Errors with exteNd Composer after successful install to WebSphere Application Server

  • 3024699
  • 25-Sep-2006
  • 16-Mar-2012

Environment

IBM Websphere version 5.x.
Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition
Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 9
Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
Novell exteNd Composer 5.2.1
Microsoft Windows XP Professional

Situation

In rare cases getting errors starting up WebSphere, after successfully installing exteNd Composer 5.2.1
The WebSphere server consoles gives a Error Page Exception.
Error: "The server cannot use the error page specified for your application to
handle the Original Exception printed below. Please see the Error Page
Exception below for a description of the problem with the specified error
page."
The systemOut.log.log file has a Composer.Startup error.
Error:"Error]-[Composer.Startup]: Failed to load servlet:
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/novell/xforms/xhtml/processor/Processor
at java.lang.Class.getDeclaredConstructors0(Native Method)
at java.lang.Class.privateGetDeclaredConstructors(Class.java:1747)"

Resolution

There are 2 ways to correct this problem:
1) Manually update the variables.xml file, found in the nodes\server\server1 directory of yourAppServer install.
Edit this file manually, by adding the EXTEND_COMPOSER_LIB with the value ${EXTEND_COMPOSER_HOME}/lib

or
2) Go to the WebSphere Console -> Environment ->Manage WebSphere Variables
link and check to see if the ${EXTEND_COMPOSER_HOME}/lib variable is there.
If it is not there , add it, and restart the server.

Additional Information

The cause of this problem is still under investigation. At this time we strongly suspect the problem is probably that the install, although successful, did not update the variables.xml file properly.
If the install had failed once, and a subsequent install was successful, it is possible that the variables.xml file
was already written, and the install did not update the file, thinking that it was already uupdated since the file existed.