message that will give you indication that something is wrong. If you are developing an application, Rational Developer will give you various validation messages in the Tasks view that will tell you if you have made a development error. In any situation, grab a pen and record the error message that you see. As simple as this sounds, error messages sometimes contain cryptic codes that might make more sense as you investigate your problem further. You might also receive multiple error messages that look similar but have fine differences. By recording the details of each one you may learn more about where your problem exists.

Recreating the problem

Think back to what steps you were doing that led you to this problem. Try those steps again to see if this problem is easily recreated. If you have a consistently repeatable test case, you will have an easier time determining what solutions are necessary.

Eliminating possible causes

Narrow the scope of your problem by eliminating components that are not causing the problem. By using a process of elimination, you will simplify your problem and avoid wasting time in areas that are not possible culprits. Some questions you might also want to ask yourself include the following:

  • Do you have the latest product fixes?
  • Is there a configuration setting that will help you?
  • Is this a known limitation or bug that is documented in the product readme or release notes?
  • Is there documentation that will help you?

You can search live, Web-based support resources by using the

IBM Support Assistant located in your Help menu. This tool will help you search IBM's knowledgebases to see whether your problem is already documented.

Beyond these steps, your knowledge of the tools or technology that you are working with will also help you narrow the possible reasons why things are not working.

Using diagnostic tools

If you have researched the resources that are available to you and still find that you are experiencing this problem there are tools available in the product that may give you more diagnostic information. Learn about the various debugging, profiling, tracing and testing tools in this product by looking in the Help.

Related tasks
Searching knowledge bases
Getting fixes
Contacting IBM Software Support