Tomcat Troubleshooting Guide

If you are noticing that m-Power is running slow, or freezing up altogether, there are several steps that you can take to troubleshoot or improve this.

Configuring Memory
Tomcat Logging
Tomcat Stability Enhancement
Clustering/Load Balancing Tomcat with Apache

Configuring Memory

Tomcat is initially configured to use half a gigabyte of memory. We recommend that you increase this to at least one gigabyte. Typically, increasing the memory beyond one gigabyte will not improve the speed that applications take to complete, but will allow you to run applications that return larger data sets. You may want to increase the memory allotment for both your production and development instances of m-Power.

If you are running m-Power on a Windows server, these instructions describe how to increase the memory allocated to Tomcat.

1. Open a command line.
2. Type \m-power\tomcat\bin.
3. Type tomcat7w //ES//TC7DEV where TC7DEV is the name of your desired service.
4. A window will pop up; switch to the Java tab.
5. Find the Java Options window.
6. Set the -Xmx value to 1024m
7. Click accept and restart Tomcat

Tomcat Logging

By design, m-Power logs all Tomcat activity. You can find these logs on your m-Power server, in \m-power\tomcat\logs. However, not all developers have access to the server, nor is it efficient to always navigate to the server and find the correct log entries. Alternatively, you can use the Tomcat Logger to log information directly to the browser. The Tomcat Logger can be run simultaneously with m-Power, so that you can see the immediate effect of your actions. More Information.

Tomcat Stability Enhancement

When working in development, Tomcat can reload more often than ideal, decreasing performance. This is often the true if you are needing to repeatedly sign in to development. If this is the case for you, you might want to consider disabling Tomcat reloading and letting m-Power handle this for you, through m-Power’s Tomcat Stability Enhancement. More Information.

Clustering/Load Balancing Tomcat with Apache

If you often have situations where m-Power is hanging and Tomcat must be restarted, you may want to consider Clustering/Load Balancing Tomcat with Apache. This allows you to use multiple Tomcats to work with m-Power, so that when one freezes up, m-Power is not completely stopped. Instead, the work gets shifted to the other Tomcat instances, without your end-user noticing any change in behavior. More Information.