How to Collect Thread Dumps for a Standalone Windows APM Workstation

Products

• CA Application Performance Management Agent (APM / Wily / Introscope)
• INTROSCOPE

Issue/Introduction

Description:

In the course of troubleshooting an issue, CA Technologies Support may ask the case owner to collect thread dumps for a locally installed, standalone Windows APM Workstation. This can be done through the following steps:

Solution:

How to Collect Thread Dumps for a Standalone Windows APM Workstation

Step 1 : Configure the Workstation for debug level logging

• CD to [Workstation_Home]\workstation\config on the user's PC
• Edit IntroscopeWorkstation.properties
  
  Change:
  
  
  • log4j.logger.Workstation=INFO, console
  
  To:
  
  
  • log4j.logger.Workstation=DEBUG, logfile
  • Save the file
    
    
• Put the MOM in DEBUG mode for the duration of the Workstation test

Step 2 : Prepare the Workstation startup command line

• Start the Workstation normally (it must be running for this step)
• As a local Administrator, open a Windows command prompt
• If the taskmgr.exe can display the command string for a process, then use it to get the startup command. Otherwise, use the approach below with WMIC:
• At the command prompt, execute the following. This will output a list of all running processes including their command lines and process IDs to the file ProcessList.txt.
  
  
  • WMIC /OUTPUT:C:\ProcessList.txt PROCESS get Caption,Commandline,Processid
    
    
• Open C:\ProcessList.txt with a text editor
• Scroll through the file until locating the javaw.exe command for the Workstation. It will be similar to the following:
  
  javaw.exe "C:\ISCP\workstation\jre\bin\javaw.exe" -client -Xms64m -Xmx256m -Dsun.java2d.noddraw=true -classpath "C:\ISCP\workstation\launcher.jar;C:\ISCP\workstation;C:\ISCP\workstation\lax.jar;" com.zerog.lax.LAX "C:/ISCP/workstation/introscope_workstation.lax" "C:/Documents and Settings/Administrator/Local Settings/Temp/1/laxC.tmp" 8156

• Copy the command line out to a new text file for editing
• Remove the first set of quotes from the beginning, but leave any other quotes in place, so that the command looks something like this:
  
  C:\ISCP\workstation\jre\bin\javaw.exe -client -Xms64m -Xmx256m -Dsun.java2d.noddraw=true -classpath "C:\ISCP\workstation\launcher.jar;C:\ISCP\workstation;C:\ISCP\workstation\lax.jar;" com.zerog.lax.LAX "C:/ISCP/workstation/introscope_workstation.lax" "C:/Documents and Settings/Administrator/Local Settings/Temp/1/laxC.tmp"

• Replace "javaw.exe" with "java.exe" (without quotes)
• Append ">>ThreadDumps.txt" to the end of the command string to write consecutive thread dumps to the file ThreadDumps.txt
• Here is an example of a completed command string:
  
  C:\ISCP\workstation\jre\bin\java.exe -client -Xms64m -Xmx256m -Dsun.java2d.noddraw=true -classpath"C:\ISCP\workstation\launcher.jar;C:\ISCP\workstation;C:\ISCP\workstation\lax.jar;" com.zerog.lax.LAX "C:/ISCP/workstation/introscope_workstation.lax" "C:/Documents and Settings/Administrator/Local Settings/Temp/1/laxC.tmp" >>ThreadDumps.txt

Step 3 : Execute the Workstation command string and collect thread dumps

• As a local Administrator, open a command prompt window
• CD to [Workstation_Home]\workstation
• Paste the completed command string into the prompt and press <enter>.
• The Workstation UI will startup
• Exercise the Workstation until it appears to be slow or hangs, then take 10 consecutive thread dumps from the command prompt window where the Workstation is running at approximately 5 second intervals.
• To take a thread dump from the Workstation command prompt window, do a CTRL-BREAK
  
  
  • Do not use CTRL-C. This will kill the Workstation process.

Step 4 : Gather documentation for CA APM Support

• Exit the Workstation, or kill with CTRL-C if it is hung
• Collect the Workstation debug log from [Workstation_Home]\workstation\logs
• Reverse Step 1 to set the Workstation logging back to INFO logging (do not leave it in DEBUG)
• Collect the thread dump file [Workstation_Home]\workstation\ThreadDumps.txt
• Collect the MOM log in DEBUG for the corresponding time period
• Set the MOM back to INFO logging
• Zip and upload all files to the CA APM Support case

Environment

Release:
Component: APMISP