Collect troubleshooting data for IBM Process Designer problems in IBM Business Process Manager (BPM)

Collect the troubleshooting information for IBM Process Designer in IBM Business Process Manager. Gathering this information before calling IBM support helps in understanding the problem and saves time when analyzing the data.

Application design questions are beyond the scope of the Support team. For those questions, we recommend the following options:

• Post your question to the IBM developerWorks IBM Business Process Manager forum
• Search the IBM BPM community wiki
• Get help from Professional Services (or our On Demand Consulting (ODC) - team). If you need assistance engaging ODC or Professional Services, contact your IBM account team.

If you run into specific error messages or problems when you are using IBM Process Designer that are not related to your business process definition (BPD) model, collect the general diagnostic information as well as:

• Screen shots of the problem or error message
• An explanation of what does not work and what is expected from the application or process
• The ae.log file from the IBM Process Designer installation directory.

Use the log4j logger to add debug statements to the ae.log file.
Note: The following process only works in IBM Business Process Manager versions prior to 8.0.1 as the log4j.xml file was removed in the Version 8.0.1 release. As a workaround, you can copy the log4j.xml file from a previous version to your Version 8.0.1 environment.

1. Close IBM Process Designer.
2. Navigate to the <ProcessDesignerInstallationDirectory>\teamworks\eclipse\plugins\teamworks.appserver.websphere_<version>.jar file.
3. Unpack that file to the <ProcessDesignerInstallationDirectory>\teamworks\eclipse\plugins\teamworks.appserver.websphere_<version> directory.
4. In that subdirectory, navigate to the resources\log4j.xml file.
5. Edit the file by changing the level value for the "com.lombardisoftware" logger from error to debug.
6. Restart IBM Process Designer, recreate the problem, and note down the time stamp. The ae.log file should now contain the debug and error messages from the Process Designer.

The log4j.xml file should be changed from:
<logger name="com.lombardisoftware" additivity="false">
<level value="error" />
<appender-ref ref="TWConsoleAppender" />
<appender-ref ref="TWFileAppender" />
</logger>

to:
<logger name="com.lombardisoftware" additivity="false">
<level value="debug" />
<appender-ref ref="TWConsoleAppender" />
<appender-ref ref="TWFileAppender" />
</logger>

Note: Log4j is not supported as a primary mechanism for logging product error messages in IBM Business Process Manager. Instead, Java™ logging is used. However, you can use the previous procedure to enable additional logging for the IBM Process Designer part of IBM Business Process Manager. Also refer to this BPM Community Wiki to get more details on log4j.

General diagnostic information

Collect the general troubleshooting information as described in Collect troubleshooting data for the IBM Business Process Manager products document.

What to do next

1. Review the log files and traces at the time of the problem to try to determine the source of the problem.
   
   
2. Use IBM Support Assistant to search for known problems in the information center, forums, and technotes.
   
   
3. If you cannot find related problems or cannot solve the problem, send the information you have collected to IBM by following the instructions in Exchanging Information with IBM Technical Support.