Troubleshooting

This appendix contains the following sections:

Number of Users Exceeded

When there are more users defined in the server than your license allows, the login page displays a warning; users can still log in. After a 24-hour grace period, an email is sent to the administrator and users can no longer log in. Most server functionality is disabled. To re-enable server functionality:

Field Names Disappear in Ad Hoc Editor

Some fields with international characters in their display names disappear when the field is dragged into the canvas of the Ad Hoc Editor. This is caused by non-Unicode characters used in the field name in the JRXML underlying the selected Topic.

To make the international characters appear in Ad Hoc view field labels, use the resource bundle mechanism:

When you open the Topic in the Ad Hoc Editor, the labels are displayed correctly from the resource bundle.

This method has the advantage that you can create a resource bundle for each language that the Topic needs to support, and users see the labels for the locale they set in their browser.

For more information about localizing JasperReports Server, see Localization.

Ad Hoc Filter With All Values Causing Error

When using filters in the Ad Hoc editor, your browser sends lists of values to the server with a POST operation. If you filter a field with tens or hundreds of thousands of distinct values, and then select all values, your browser will send megabytes of data in the POST operation. Some application servers are configured to reject such large input by default.

For example, if you select 100 000 values in an Ad Hoc filter on a default installation on Tomcat, Tomcat will log an error and redirect the user to the JasperReports Server home page. The Tomcat error log may contain the following entry:

2013-09-30 15:12:33,847 ERROR errorPage_jsp,http-8080-6:559 - stack trace of
exception that redirected to errorPage.jsp
java.lang.NullPointerException

If you apply filters to fields with large numbers of distinct values, make sure your app server is configured to accept large input. The following table shows how to configure Apache Tomcat. For other app servers, refer to your app server's documentation about POST operations.

<Connector port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1" 
           connectionTimeout="20000" 
           redirectPort="8443" 
           URIEncoding="UTF-8"
           maxPostSize="0" />

Scheduler Sending Multiple Emails

In cases where you have a cluster of JasperReports Server instances accessing the same repository, the schedulers in each instance can sometimes conflict and send multiple emails. The behavior depends on the run-time of the reports that are scheduled, because a long report may cause the scheduler on another node to attempt to run the same report before the first node finishes.

To change this behavior, set the following parameter in <WAR-file>/WEB-INF/js.quartz.base.properties:

org.quartz.jobStore.clusterCheckinInterval = 900000

In case a job fails on the first node, the check-in interval is meant to ensure that the job runs on a second node after this delay. Because the schedulers do not communicate directly, the second scheduler cannot distinguish between a node that had a failure and a node that is still running a job. The default value corresponds to 15 minutes.

This parameter can be adjusted as follows:

Restart all of your server instances after changing this parameter.

Scheduler Running Deleted Jobs

In some cases, old versions of JasperReports Server did not delete the scheduled jobs when deleting a report. These jobs cause errors when the scheduler tries to run them, but you can’t remove the jobs through the user interface. The server no longer creates such “orphan” jobs, but they may appear again when you upgrade or import a catalog that contains them.

If you accidently imported orphan jobs, make configuration change shown below and restart your server.

Charts Not Appearing in Excel Export

When exporting a report to Excel, JasperReports Server usually removes images that decorate the report and that do not fit in the Excel data-centric layout. However, JasperReports Server also converts any charts to images and uses the special property net.sf.jasperreports.export.xls.ignore.graphics set to false to make the image appear. If your report does not set this property explicitly, the chart images do no appear in your reports when they are exported to Excel.

If you have a lot of reports with this issue, you can set the property on the server:

Adding Data Sources

When adding a data source to JasperReports Server, there are several areas that can cause errors. Start by looking at the following general connectivity issues:

Many databases, including MySQL, also require the user grants to include the specific host from which connections are allowed. Otherwise, when testing the JDBC connection, a connection may not be allowed even though the username and password are correct. For more information, refer to the MySQL documentation for setting up users.

An easy way to test connectivity from the server to the database with a particular user is to use a tool such as SquirrelSQL or another DB query tool to connect to the database from the same host as your JasperReports Server instance.

Finally, you can enable additional logging to help you find the cause of the error. Set any or all of the following loggers in the server settings interface or in the ...\WEB-INF\log4j.properties file:

JDBC Drivers

As of JasperReports Server 5.1, JDBC driver management is automated and simplified. JasperReports Server ships with drivers for most databases, as listed in the dialog for creating data sources. If the JDBC driver for your database is not included, the system administrator can easily upload the driver and use it immediately in a data source.

For instructions on updating JDBC drivers without restarting the server, see Managing JDBC Drivers

Database Permissions

When creating database users, you must ensure that they have the appropriate privileges to access data, as well as permission to connect from the server that JasperReports Server is running on.

su - postgres
psql -U postgres

A fairly easy way to test permissions and connectivity is to use a tool such as SquirrelSQL or another DB query tool to connect to the database from the same host as JasperReports Server and to run typical queries against your database.

JDBC Database URLs

When you choose a JDBC driver, the data source creation wizard prompts you for the elements of the URL that are required for your database. In some cases, you may need to add certain arguments to the JDBC URL. Ensure that the database URL you entered when defining your JDBC data source is consistent with what is required for your specific database and database driver. The following table gives the default URLs and port numbers, as well as examples of optional arguments supported by the most common databases:

JNDI Services on Apache Tomcat

If you have trouble with a JNDI connection, you need to look at the JNDI definition for your database on your application server. This section gives common issues with JNDI definitions on Apache Tomcat connecting to MySQL. If you use a different application server or database server, refer to its documentation.

A JNDI connection on Tomcat is defined in two different files. Make sure both have the following information:

<Resource name="jdbc/<db-name>" auth="Container" type="javax.sql.DataSource"
maxActive="100" maxIdle="30" maxWait="10000"
username="<db-user>" password="<db-user-password>"
driverClassName="org.postgresql.Driver"
validationQuery="SELECT 1" testOnBorrow="true"
url="jdbc:mysql://<host>:3306/<database>?autoReconnect=true&amp;autoReconnect
ForPools=true"/>

<resource-ref>
<description>JNDI Example</description>
<res-ref-name>jdbc/<db-name></res-ref-name>
<res-type>javax.sql.DataSource</res-type>
<res-auth>Container</res-auth>
</resource-ref>

Also check the following points:

JNDI Services on JBoss

After defining JNDI Services on the JBoss application server, JasperReports Server does not automatically detect the new services. In order to use the new JNDI services as data sources in the server, follow these steps:

Now you can define JNDI data source in the repository, as described in JNDI Data Sources.

JNDI Services on WebLogic

Follow these steps to configure JasperReports Server to use JNDI data sources with WebLogic:

<resource-description>
    <res-ref-name>TestDatabase</res-ref-name>
    <jndi-name>jdbc/testDatabase</jndi-name>
</resource-description>

<resource-ref>
    <description>TestDatabase database</description>
    <res-ref-name>TestDatabase</res-ref-name>
    <res-type>javax.sql.DataSource</res-type>
    <res-auth>Container</res-auth>
</resource-ref>

Creating a Data Source on SQL Server Using Windows Authentication

If your database is Microsoft SQL Server and you use Windows Authentication (also called Integrated Security), use the following procedure to create a data source.

Do not use version 4.0 of this driver because it will not work.

For Tomcat, this is the <tomcat>\bin folder.

The page refreshes to show the fields necessary for a JDBC data source.

;integratedSecurity=true

Hadoop-Hive Reports Not Running

If you created a Hadoop-Hive data source prior in JasperReports Server 4.5 or earlier, it may not run when imported to a more recent version of the server, for example after an upgrade. The reason is because the name of the package of the Hadoop-Hive connector class has changed.

To update Hadoop-Hive data sources:

Reverting to the Old Home Page

JasperReports Server5.5 introduces a new home page with more fuctionality and access to more features in the server. If your installation or customizations require the old home page with the large buttons, you can specify that the server use the old home page.

<view-state id="homeView" view="modules/home/home">

<view-state id="homeView" view="modules/old_home/home">