Troubleshooting

This section contains troubleshooting suggestions for issues relating to the ALM Octane installation.

You can also check the log here: /opt/octane/log

For an up-to-date list of installation troubleshooters, see knowledge base article KM02703217.

"ALM Octane displays an error indicating that the ALM Octane server is not responding. I cannot work in ALM Octane."

If ALM Octane is under a very heavy load, it might try to use too many Linux resources. In this case, Linux kills the server process. Do the following to increase the number of allowed open files to 65536:

  1. Open the /etc/security/limits.conf file.

  2. Add the following line:

    octane hard nofile 65536
  3. Restart the ALM Octane server.

For details, see https://easyengine.io/tutorials/linux/increase-open-files-limit/.

"I rebooted the ALM Octane server machine. The octane service did not start up automatically."

When you reboot the machine, you need to manually restart the ALM Octane server:

systemctl restart octane

The service runs in the background.

"I cannot log into ALM Octane because ports are closed."

By default, the ALM Octane server uses port 8080 or port 8443 (secure). The port must be opened in the firewall for incoming traffic.

"I am unexpectedly logged out."

Typically, a user is logged out of ALM Octane only after session timeout. If, however, you are unexpectedly logged out while actively working in ALM Octane, you may need to clear cookies before you can log in again.

To prevent an unexpected logout:

  • When working with a local DNS, make sure that you access ALM Octane only with a fully-qualified machine name, together with the machine's domain.

    Example: http://myserver-123545.domain.com:8080/

"JVM does not load."

If JVM fails to load after the octane service is started, check that Java is properly installed and that JAVA_HOME is configured correctly.

The /opt/octane/log/wrapper.log file shows the following error message:

ERROR  | wrapper  | JVM exited while loading the application.
INFO   | jvm 1    | Unrecognized VM option 'UseCompressedClassPointers'
INFO   | jvm 1    | Error: Could not create the Java Virtual Machine.
INFO   | jvm 1    | Error: A fatal exception has occurred. Program will exit.

To identify the important parameters of the system that may affect the installation, run the following commands:

To get... Command
Java information java -XshowSettings:properties -version
All installed Java applications find / -name java
All installed Java versions find / -name java -exec {} a \;
The JAVA_HOME property echo $JAVA_HOME
The PATH property echo $PATH

"Application server address shows port 8080 even when changed."

By default, the installation uses port 8080 for HTTP or port 8443 for HTTPS (SSL). If you change the port to a non-default value after the initial installation phase, the site Servers tab shows:

  • The original application server address still displays as port 8080.

  • The server state is inaccessible even though the server is accessible.

"Failure to create SA schema due to nonexistent TableSpace or TempTableSpace."

If errors occur during site schema creation, and the site.log file contains a message indicating that a certain tablespace or a temporary tablespace does not exist, check that the specified TableSpace or TempTableSpace is correct.

"When initializing, the ALM Octane installation failed with a site schema problem."

If you receive a site schema error, such as "Cannot upgrade SA. SA schema version must be lower than the current server version," do the following:

  1. Open a backup copy of the site schema.

  2. Fix the problem.

  3. Restart the server (meaning, run systemctl restart octane again).

"The wrapper.log has Java-related warnings (Linux)"

After installing or upgrading, the following warning appears in the /opt/octane/log/wrapper.log file.

INFO   | jvm 1    | 2017/06/27 17:20:56.318 | Caused by: java.net.UnknownHostException: <…some host name…> unknown error

To eliminate this warning:

  1. Add the ALM Octane server to the /etc/hosts file.

    Example: For non-dynamic IPs, you can add the server in this format: 

    <ip_of_machine> <name_of_machine> localhost

    Such as: 192.168.0.185 machine-72 localhost

  2. Restart the ALM Octane Server. For details, see Start the ALM Octane server manually.

"My FILL_EXISTING installation failed, indicating that I have extra tables, view, indexes, and so on."

Check if your DBA made manual additions to the database schema, such as adding tables, indexes, and so on. If the installation encounters objects that it does not expect in the database schema, the installation can fail.

To avoid this, create exception files. For details, see Using exception files for manual database changes.

If you still have problems: 

  • Check that the parameters in the octane.conf file and the exception files have been entered correctly.

  • Check the /opt/octane/log/wrapper.log for errors.

ALM Octane cannot fetch Jetty files

The conscript library allows you to enable HTTP/2 in Jetty. Sometimes, however, using the conscript library causes issues. To resolve these issues, disable the conscript library and switch back to native Java SSL. For instructions, see knowledge base article KM03310408.

Exception thrown when creating a space

Under heavy loads, ALM Octane can use more threads than allocated for the octane service by Linux. In this case the admin needs to check the settings for the maximum number of threads for ALM Octane, and compare it with the current number of used threads.

The maximum number is stored in the file /sys/fs/cgroup/pids/system.slice/octane.service/pids.max.

The current number of threads is stored in the file /sys/fs/cgroup/pids/system.slice/octane.service/pids.current.

If the current number is approaching the maximum, increase the number of maximum threads using the command:

systemctl set-property octane.service TasksMax=<new maximum number>

Restart the octane service after this change.

Note: For some Linux variants these locations and commands may be different. The system administrator should handle this process.

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