ADSM0104W: Failed to initialize a server: Default Server (null)

[ParulM Mathur]

Hi,
I have a brand new installation of IBM WebSphere 4.0 on IBM AIX 5.1 operating system.
When I run startupServer.sh, the Default Server does not initialize. The following entries are made in the tracefile:
7f92462f Server A WSVR0023I: Server __adminServer open for e-business
56370622 ActiveServerP A ADMS0008I: Starting server: Default Server
56370622 ActiveServerP A ADMS0032I: Started server: Default Server (pid 44126)
56370622 ActiveEJBServ W ADSM0104W: Failed to initialize a server: Default Server <null>
Please let me know if I have left the configuration incomplete.
Thanks,
Parul Mathur

[Nagendra Prasad]

I did get this error recently. This happens when the 'default' server takes more the 'ping timeout' interval to startup.
The admin server tries to ping the default server after a part. interval. If the default server is not 'open for e-business' by then, the admin server kills it. And we get the error u have reported.
Try to increase the ping timeout and give it another go.
All these settings can be done from the admin console.
If you need more dtls, post back.

[ParulM Mathur]

Nagendra Prasad wrote:
> Try to increase the ping timeout and give it another go.
> All these settings can be done from the admin console.
Hi Prasad,
Thanks for the suggestion. The problem is that the Admin Console never starts. It crashes with the following exception:
java.lang.Exception: Stack trace
at java.lang.Thread.dumpStack(Thread.java:1007)
at javax.swing.UIDefaults$ProxyLazyValue.createValue(UIDefaults.java:670)
at javax.swing.UIDefaults.get(UIDefaults.java:145)
at javax.swing.MultiUIDefaults.get(MultiUIDefaults.java:52)
at com.ibm.ejs.sm.client.ui.Utils.setDefaultFonts(Utils.java:485)
at com.ibm.ejs.sm.client.ui.EJSConsole.main(EJSConsole.java:1226)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
at com.ibm.ws.bootstrap.WSLauncher.main(WSLauncher.java:158)
java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException: java.lang.NullPointerException
at com.ibm.ejs.sm.client.ui.Utils.setDefaultFonts(Utils.java:487)
at com.ibm.ejs.sm.client.ui.EJSConsole.main(EJSConsole.java:1226)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
at com.ibm.ws.bootstrap.WSLauncher.main(WSLauncher.java:158)
Is there any way I can modify some file to increase the ping timeout value?
Thanks,
Parul Mathur

[Nagendra Prasad]

Hmm... if the admin console is not starting, then you could have some memory issues with the machine on which u are attempting to run it.
I hope u have checked that the admin server is running properly.
Try installing just the admin console on a different machine. Then try
connecting to the admin server. Just pass the IP Address and port number as a parameter to the adminclient.bat process (if u are running it in windows) or the equivalent shell script on unix.
I am not entirely sure where these values end up getting stored. Let me check a few things on this now. In the meantime, if you could give the other idea a try!!

[ParulM Mathur]

Nagendra Prasad wrote:
>Hmm... if the admin console is not starting, then you could have some
> memory issues with the machine on which u are attempting to run it.

Thanks, Prasad, for the clue to the problem. I had configured IBM WebSphere to run with Oracle 8i as its database. I found that IBM DB2 had also been installed on the machine for some other purpose. Suspecting that Oracle and DB2 were clashing in some way, I performed the following steps:
1. Uninstall IBM WebSphere
2. Uninstall IBM HTTPServer
3. Uninstall Oracle
4. Uninstall IBM DB2
5. Install Oracle
6. Install IBM WebSphere, which would also install IBM HTTPServer by default.
I found that this solved my problem but I have no definite idea why.
Do you think that there is a clash between Oracle and DB2 in any way?
-Parul

[Nagendra Prasad]

Thanks for letting us know how the problem went away...
It could be something simple.. or some subscript to it which is not evident straightaway.
When you have two databases installed on the machine, both of them are using some resource for the handling of thier processes. On Oracle, we can get a clue straightaway by checking the SGA settings... on DB2 it is a bit more convoluted.. but it too has a similar figure. These are the amounts of memory that are consumed by the databases upon startup.
Now, if the admin server was attempted to be started when the databases were up and running, then it would have to contend with whatever was left on the server. It could be that the server did not have too much memory in the first place.
Instead what could have been tried is to stop the db2 database.
But, now that the problem has been solved, this might not be an option.