HPJmeter NullPointerException on hprof.txt files

[Dennis Handly]

>we're not running HP-UX and do not have a support contract.

Then as you said, as-is.

>I think you are overlooking one critical detail in my original post:

Not really, just waving my hands. :-)

>1) there's a bug in HPjmeter

Most likely. Or a user error that is hidden by that NullPointerException.

>so does that mean that the product is provided "as-is" to the rest of us?

Yes.

>Is HP really only in bugs in HPjmeter that are discovered by people who happen to have support contracts for another HP product?

(You have some verbs missing?)
Yes, you must have a HP-UX support contract.

[Filip Stachowiak]

Hi David.

Did you compare files generated by different JVMs? Maybe the format is different, that's why parser throws nullpointer?

[David A. Citron]

Filip,

>Did you compare files generated by different JVMs? Maybe the format is different, that's why parser throws nullpointer?

Unfortunately the last time HPjmeter worked for me was on a previous job and I do not have access to those resources any more.

I would assume that, yes, there's something about the format emitted by the current Sun JVM that HPjmeter is not expecting, but given that the exception is so unhelpful, I'm not sure where to start.

Thanks,
Dave

[JZ2 · Accepted solution]

Hi David,

I work on HPjmeter, and I took a look at the problem that you reported. It is indeed a bug in HPjmeter 3.1, and we fixed it a while ago in our development stream. The fix is expected to ship in our next release, which is not too far away.

In the meantime, there is a workaround that you can use. The parser is failing because there is no HEAP DUMP section in the hprof file. If you add "heap=dump" to your options, then HPjmeter 3.1 can parse the file successfully. Once the next version of HPjmeter ships, the heap=dump option will not be necessary.

Jeff

[David A. Citron]

Jeff,

> add "heap=dump" to your options

Beautiful! That did the trick! Thank you so much for speaking up on behalf of the HPjmeter team--you guys write the single best (free!) hprof analysis tool I've seen and I was hoping I wouldn't have to give up on it :-)

The only thing that would be better is if HP could open-source the tool, but I understand if there are corporate/legal restrictions to doing so.

Thanks again!
Dave

[JZ2]

David,

Thanks for letting us know that you like HPjmeter. I'm glad that the workaround will help you until our next release is available. If you have any suggestions for HPjmeter, feel free to email them to java-tools-support@hp.com

If you have any problems to report in the future (I hope not), you can enter them here or email them to us.

Jeff

[Dennis Handly]

>Beautiful! That did the trick!

I'm glad Jeff was able to give you workaround after I sent him a pointer to this thread.

[JZ2]

Just following up - HPjmeter 4.0 was released in May 2009 and contains the fix for this problem.

[David A. Citron]

I can confirm that with version 4.0.00 I no longer see this bug.

Thank you so much for continuing development on this invaluable tool!

-Dave