Troubleshooting GUI tools

Troubleshooting GUI tools

Try these if you have experiencing difficulties with the Pentaho GUI tools. Before you continue, make sure you have the latest stable versions of the tools (i.e. not a Milestone or Beta version).

It won't start, or it takes a long time to start

Several points of failure are to be checked. See the Starting Pentaho Tools section for details and instructions.

It won't start, it crashes, or it runs slowly

Check your version of Java. See the Performance tuning section for details and instructions.

It needs network connection

Some parts of the suite assume a valid network connection (for data sources, version checking, etc.). The BI Server and Report Designer give you the option to automatically check for updates on start. Report Designer 3.5 automatically tries to connect to all data sources defined in the open report file.

If connectivity is not present or is blocked (e.g. by a proxy that requires authentication), the application may take a very long time (up to half an hour) to start or look like it's frozen. In reality, it's waiting for a network response that will never come, and eventually it times out.

To permanently disable version checking, you can delete the pentaho-versionchecker.jar file. You can also disable version checking in pentaho.xml (BI Server) or $HOME/.Report/applicationSettings.xml (Report Designer Classic).

Report Designer 3.6 introduced an offline mode to tackle this problem.

Resources

• 1.x version checker
• 2.x version checker

It can't connect to data source

See our guide to testing database connections.

"No more handles [gtk_init_check() failed]"

This can happen with Design Studio and Data Integration, which are based on Eclipse. To quote from the Eclipse 4.3.0 Release Notes:

This SWT error is caused by one of the following reasons:

• Connection failure to the X server.
• Insufficient memory for the Manual Test View process.

To resolve this issue, complete the following steps:

• Set the DISPLAY environment variable to the local host name or IP address (for example, export DISPLAY=:0.0).
• Correct the host name and port number in /etc/hosts.
• Start the X server.
• Increase the file descriptor limit.

If you are running over an SSH connection, you'll have to enable X11 forwarding (the -X or -Y flag).

Troubleshooting Data Integration

Troubleshooting issues with Pentaho Data Integration and its components: spoon, pan, kitchen, see here: Troubleshooting Data Integration?