topic Problem with a Web Quick Start website in Alfresco Archive

Problem with a Web Quick Start website

bogdan1208 — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 13:51:45 GMT

I have been meaning to post this for quite some time ago. I would like to ask if other users of WQS have similar issues as me and if they have found a solution. Last year I have started using Alfresco Web Quick Start as a platform for creating the website for the project I am involved with. The web

Re: Problem with a Web Quick Start website

bremmington — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 14:26:31 GMT

Good to see you up and running with Web Quick Start. I've had a quick dig through some Spring and Tomcat source code, and I *think* that this looks like the Java method Locale.getDefault() must be returning null. Normally, a browser would send a header indicating which locale it would prefer, but googlebot won't send that header (and neither does the HTTP viewer you mentioned). If that header is missing then the locale resolver falls back to using the JVM's default locale. It's just that your JVM doesn't appear to have a default locale set.

If I'm right then this can be resolved by putting a call to Locale.setDefault(…) somewhere in your webapp such that it gets invoked on startup. I'll look into this a little further to see if this is a common issue.

Re: Problem with a Web Quick Start website

bogdan1208 — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 14:45:26 GMT

Thanks for the reply. it is good to know that a solution exists for the problem. Unfortunately I do not have the Java knowledge to start modifying Alfresco and I use it as provided with minimal modifications to the code.

It is possible to direct me to where exactly I should modify to solve the problem? What is the file that I should modify in the original WQS site?

Thanks,
Bogdan

Re: Problem with a Web Quick Start website

bremmington — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 09:43:30 GMT

OK. I think we'll try this in two stages. If the first stage doesn't fix it then we'll try the second.

It looks like you're using Tomcat as your web container, but I'm not sure what OS it's running on. The idea of the first stage is to pass two new properties into the JVM on which Tomcat is running:


-Duser.language=en -Duser.country=GB
‍‍‍

Tomcat will pick these up from the OS environment variable "JAVA_OPTS". So on Linux using a bash shell (or similar) you would add a command something like this:


export JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Duser.language=en -Duser.country=GB"
‍‍‍

On Windows this would be done by editing the environment variables in the System control panel applet.

Try restarting Tomcat with these properties added and let me know if that resolves the problem.

Re: Problem with a Web Quick Start website

bogdan1208 — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 08:58:15 GMT

Thank's for your reply.

The Tomcat runs on a Windows 7 machine. I have followed your suggestion and I have added the following system variable.
JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Duser.language=en -Duser.country=GB"
Also I have tried the JAVA_OPTS = -Duser.language=en -Duser.country=GB variable.

In both cases the result was a failure. It did not solve the problem. Looking through the logs from tomcat I found an error that repeats itself that I think it is related to my problem:

09:37:31,316  INFO  [management.subsystems.ChildApplicationContextFactory] Startup of 'wcm_deployment_receiver' subsystem, ID: [wcm_deployment_receiver, default] complete
09:37:38,174  INFO  [extensions.webscripts.DeclarativeRegistry] Registered 313 Web Scripts (+0 failed), 321 URLs
09:37:38,176  INFO  [extensions.webscripts.DeclarativeRegistry] Registered 8 Package Description Documents (+0 failed) 
09:37:38,176  INFO  [extensions.webscripts.DeclarativeRegistry] Registered 0 Schema Description Documents (+0 failed) 
09:37:38,330  INFO  [extensions.webscripts.AbstractRuntimeContainer] Initialised Spring Surf Container Web Script Container (in 2062.2886ms)
09:37:38,374  INFO  [extensions.webscripts.TemplateProcessorRegistry] Registered template processor freemarker for extension ftl
09:37:38,428  INFO  [extensions.webscripts.ScriptProcessorRegistry] Registered script processor javascript for extension js
09:37:38,695  INFO  [extensions.webscripts.TemplateProcessorRegistry] Registered template processor freemarker for extension ftl
09:37:38,699  INFO  [extensions.webscripts.ScriptProcessorRegistry] Registered script processor javascript for extension js
09:37:38,959  INFO  [extensions.webscripts.TemplateProcessorRegistry] Registered template processor freemarker for extension ftl
09:37:38,962  INFO  [extensions.webscripts.ScriptProcessorRegistry] Registered script processor javascript for extension js
WARN : org.springframework.beans.GenericTypeAwarePropertyDescriptor - Invalid JavaBean property 'baseUrl' being accessed! Ambiguous write methods found next to actually used [public void org.alfresco.wcm.client.impl.WebScriptCallerImpl.setBaseUrl(java.net.URI)]: [public void org.alfresco.wcm.client.impl.WebScriptCallerImpl.setBaseUrl(java.lang.String) throws java.net.URISyntaxException]
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The problem is this Invalid JavaBean property 'baseUrl' being accessed! that I do not know how to solve it. On the same machine I have alfresco explorer and share installed and none of them give these errors with the HTTP viewer. Only the WQS site is the one affected.

Thanks,
Bogdan

Re: Problem with a Web Quick Start website

bremmington — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 10:29:44 GMT

That warning in the log file isn't related to the problem you're experiencing - it's just Spring complaining that there are two methods that look ambiguous to it on the WebScriptCallerImpl class. They're not really ambiguous, and Spring does work out which one to call after grumbling about it a bit. Nothing to be worried about.

If you're on Windows, are you running Tomcat as a service or from a command prompt? If you're using it as a service then the way you set the JAVA_OPTS is a little different - I should have said before. You need to run a little configuration app that comes with Tomcat. You will find that in the "bin" folder in your Tomcat installation, and it's called "tomcat6w.exe".

Run this as an administrator, and choose the tab labelled "Java". On the panel that is displayed you should see a text entry box labelled "Java Options" with some entries already in it (all prefixed with "-D"). Add two more to the list (one per line):


-Duser.language=en
-Duser.country=GB
‍‍‍‍

Then click "OK" and restart your Tomcat service. Try the troublesome request from the HTTP Viewer again, and let me know what happens.

Re: Problem with a Web Quick Start website

bogdan1208 — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 10:57:00 GMT

Thanks for your quick post and for your detailed instructions. They made their implementation so much easier but … unfortunately it does not work. Tomcat indeed is installed as a service and I have tried a couple of times setting the settings you have suggested and none of them did the trick.

Please tell me how to proceed forward.
Bogdan

Re: Problem with a Web Quick Start website

bremmington — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 11:04:06 GMT

Hmm. That's a pity. OK, to move forward we probably need to tweak some code. Have you built Alfresco from source, or did you install from the installer? Do you have any experience of writing Java code? Initially I'd like you to compile this code and run it on your server:


import java.util.Locale;
public class OutputLocale
{
    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        System.out.println(Locale.getDefault());
    }
}
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On my system that outputs "en_GB". If my assessment of your problem is correct then you should see "null" being output.

Re: Problem with a Web Quick Start website

bogdan1208 — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 11:18:20 GMT

Alfresco was installed from the installer and unfortunately I do not have any experience in writing Java code but … I have managed to run your code and indeed on my system it outputs "en_GB". I run it twice to be sure.

Bogdan

Re: Problem with a Web Quick Start website

bremmington — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 11:26:19 GMT

Oh. That's not what I was expecting. Let me have a think about this some more.

Re: Problem with a Web Quick Start website

bremmington — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 07:53:00 GMT

Last night I looked through the relevant code again, and I still believe that the problem is that your JVM is returning a null default locale. I set up a local system so I could replicate the issue against your website by sending a request with the same headers as Rex Swain's HTTP Viewer was sending. I also saw the 500 response coming back. When I added an Accept-Language header to the request I immediately saw a 200 response (success) instead. I can't see a way that this can happen unless your JVM is reporting a null default locale. When I fire the request without the Accept-Language header at my own server I get a valid 200 response - it assumes a locale of "en". I also looked at the source code for the Locale class in Sun's Java, and I can't see how that can return a null - it should default to "en" if all else fails.

I'm not really sure where I can take this now. The problem appears to be with your JVM. Which JVM is your Tomcat instance running on? Is it a Sun JVM? This may be a stretch, but there is one more thing we could try. It does mean you extending your Java compilation skills a little further. First, you would need to compile this code:


import java.util.Locale;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletRequest;
import javax.servlet.http.HttpServletResponse;
import org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory;
import org.springframework.web.servlet.handler.HandlerInterceptorAdapter;

public class LocaleLoggerInterceptor extends HandlerInterceptorAdapter
{
    @Override
    public boolean preHandle(HttpServletRequest request, HttpServletResponse response, Object handler) throws Exception
    {
        LogFactory.getLog(LocaleLoggerInterceptor.class).error("Default locale = " + Locale.getDefault());
        return true;
    }
}
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The easiest way to do that is to copy that code into a file named "LocaleLoggerInterceptor.java" in the folder "webapps\wcmqs\WEB-INF\classes" in your server's Tomcat installation. Then open a command prompt in that folder and run this command:


javac -classpath .;..\..\..\..\lib\servlet-api.jar;..\lib\org.springframework.webmvc-3.0.0.jar;..\lib\commons-logging-1.1.1.jar LocaleLoggerInterceptor.java
‍‍‍

Hopefully this will compile without error or warning and you'll end up with a file named "LocaleLoggerInterceptor.class" in the same folder. The next step is to find a file named "surf-config.xml". This will be in exactly the same folder as you're currently in (<tomcat home>\webapps\wcmqs\WEB-INF\classes). Open this file in a text editor, and find this section:


        <!– Override list of interceptors defined in webframeworkHandlerMappings so that we can add our own. –>
        <property name="interceptors">
            <list>
                <ref bean="requestContextInterceptor"/>
                <!– 
                <ref bean="themeInterceptor"/>
                <ref bean="previewContextInterceptor"/>
                –>
                <!– Interceptors added to apply application-wide processing to requests. See also quickstart-request.xml –>
                <ref bean="cmisSessionInterceptor"/>
                <ref bean="applicationDataInterceptor"/>
            </list>
        </property>    
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Add one line near the top of this section so it becomes:


        <!– Override list of interceptors defined in webframeworkHandlerMappings so that we can add our own. –>
        <property name="interceptors">
            <list>
                <bean class="LocaleLoggerInterceptor" />
                <ref bean="requestContextInterceptor"/>
                <!– 
                <ref bean="themeInterceptor"/>
                <ref bean="previewContextInterceptor"/>
                –>
                <!– Interceptors added to apply application-wide processing to requests. See also quickstart-request.xml –>
                <ref bean="cmisSessionInterceptor"/>
                <ref bean="applicationDataInterceptor"/>
            </list>
        </property>    
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Save the file and restart Tomcat. When you request a page from your site now you should see a line like this in your log file:

08:33:29,898 ERROR [LocaleLoggerInterceptor] Default locale = en_GB

If you get to that point then let me know what the line in your log file looks like.