[Dylan O’Mahony]

Some of the members of our development team are running into a very strange problem – all of a sudden, and for seemingly no reason, MyEclipse stops copying class files/JSPs to their local app server. Shutting down Eclipse and restarting it tends to fix the problem.

Our situation is as follows:

*) We run Weblogic 8.1 SP 3 – a single domain/server, with an exploded EAR on our b: drives (we simply map c:\bea to b:\, and our exploded EAR files are in b:\user_projects\domains\OurDomain\applications\our_ear\). We have 5 web modules & 1 EJB module in our EAR.

*) Our source code is located in w:\cvs\app (again, we map c:\ to w:\, for consistency/flexibility)

This works has worked perfectly for all of us for some time, but a few months ago one of the developers discovered that he needed to restart Eclipse to “kick-start” the file copying again. It then started to happen to others and is now happening pretty regularly (at least daily) to 3 of our 6/7 developers. When the problem happens, we can verify that it’s not a Weblogic hot-deploy problem because the timestamps on the class files on the b: drive are not changing at all.

The build shows no problems, either, which can be one reason why MyEclipse will not copy files to the deployment area. We have turned off all JSP validation in MyEclipse (although I’m tempted to re-enable it now with 4.0.3, if it’s substantially quicker).

The problem applies equally to files in our web modules, EJB module and incidental EAR files (global files in APP-INF/classes and APP-INF/lib), including the JSPs which should simply be copied intact to our deployment directory.

While in theory all members of our team have identical installations, there may be some subtle differences in our Preferences. I’ve checked the .log file on each person’s PC when they see the problem and there are no entries.

I haven’t seen even a hint of a similar problem posted by anybody else on the forum, which is why I was hesitant to log it when we first saw it – it’s becoming such a productivity problem now, though, that I think it deserves a post.

Any help greatly appreciated — Dylan

Here is a dump from the installation of one of the developers experiencing the problem:

*** Date: Fri Oct 28 16:41:35 EDT 2005

*** System properties:
OS=Windows2000
OS version=5.0
Java version=1.4.2_04

*** MyEclipse details:
MyEclipse Enterprise Workbench

Version: 4.0.2 GA
Build id: 20051010-4.0.2-GA

*** Eclipse details:
Eclipse SDK

Version: 3.1.0
Build id: I20050627-1435

Eclipse Platform

Version: 3.1.0
Build id: I20050627-1435

Eclipse RCP

Version: 3.1.0
Build id: I20050627-1435

Eclipse Java Development Tools

Version: 3.1.0
Build id: I20050627-1435

Eclipse Plug-in Development Environment

Version: 3.1.0
Build id: I20050627-1435

Eclipse Project SDK

Version: 3.1.0
Build id: I20050627-1435

Eclipse startup command=-os
win32
-ws
win32
-arch
x86
-launcher
C:\eclipse\eclipse.exe
-name
Eclipse
-showsplash
600
-exitdata
43c_7c
-data
w:\cvs\app
-vm
b:\jdk142_04\bin\javaw.exe

[Riyad Kalla]

This works has worked perfectly for all of us for some time, but a few months ago one of the developers discovered that he needed to restart Eclipse to “kick-start” the file copying again. It then started to happen to others and is now happening pretty regularly (at least daily) to 3 of our 6/7 developers. When the problem happens, we can verify that it’s not a Weblogic hot-deploy problem because the timestamps on the class files on the b: drive are not changing at all.

First, thank you for looking into the time stamp issue right off the bat. Secondly have you guys tried adding -clean to your command line arguments for starting up and seeing if that magically helps? Have everyone try that for 1 day and see if that works. If that doesn’t work, a list of suggestions in order that I think you should try them:

0) Adding -vmargs -Xmx256m to your command line args, it’s possible the deployment tool is throwing an out of memory exception wjhile it’s trying to run.
1) Update Eclipse to 3.1.1 (from 3.1.0)
2) Update MyEclipse from 4.0.2 to 4.0.3
3) Update Java from 1.4.2_04 to 1.4.2_09

If none of that works, just as a sanity check try a new Project, re-checking your project(s) back out into new projects. If that doesn’t work then trying a new workspace using File > Import to pull your project and settings into it.

The build shows no problems, either, which can be one reason why MyEclipse will not copy files to the deployment area. We have turned off all JSP validation in MyEclipse (although I’m tempted to re-enable it now with 4.0.3, if it’s substantially quicker).

For individual files it isn’t, but for large projects with complex classpaths it can be up to 4x-6x faster.

While in theory all members of our team have identical installations, there may be some subtle differences in our Preferences. I’ve checked the .log file on each person’s PC when they see the problem and there are no entries.

I haven’t seen even a hint of a similar problem posted by anybody else on the forum, which is why I was hesitant to log it when we first saw it – it’s becoming such a productivity problem now, though, that I think it deserves a post.

Dylan, you are absolutely right it deserves looking into, I thank you for being so thorough before posting with the details, this really jump starts where we need to look. Also, is it alawys the same guys having the same problems, or does it happen to everyone on the team randomly?

[Dylan O’Mahony]

@support-rkalla wrote:

Also, is it alawys the same guys having the same problems, or does it happen to everyone on the team randomly?

Yep, it’s always the same 3 guys who encounter the problem.

Thanks for your comprehensive reply – the item about OutOfMemoryExceptions seems like a very likely candidate. I checked with 2 of the 3 guys this morning and they have their Eclipse startup VM args set to 1024M – because our laptops only have 1 physical GB of RAM, and Weblogic needs to contend for this same memory, I’m going to recommend we start Eclipse at 512M and Weblogic at 256M. This is how I’ve been running it all along, and have never encountered the problem.

Failing that, I’ll also recommend them trying the -clean switch and some of the other recommendations. I’ll post the outcome in a day or so to let you know if the problem goes away. Thanks again for the response.

[Dylan O’Mahony]

Well, turns out that distributing the memory in a more measured manner completely fixed the problem. We’re all running Eclipse with 512MB and Weblogic with 256MB and everything works perfectly. Thanks again for the follow-up.

[Riyad Kalla]

We are very glad to hear that, thank you for following up.

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