xsl Function document is not working

[Gisbert Breitbach]

I'm using Filemaker Server Advanced 7.0v3 on Mac OSX 10.3.9 (and 10.4)

I'm using a xsl-stylesheet with a function of the form "document(filemaker-query-url)".

If I try to query the whole database (about 20 MB) I get a nullstring back.

If I query only a part of my database everything works fine.

If I put the not working filemaker-query-url direct in my browser it is working too.

In pe_application_log.txt I get errors like "Can not load requested doc".

In web_server_module_log.txt I get different jk_ajp_common errors.

I changed a few parameters in tomcat server.xml without any success.

Does anybody know what to do?

Best regards

Gisbert Breitbach

[Martin Brändle]

Although it's a bad situation, I'm glad to hear that I am not alone with these errors. They occur mostly when the server is under load and the AJP connector runs into timeouts. FMI does not use the newest 4.1.x release of Tomcat, and the newest releases of Xerces and Xalan-Java, this could be another reason.

I could reduce this behaviour a little bit by

- using only XML queries, no XSLT queries in the document() function as I did before.

- by tweaking the Tomcat <Connector ...> parameters, but this did not help enough. Don't set acceptCount too high.

- by giving the java process more memory.

How many records should you get back?

I tried many ways to solve this bug and spent a lot of time for seeking solutions, but at the end, it's just a bug that must be solved by FMI.

If you are from Germany, please contact the representative of FileMaker Germany, he knows already about the problem (I will send contact data by e-mail to you). Also send in a bug report directly to FMI as I have done.

[Gisbert Breitbach]

What do you mean with "only XML queries". I use something like document(concat(variable,string...)).

I get the same behaviour on a heavy loaded 1 GHz, 512 MB Xserver and on a low loaded 2*2,7 GHz, 2,5 GB new PowerMac.

My whole database has about 11000 records. With about 3000 records I get no problem.

Yes, I from Germany and I contacted the representative.

I'm glad too that I'm not the only person with this problem.

[Martin Brändle]

XML queries: of the form /fmi/xml/fmresultset.xml?-db=...

XSLT queries: of the form /fmi/xsl/some_stylesheet.xsl?-grammar=fmresultset&-db=

[Gisbert Breitbach]

Ok, in document I do a xml-query

[cminfo]

Hi,

We got the same problem and we think to have found where the problem comes from.

We worked on 2 Power Mac G5 biprocessor with FileMaker Server Advanced 7 and Mac OS X Server with the latest updates... We are developing an XSLT based web site

We had "unexpected error" MCS 603 - MCS 604 Errors when we were using the Web Publishing Engine (WPE) on a Power Mac G5 biprocessor. The errors occured randomly when using the "document" instruction. (Our pages are using 8-10 times the "document" function with a large database to make queries).

We tried a workaround described on this site (with tomcat) but it didn't solve our problem.

Then, we carried out numerous tests and tried various configurations (1, then 2 and 3 machines configurations) and cheked the hardware.

When the WPE is installed on a monoprocessor (iBook G4, Mini Mac G4, iMac G5), everything works fine.

But when the WPE were installed on a biprocessor or something acting like a biprocessor (PowerMac G5, PC Intel Pentium 4 HT with HyperThreading enabled) there were random errors (described earlier).

On the PC, we were able to disable the HyperThreading mode on the motherboard so Windows Server 2003 sees only on processor and everything works fine.

To make a summary, our website works now with the following configuration

- PowerMac G5 with Apache (Web server)

- PowerMac G5 with FileMaker Server 7 (Database server)

- PC Intel Pentium 4 HT with HyperThreading disabled (Web Publishing Engine)

The EMEA Representative didn't give us an answer. So we called several times FileMaker support service (France) and reported the problem and our findings. The problem were transmitted to the US Development Team. Now, we are waiting for news.

(Currently, we think the problem is the way the WPE or Xalan processor works on a biprocessor.)

We hope this wil help you in your development.

Best regards

[Martin Brändle]

Yep, it goes this direction.

I had also tried a similar setup with two single-CPU PowerMacs (G4/400, one was the database server, the other the WPE/web server), and there: No problems with xsl:document(), even under heavy load.

Our productive system with two Dual-CPU Xserves G5 however has these problems.

I hope FMI releases a patch soon.

[Gisbert Breitbach]

Your problem is similiar to mine but not exact the same. I'm using a 1 machine configuration (Webserver, Filemaker Server and WPE on 1 machine) but it is a single processor machine. So the problem exists not only on a biprocessor. I can't test 2 or 3 machine configurations because beside of my problem we are using the configuration in production and it seems not possible to use 2 different WPEs for a single Filemaker Server.

Best regards

[Martin Brändle]

Yes, was also my problem - you would need a special license code for adding another WPE to your FMS. With the license code we have it's not possible to reduce the number of web sessions to 50 and have a second WPE with again 50 web sessions. I had the luck to reuse our old FM6 system that we took out of production as a FMSA7 test system and to be able to get additional FMS licenses because our university is a high-volume customer of FMI. For this, I had to setup the test system in another subnet to avoid license conflicts.

No we have different hypotheses.

- 2 CPU vs. 1 CPU

- Tomcat (4.1.24), Xerces-J (2.1.0) and Xalan-J (2.4.0) not the newest, stable versions (4.1.31 or even 5, 2.6, 2.6.2)

Any other?

Edited July 20, 2005 by Guest

[Martin Brändle]

There is a new FMI KB artice (#5303, just type in the number when you search it) that now confirms that there are problems with the WPE on fast multiprocessor configurations. They recommend to turn off hyperthreading or the second cpu. For Apple multiprocessor computers you can follow this document from Apple:

http://developer.apple.com/qa/qa2001/qa1141.html

I did this since one week and since then we don't have instability problems with XSLT document().

[AnFrusch@pepp]

I'm proud to be a part of this community!!

The '1 CPU' trick finally is the solution I was looking for since FM server 7 adv. has been distributed..

now that I'v e'downgraded' my MAC g5 DUAL to a single processor machine everything seems to works better..

Thank you (especially tnx to martin for his knowledge sharing : )

[Gisbert Breitbach]

An update of this topic:

I tried my configuration on a Windows 2003 system with Filemaker 8 Server Advanced.

What surprise it is the same behaviour as with Version 7 on MacOS 10.3. About 5000 records are working without problem. The full database with 12000 records doesn't work.

Best Regards,

Gisbert

[Martin Brändle]

Hmm. Then it could be a memory problem.

Did you try to increase the available memory for Tomcat. Try to find the following file: catalina.bat

(in OS X it is /Library/FileMaker Server/Web Publishing/jakarta-tomcat/bin/catalina.sh ; I don't know the location for Windows 2003 server )

Add the following line after the introductory commented lines:

set JAVA_OPTS="-Xmx1024M"

(e.g. to give 1 GB of RAM to the Tomcat Java process).

[Gisbert Breitbach]

Hi Martin,

I increased the Tomcat memory like you told me to do on the Mac with FM7 because the Windows server was only for short tests. Same behaviour as before.

It seems to me that it is more an internal memory problem than a global one for Tomcat.

Nevertheless thanks for your tip.

Gisbert

[Martin Brändle]

Hmm. Could also be a timeout problem.

Can you try this? Duplicate the layout you use for XML publishing, remove all fields except one, and repeat the query on this layout for all the 12'000 records? Then the XML tree should be smaller.

[Gisbert Breitbach]

Yes, good idea.

The document-function works for a layout which consists of only one field if I want to see every record. The document function doesn't work for a layout with more fields. If I try the URL direct via the browser it works but the time needed is more than 10 minutes.

So it looks like a timeout problem. Do you know something like a timeout parameter for Tomcat?

Regards,

Gisbert

[Gisbert Breitbach]

My last update of this topic.

As adviced earlier I separated Filemaker Server and Filemaker Web Engine on different machines and the error vanishes. It took 7 minutes but the answer to the request is correct and complete now.

Thank you very much for your help.

[McWin]

Hi,

We have the same problem and tried to solve it by using a monoprocessor for the Web Publishing Engine. So in our first try we use the following 2 machine configuration and everything works fine:

Apache Web Server + Web Publishing Engine on an iBook G4 with 1,33 GHz & 768MB RAM

Database Server on PC Intel Pentium 4 with 2,33GHz & 1GB RAM & HyperThreading enabled ; Windows 2003 Server

But our Problem is now, that we have to use only Windows machines. So we tried the following 2 machine configuration:

IIS Web Server + Web Publishing Engine on PC Intel Pentium 4 with 2,33 GHz & 1GB RAM & HyperThreading disabled ; Windows 2003 Server

Database Server on PC Intel Pentium M Processor with 1,73 GHz & 512KB RAM ; Windows XP Pro

...and it doesn't work! But we use a Monoprocessor Machine as Web Publishing Engine as described by 'cminfo' before. The only remarkable difference is that now the Web Publishing Engine is running on an IIS-Webserver and not on an Apache-Webserver.

Does anybody know how to solve this problem?

Best regards