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Diagnosing Errors

Most Frequent Errors

Please check these potential error sources before reading though the rest of this document:

• Check the "Proxy Setting" of your Browser:
  Please go to the "Tools" directory of your IE an select "Internet Options", "Connections" and "LAN Settings" and uncheck all checkboxes.
• Disable the firewall of your local computer before the installation:
  Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2003 have restrictive security settings that may prevent AOLServer to communicate with the PostgreSQL database. Also, please disable temporarily any "Personal Firewall" from an antivirus software.
• Please uninstall "CygWin" before the installation:
  CygWin is a Unix environment for Windows from RedHat. ]po[ will install its own version of CygWin which is known to conflict with an existing installation.
• Please connect to the Internet or to a local netowrk:
  You will need to be connected to the Internet or to a local network during the installation process.
  Windows disables its network services completely if there is no network connection.
• Restart AOLServer after the installation:
  Go to Control Panes/ Administrative Tools/ Services and restart "ProjectOpen AOLServer". This may resolve communication issues between AOLServer and the PostgreSQL database. Please contact us if this has resoved your issue.

Quick Diagnosis

Please execute the command "netstat -an" from a "C:\ Command Prompt" ("Start" button -> "Run" and run "cmd") after your installation. You should get a screen similar to the one below (please click on the image to enlarge).

Watch out for the two lines in red:

• TCP 0.0.0.0:5432:
  This line tells you that the PostgreSQL database has started up correctly. Please check the PostgreSQL section below for more information if you don't see this line.
• TCP 0.0.0.0:80:
  This line tells you that the AOLServer web server is running. Please check the AOLServer section below for more information if you don't see this line.

Everything should be fine if both lines are there. Please check your browser proxy settings and your local computer's security setting if you still have any trouble.

Detailed Diagnosis Overview

]project-open[ requires four components to work together in order to provide its service:

• Check if all files are there
• Check if CygWin is Available
• Check if PostgreSQL is Running
• Check if AOLServer is Running
• Check That OpenACS is Working
• Diagnosing ]project-open[ issues

In the following sections we are going to check if each of these services are running in order to determine the source of the error.

However, you can skip all of these steps and go directly to "Diagnosing ]project-open[ issues" if ]project-open[ is already running (if your are working with it via a Web browser).

Help is Available

There is a discussion forum available for help. However, please go through the following sections before contacting the help forum in order to be able to ask the right question.

Check That All Files are There

The diagram shows the layout of the main subdirectories of ]project-open[ after the installation.

Check if CygWin is Available

CygWin is a "Unix emulator" and environment for Windows.

Please start a "DOS shell" (Start -> Run -> "cmd") and enter the following line:

• C:\ProjectOpen\cygwin\bin\df

As a result you should see something similar to the contents of the following table (text output only):

Filesystem	1k-blocks	Used	Avail.	Use%	Mounted on
C:\ProjectOpen\cygwin\bin	39070048	38260428	809620	98%	/usr/bin
C:\ProjectOpen\cygwin\lib	39070048	38260428	809620	98%	/usr/lib
C:\ProjectOpen\cygwin	39070048	38260428	809620	98%	/
c:	39070048	38260428	809620	98%	/cygdrive/c

Here are some error messages and conclusions:

• "'c:\ProjectOpen\cygwin\bin\df' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file"
  => You have typed the wrong path. Please check with your windows explorer that the file exists
• You get less then four lines:
  => The installer hasn't installed the registry correctly. Please go to the forum and specifiy
• You get more the three lines with "cygwin":
  => CygWin already existed before. Please uninstall CygWin, uninstall ]project-open[ and install again.

Check if PostgreSQL is Running

Please launch the "Services" panel (Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> "Services"). Please check that the following entries are present:

• CYGWIN cygserver (status: started)
• PostgreSQL Server (CygWin) (status: started)

Please try to start these services manually if the status is different from "started". To do this, please right-click the service and choose "All Tasks" -> Start or use the "Start Service" button in the menu bar.

If you should encounter problems, please check the CygWin server log files. These files contain possible error messages:

• C:\ProjectOpen\cygwin\var\log\cygserver.log and
• C:\ProjectOpen\cygwin\var\log\cygpostgres.log

To diagnose whether PostgreSQL is running correctly please start the "pgAdmin3.exe" program in C:\ProjectOpen\pgAdmin\. Use Files -> Add Server to reach the following screen:

As a result you should get a windows similar to this one:

Now further open the tree with PostgreSQL -> Databases -> projop -> Schemes -> public -> Tables. There should be 171 elements in this section (V3.0.0alpha2) after a complete and successful installation. The number appears to the right of "Tables".

Check if AOLServer is Running

Please launch the "Services" panel again (Start -> Settings -> Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> "Services") and check that the following entry is present:

• AOLServer-projop (status: started)

Please try to start the services manually if the status is different from "started". To do this, please right-click the service and choose "All Tasks" -> Start or use the "Start Service" button in the menu bar. The startup should take some 5-30 seconds.

If you get an error message during the startup please execute AOLServer please check the AOLServer log file:

• C:\ProjectOpen\nsd4\log\projop.log

.. and check for the first line containing "Error:". The error messages of AOLServer tend to be very explicit. Please quote this error message when you are posting to our help forum.

Also, you can execute AOLServer manually in the DOS shell to see the error messages:

• C:\ProjectOpen\nsd4\bin\nsd.exe -f -s projop -t c:\ProjectOpen\nsd4\projop.tcl

This commands starts the service in the "-f" = "foreground" mode. You should see a large number of lines. You can stop the program by pressing "Ctrl-C".

Frequent cases include:

• There is already a web server (IIS, Apache) running on your system. Use "netstat -an" in a DOS shell and you will get a long list of network connections headed by ""Proto Local Address Foreign Address State". Check if there is a line like:
  TCP 0.0.0.0:80 0.0.0.0:0 LISTENING
  Such a line indicates that there is a service "listening" on port 80. Please try to close the the service. However, the same line will appear if ]project-open[ has been successfully started.

Check That OpenACS is Working

Now open a browser and type in the URL: "http://localhost/" and you should see the OpenACS configuration window. Please type in the information for your application administrator.

Diagnosing ]project-open[ Issues

The main location for diagnosing issues of a running ]project-open[ system (if your have connected successfully via a Web browser) is the "error log". The error log contains a trail of debugging and error information. It is located at:

• C:\ProjectOpen\nsd4\log\projop.log

Please use Notepad to open the log file and scroll towards the end of it. Here you should see one or more lines with the "Error:" prefix. Please inspect these lines and quote them if you post to the discussion forum.

Still Questions?

Please post your question in the ]project-open[ discussion forums.

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