Troubleshooting and Debugging Aids

How to:

Because all software applications occasionally have issues, PMF includes built-in utilities that allow you or your administrator to troubleshoot and resolve potential issues.

Procedure: How to Use Application Tracing

If you receive an error that you do not understand, you can enable Application Tracing, then re-run the request that generated the error. If you are proficient in WebFOCUS, you can examine the trace yourself to determine the cause of the issue. If you are not proficient in WebFOCUS, you can forward the trace to either your local support representative or your Information Builders support specialist.

To activate Application Tracing:

  1. In the Manage page, click the Settings panel button.

    The Settings menu opens.

  2. On the Debugging panel, select one of the following values from the Application Tracing drop-down list.
    • OFF. Disables tracing, which is the default value.
    • ON. Trace WebFOCUS code without showing a full trace of the Dialogue Manager pre-processing code. This is the most typical setting for tracing.
    • ALL. Trace WebFOCUS code and show all steps in the Dialogue Manager pre-processing code. This generates the most detailed trace
  3. Click Save.

    If you selected ON or ALL, tracing is now active. You can re-run any process that has an error message, and select Source from the View menu in your Browser to display the underlying HTML source code containing the error trace. Traces are present at the bottom of the HTML file, after the closing </HTML> tag.

Note: Turning on tracing can slightly lower PMF performance speed because more HTML is downloaded to the browser. It is recommended that you turn off tracing after you resolve the issue you are investigating.

WebFOCUS