Troubleshooting

Check Known Issues to see whether SmartBear already knows about this issue.

Check Version History to see if this issue has been resolved in a later release.

To get debugging information about the server, go to the Collaborator web server and click System at the bottom of the screen:

Collaborator is configured by default to perform a very limited amount of logging. The primary purpose of the logs is to record information about error conditions that could potentially arise. When working with the SmartBear technical support to diagnose issues often it will be helpful to send the logs (or a portion thereof) for investigation.

The logs are located in the following directory:

<Collaborator Server>/tomcat/logs

To enable debug logging:

1. Open the <Collaborator Server>/tomcat/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/classes/logback.xml file.

2. Locate the root element and change the logging level from "info" to "debug":

   <root level="debug" additivity="false">
           <appender-ref ref="CodeCollaborator" />
   </root>

3. Save the file to apply changes.

Remember to revert these changes after reproducing the problem and copying off the log file because this creates a large number of logging messages and degrades server performance.

Sometimes it will be useful for SmartBear technical support to get a dump of your server configuration and database data. You do this by filling out the form at the top of the System page.

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Data format

Server logs

File contents

Which data

One review dumps

If just one review is broken, you can send us a dump of just the one review. To do that, first go to the review in question, then click System as before. Now you will see an additional field in the form for downloading review data (which includes all the file content as well).

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One user dumps

If reviews of some particular user are broken, you can send us a dump with reviews of this particular user. To do that, first go to Admin > Users, then click Review data link next to the desired user. Now you will see an additional field in the form for downloading review data for that particular user (which includes all their reviews and all the file content as well).

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Check out our performance tuning suggestions and use recommended hardware. 

In order to review large artifacts, we recommend increasing the memory available to Collaborator server (instructions here).

If the emailing functionality is not working, here are some things to try:

• Make sure the SMTP Host and SMTP Port settings are correct.

• Try sending a test email. Check the server logs for error messages.

• If you have just performed a database migration or restore, email is automatically disabled. You need to enable it in the settings.

This error appears when the database connection pool runs out of connections to the database.

The fix is to increase the number of connections allowed in the pool. The server is capable of running with many more connections than the default; we keep the default fairly low so that in smaller installations we are not taking up too many database resources.

Fix this by going into the Tomcat servlet context XML file located here:

<Collaborator Server>/tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/ROOT.xml

Edit the maxActive property and increase the number of connecitons. Even doubling this number is fairly normal. A rule of thumb is to have 3 times the database connections (and server threads) as the number of simultaneous users you have under the biggest load.

The Collaborator server must restart for this change to take effect. You do not need to do anything to your database server.

Modifying the ROOT.xml file will cause Tomcat to dynamically reload the Collaborator application, terminating any active sessions. Changes to ROOT.xml should be done in the context of stopping and restarting the Collaborator service (that is, in a production environment coordinating the restart with user activity), regardless of whether the service itself is actually stopped and restarted, or just reloaded by Tomcat.

Frequently this problem also implies that you should have more web server threads in addition to more database connections. To increase that, edit the maxThreads property from the following XML file:

<Collaborator Server>/tomcat/conf/server.xml

Stop and restart the server to load new settings from the server.xml file.

This error can occur if a client connection times out after the default 20 seconds. A heavily loaded Collaborator server or limited resources can be the root of this problem, and investigating the server performance and network connectivity may be warranted. Regardless, the connection timeout can be increased by editing the millisecond value of the connectionTimeout variable in the server.xml file described above. For example, for a timeout of 60 seconds, use:

In case of server-side errors, Collaborator will display a custom page with the description of the occurred error.

For security reasons, Collaborator does not reveal the exact version of Tomcat framework on any public-facing web pages. To troubleshoot some cases, you may want to display the Tomcat version information in error messages.

To achieve this:

1. Open the <Collaborator Server>/tomcat/conf/Catalina/localhost/ROOT.xml file.

2. Locate the ErrorReportValve element

   <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve" showServerInfo="false"/>

3. Change it to:

   <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve" showServerInfo="true"/>
4. Save changes to ROOT.xml and restart the Collaborator server.

To change the Windows firewall settings:

1. Go to Start > All Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Security Center.

2. Click Manage security settings for: Windows Firewall.

3. On the General tab, make sure to remove the selection from the Do not allow exceptions check box.

4. On the Exceptions tab, click Add Port.

5. For Name, use Collaborator.

6. For Port number, use 8080.

7. Leave TCP selected.

8. (Optional) Click Change scope to get more options for giving permissions to access the port.

9. Click OK in each dialog to save the settings, then try connecting again.

For technical support and general inquires, contact us.