Common problems and solutions
Common problems and solutions |
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| Release 9.3 |
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Below are listed some questions or issues that you may face when working with ArcGIS Server, and some recommended solutions. If you don't find the problem you are looking for, you can also search for articles on the ESRI Support Site.
The .NET and Java versions of ArcGIS Server can co-exist on the same machine. If you do this, you will need to follow the procedure below to ensure that your server directories correctly map to the virtual directories appropriate for your IIS or Apache web server:
The SOM and SOC accounts are used internally by the GIS server and need only have limited permissions on the machine. Chances are you'll only encounter them when you're installing ArcGIS Server on other machines, or when you're giving the GIS server permissions to access your data. In most cases, it's sufficient to use the default account names suggested by the post install (ArcGISSOM and ArcGISSOC) and let the post install create the accounts for you. The post install creates local accounts, which are recommended over domain accounts for security reasons.
ArcGIS Server names cannot exceed 15 characters or you will encounter errors during the post install and when trying to connect to the server. This is a known limit related to a Microsoft specification for active directory names.
On Linux/Solaris, the computer name can't exceed 64 characters. Otherwise logging into Manager crashes SOM.
On Linux/Solaris, the install log files are under <ArcGIS Server Installation directory>/arcgis/logs/Setup/ folder. On Windows, the install is not automatically logged, although if you run the install from the command line you can include parameters that will create a log file. See the ArcGIS Server Install Guide for help with installing from the command line.
You can view which features of ArcGIS Server are installed through the Add or Remove Programs dialog in Windows. Click the Change button under ArcGIS Server for the Java Framework, then select Modify to view or change the list of installed components.
On Linux/Solaris, you can check <ArcGIS Server Installation directory>/arcgis/logs/Setup/ArcGISServer_InstalledFeatures.log for installed components.
If you receive the message "Your ArcGISServer license has expired", please contact ESRI Customer Support to obtain a new license, then re-run the "Authorize ArcGIS Server" portion of the GIS Server Post Install.
If you have set up a distributed system where the Web server, server object manager and server object containers are all on separate machines, ArcGIS Server will not function without the network. If, however, all these components are running on the same physical machine, ArcGIS Server will operate correctly as long as all data is referenced using local pathnames rather than shared network directories with UNC pathnames or NFS folder. For example, when you publish a resource such as a map document on your Windows machine, publish it from your C:\ drive. For all platforms, ensure that all layers reference local data through local pathnames as well.
Additionally, on Windows, if the computer is part of a domain and you have disconnected the computer from the domain, you must use local accounts for the SOM account, SOC account, and the account you use for logging into Manager.
Occasionally, the situation may arise that your data is on a machine with no components of ArcGIS Server installed and you are following the recommended practice of using local accounts for the SOC Account. On Windows, you will need to use the operating system tools to create a local SOC Account on the machine containing your data. Create a local account on the machine hosting your data, and assign it the same name and password as the SOC Account on all of the other machines in your deployment. The GIS server will then be able to recognize that it has permissions to access your data. On Linux/Solaris, use the NFS directory or mounted directory, e.g. /net/cup/cup1.
Failover and round robin are techniques used to provide a backup server in case one server in your configuration goes down. As you design your Web applications in Eclipse or Creator, you can specify additional GIS servers that the application will use, and whether they will act in a failover or round robin mode.
ArcGIS Server uses two ArcSOC.exe processes internally for logging and directory management. You will still be able to see these processes running in Windows Task Manager even if you stop all of your services in Manager or ArcCatalog.
Additionally, geoprocessing services use multiple ArcSOC.exe processes to manage scheduling and status of jobs. For each geoprocessing service configuration, you will see one ArcSOC.exe process, plus two ArcSOC.exe processes for each running instance. For example, if you have one geoprocessing service with three running instances, you will see seven ArcSOC.exe processes. These processes will go away when you stop the service or shortly thereafter.
When using ArcCatalog to administer your ArcGIS Server, you may get an error message if you attempt to use the "?" button to get help. This happens on the Windows Vista operating system. To see the help, you'll need to download the Windows Help program (WinHlp32.exe) for Windows Vista.
To log into Manager, you must use an account that is a member of the agsadmin group on the server object manager (SOM) machine.
On Linux/Solaris, run Diagnostic tool from command line to check if there's anything wrong with your Server.
Logging in to Manager in Windows XP also requires that simple file sharing be disabled. In the simple file sharing model, all attempts to log on to the computer from across the network are forced to use the Guest account. Manager and Web ADF applications need to authenticate as the ArcGIS Web Services account, not the Guest account, therefore you will need to disable simple file sharing if it is not disabled already. To disable simple file sharing follow these steps:
To log into Manager, you also need to either disable the Windows Firewall or add exceptions for ArcGIS Server. To add exceptions to the Windows Firewall, follow these steps:
Name: DCOM (ArcGIS Server)
Port Number: 135
Type: TCP
Name: Tomcat (ArcGIS Server SOM)
Port Number: 8099
Type: TCP
Name: Tomcat (ArcGIS Server Web Apps)
Port Number: 8399
Type: TCP
To log in to Manager on Windows computers that require NTLMv2 authentication, the Manager configuration file must be updated to match the Windows Local Security Policy setting. To check the Local Security Policy and update the Manager configuration file, follow these steps:
Using ArcGIS Server 9.3, you can publish WMS, WFS, and WCS services. See OGC support in ArcGIS Server for additional information.
To understand how to configure the correct permissions required for ArcSDE and other geodatabase layers, see Preparing resources for publishing.
If you see a blank Preview tab, with coordinate values appearing below as you move the mouse, it's likely that the ArcCatalog can't get the map image from the virtual directory you have associated with your output directory. In this situation, ArcCatalog has all of the information about the map except for the actual image, which is why you see the coordinates as you move the mouse. The best chance of fixing the problem is to check the virtual directory settings using your Web server administration software, making sure that the virtual directory is correctly pointing to the output directory on disk.
If you want to verify that the problem is with the output directory, adjust the map service's properties so that the supported image return type is MIME only. This setting does not use an output directory. If you see the image with MIME only, and you don't see it with MIME + URL, then you know there is a problem with the output directory and/or the virtual directory.
You can browse to the output directory on disk to make sure that the images are being created inside. If you see images being added to the output directory as you try to Preview the map service, then the problem is with the virtual directory settings.
The amount of time needed to create your map cache depends on the type of cache you are building (fused or multilayer), the scale levels you have chosen, and the amount of server resources you have dedicated to generating the cache. These factors are discussed in detail in the section Anticipating cache creation time in the topic Planning a map cache.
You can copy your <ArcGIS>\server\user\cfg (<ArcGIS Server Installation directory>/arcgis/server/user/cfg on Linux/Solaris) folder from the development machine and paste it on the production machine in the same location, overwriting the original cfg folder. You will then need to manually restart the ArcGIS Server Object Manager Windows service. If your services' data resides in a different folder structure on the production machine, you will need to modify the service properties to reference the new paths to the data.
Using non-pooled services over an ArcGIS Server Internet connection is not recommended. Use an ArcGIS Server Local connection instead.
Internet connections use the services in a purely stateless fashion. Each request to a service via the Internet results in a context acquisition and release on the back-end component of the service. If the service is non-pooled, each context release results in the destruction and recreation of a service instance. This can be computationally expensive, especially if a client is making multiple requests to the service.
If you update an area of a map or globe cache, users of ArcMap, ArcGlobe, and ArcGIS Explorer who have already visited that area and extent must clear their local image caches before they can see the updates. As a server administrator, you need to alert your users when updated data is available so that they know to clear their cache.
See Using a map cache to learn how to clear the cache in these applications.
By default, ArcGIS Server map services use schema locking to prevent other users from altering the geodatabase schema while the service is running. If the schema locks are impeding your workflow, you can disable them by manually adding the SchemaLockingEnabled tag to your service configuration file and setting it to "false". For more information about editing the service configuration file and how to use this tag, see Service configuration files.
Globe services cannot be published inside of other globe services. It's likely that the missing layers come from other globe services that were in the ArcGlobe document (.3DD) that you tried to publish. For example, the default ArcGIS Online layers in ArcGlobe are globe services that are hosted by ESRI and will be removed when you publish a globe service.
If you want to see the missing layers, add your globe service to a new .3DD or .NMF document. Then you can connect to the appropriate servers (such as ArcGIS Online) and add the layers that were originally removed from your globe service.
Image services are new at ArcGIS Server 9.3 and represent raster datasets or Image Server compiled image service definitions that have been made available through ArcGIS Server. The workflow for using an image service inside of a Web ADF application is to enable the WMS capability on the image service, then add the service to the application as WMS. WMS is an open specification for making map images available over the Web.
When viewing the image service properties, or when creating the image service, you will see a list of checkboxes of capabilities that you can enable. You should check WMS and note the URL of the service that will be created. Manager and the Web ADF controls support adding WMS services to your web applications. You'll just need to enter the URL.
See WMS services and Selecting services to display to learn more about WMS services and how to add them to Web applications in Manager.
To run in an environment that requires NTLMv2 authentication, a Web Mapping Application requires the JVM option -DARCGIS_LM_COMPATIBILITY_LEVEL=5 to be set. If you deploy a Web Mapping application to an external Web Server, you must set this option on the Web Server's JVM. Please check your Web Server's documentation for details on how to specify a JVM option.
To make sure your Web application is optimized for performance, review the topic Performance tips for Web applications. ESRI is constantly researching ways to improve performance in the core software and ways that you can improve the performance of existing applications by adjusting hardware and software settings. Best practices are continually added to the Web Help in the topic linked above.
For optimum performance, it's recommended that you deploy the Web applications and the REST and Web Services Handlers to a production quality Web server. The Web servers used internally by ArcGIS Server are not intended to be used in a production environment. Please refer to the System Requirements for a full list of supported servers. Among the popular ones are IBM WebSphere, BEA Weblogic, and so on.
It's also recommended that you configure an appropriate heap size for your web server's JVM using the -Xms and -Xmx JVM flags. This will greatly enhance the scalibility of your Web applications. For example, starting with an initial heap size of 256MB and going up to a maximum of 1GB by using the JVM options "-Xms256m -Xmx1024m" is usually sufficient. Please check your Web server's documentation for details on how to configure the heap size.