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General Instructions

DSpace

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Finding the Error Message in your Log Files

  1. If the expected information simply never appears, leaving a blank browser screen, the problem is likely with either a servlet (for JSPUI) or an XSLT Theme (for XMLUI). The error message should be in either [dspace]/log/dspace.log OR [tomcat]/logs/. For the XMLUI, you may also want to check the Cocoon logs (see above for path) to see if any extra information can be found there.
  2. If you get an "Internal Server Error" message, you will have to check the log files for a full error listing. If your email address is set up in dspace.cfg (alert.recipient) as the DSpace Administrator, you should receive an email with this full error listing. If not, move into the DSpace log directory ([dspace]/log) and view the end of the log file:
    • (Linux or Mac OSX) Go to the DSpace log directory via the command line and enter: tail -100 dspace.log Alternatively, you can open up the dspace.log file in your favorite text editor and look near the bottom of the file for the error message.
    • (Windows) Go to the DSpace log directory, and open dspace.log in your favorite text editor. Look near the bottom for the error message.
  3. Usually, the culprit error is in the first five to ten lines of the error stack listing. The error stack starts with a line similar to one of the following:
    • yyyy-mm-dd time ERROR ... OR,
    • yyyy-mm-dd time WARN ...

Searching for Fixes to Common Errors

Turning on Debugging (optional)

  • If you'd like to try and do some debugging yourself, you can change the DSpace logger settings to DEBUG which will sometimes provide you with more information about the error. To turn on debugging, visit the [dspace]/config/log4j.properties file and do the following:

    • To enable DEBUG logging in the dspace.log file, change the log4j.rootCategory and log4j.logger.org.dspace settings to DEBUG rather than INFO.

    • (XMLUI Only) To enable DEBUG logging in the cocoon.log file, change the log4j.logger.org.apache.cocoon setting to DEBUG rather than INFO.

    • NOTE: You'll need to restart Tomcat after enabling DEBUG mode in the log4j.properties file.

    • WARNING: Make sure to turn off debugging once you are finished. Leaving debugging turned on will cause the log files to grow very large very quickly!

  • Depending on where you got your Java runtime environment, you may have the jps command.  jps -v can show you the options actually used to run your Servlet container, which can be useful in debugging startup issues.  A plain jps command will list process IDs of running JREs, which you can use with your favorite process monitoring tools.  jps can only show processes which your user account is allowed to inspect, so you should run it as the user which runs the container, or as a superuser.

DSpace 7.x (or above)

Info
titleFinding the detailed error message is important!

In DSpace 7, there are two main places where detailed error messages may be found. It is important to locate these detailed error messages in order to debug any issues you are seeing. (The generic error messages that appear in the User Interface do not provide enough information to debug the problem.)

  1. In your web browser's DevTools when running the User Interface - because the v7 User Interface is built with JavaScript (Angular.io), some errors are only visible in your browser (and therefore will never appear in log files). See "Finding the Error Message in the User Interface" below.
  2. In the backend's log files - Some errors (especially 500 responses/errors) will result in the error message being logged to your dspace.log or Tomcat logs. See "Finding error messages in the REST API logs" below.

Once you locate the detailed error, see the section on "Report the Error and Describe How You Encountered It" below.

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  1. Your environment: Version of DSpace (most important), operating system, version of Tomcat, Java, Node, etc.
    1. NOTE: On the backend, simply running "./dspace version" from the command line will provide much of this information for you.
  2. The exact steps you took to encounter the error, as this will help us in investigating the problem. Often, we need to understand how to replicate the error before we can determine what the underlying cause is.

  3. The error stacktrace / message that you found in your log file or Browser DevTools

DSpace 6.x or below

Finding the Error Message in your Log Files

  1. If the expected information simply never appears, leaving a blank browser screen, the problem is likely with either a servlet (for JSPUI) or an XSLT Theme (for XMLUI). The error message should be in either [dspace]/log/dspace.log OR [tomcat]/logs/. For the XMLUI, you may also want to check the Cocoon logs (see above for path) to see if any extra information can be found there.
  2. If you get an "Internal Server Error" message, you will have to check the log files for a full error listing. If your email address is set up in dspace.cfg (alert.recipient) as the DSpace Administrator, you should receive an email with this full error listing. If not, move into the DSpace log directory ([dspace]/log) and view the end of the log file:
    • (Linux or Mac OSX) Go to the DSpace log directory via the command line and enter: tail -100 dspace.log Alternatively, you can open up the dspace.log file in your favorite text editor and look near the bottom of the file for the error message.
    • (Windows) Go to the DSpace log directory, and open dspace.log in your favorite text editor. Look near the bottom for the error message.
  3. Usually, the culprit error is in the first five to ten lines of the error stack listing. The error stack starts with a line similar to one of the following:
    • yyyy-mm-dd time ERROR ... OR,
    • yyyy-mm-dd time WARN ...

Searching for Fixes to Common Errors

Turning on Debugging (optional)

  • If you'd like to try and do some debugging yourself, you can change the DSpace logger settings to DEBUG which will sometimes provide you with more information about the error. To turn on debugging, visit the [dspace]/config/log4j.properties file and do the following:

    • To enable DEBUG logging in the dspace.log file, change the log4j.rootCategory and log4j.logger.org.dspace settings to DEBUG rather than INFO.

    • (XMLUI Only) To enable DEBUG logging in the cocoon.log file, change the log4j.logger.org.apache.cocoon setting to DEBUG rather than INFO.

    • NOTE: You'll need to restart Tomcat after enabling DEBUG mode in the log4j.properties file.

    • WARNING: Make sure to turn off debugging once you are finished. Leaving debugging turned on will cause the log files to grow very large very quickly!

  • Depending on where you got your Java runtime environment, you may have the jps command.  jps -v can show you the options actually used to run your Servlet container, which can be useful in debugging startup issues.  A plain jps command will list process IDs of running JREs, which you can use with your favorite process monitoring tools.  jps can only show processes which your user account is allowed to inspect, so you should run it as the user which runs the container, or as a superuser.