SIM hangs IE or Java, frequent error for many users

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

SIM often logs us off, i.e. the browser is returned to the loginprompt, but from what I know there is no timeout anywhere, at least not defined by us.

In addition, when this happens the IE window will no longer respond to the TAB key (meaning you cannot jump between boxes, but need to click in them when entering user name and password/domain), and IE can also not be closed normally, i.e. you will not be allowed to close it, you need to bring up Task Manager and kill the process. Once closed IE will work normally when started again.

We have seen this error a few times before, but now the last two weeks it has started to become very frequent and for many of our users and I would like to know if anyone else has seen this. I suspect it is related to the new Sun Java 1.4.2_06 driver (we have been using 1.4.2_01 up until now), but uninstalling it and only using the previous version does not solve the problem, so there must be something else or in addition.

[Rob Buxton]

Mikael,
I'm using JRE 1.4.2_06 and have been since before I upgraded to HPSIM 4.2. I've found it very stable.

What version of HPSIM? What OS?

I'm not seeing similar problems. The main problem I see with HPSIM 4.2 is the View Task Results screen is pretty much unusable as it ramps up IE usage to 100% of my Workstation. But if I click on the Home Page it drops immediately once the Home Page loads.

I've never been returned to the Login Screen.

I did try JRE 1.5, but I found that was a bit unstable.

[Darren Z]

Are you running IE 6.0+? I know in the Installation Instructions it specifically states to use IE 6.0+. I have tried running SIM with IE 5.5 and I've never encountered the errors your describing, but I have run into the pages rendering incorrectly. I would make sure your running the latest IE with the latest service pack.

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

Windows 2000 & Windows XP
IE 6.0 SP1 + all security patches from MS
HPSIM 4.1

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

Above OS was clients, server is Windows 2003

[Darren Z]

Interesting... A shot in the dark, but are you accepting cookies for the server hosting SIM?

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

Yup, cookies cookies everywhere, from all visited nodes and webagents :)

[Darren Z]

How long till you're "signed off"/have to "kill" it through task manager? Does every client computer have this issue?

I personally have had success using Java 1.5 Update 01. Have you experimented with that version?

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

The times varies between the machines, I have those who gets logged off every 15 minutes, and contrarywise I had a terminal services session running on the server to check if the service itself was the problem, and there the session was kept alive for several hours, but was logged out sometime during the night as I logged in this morning and noticed it.

No, have not yet tried any newer Java driver than 1.4.2_01, as the 1.4.2_06 has seemed quite slower in executing than the previous one, but I'll find a spare PC and give it a try.

I may have forced a logoff once, I triggered a big job, and disk idle time on the database raid went to 0, and at that point I was logged off. Nothing conclusive but I think I'll look into if those two are related i.e. heavy I/O being a possible factor.

[Darren Z]

Another... shot in the dark... do you have a proxy server via a Manual script [through Automatic Configuration in IE] and/or a hardcoded proxy server [through Proxy Settings in IE]?

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

Hmm, yes we use proxy, configured via AD (GPO) but I don't see how that should affect it, or am I missing anything here ?

[Darren Z]

We use a proxy script and a direct proxy server in IE where I work. I had some wierd problems when I installed Java. The Java JVM uses IE settings by default for its 'Internet Connection' settings. The problem was that when I connected to LAN/Intranet sites including SIM or RILOEs I would have issues with them. After investigating I realized the problem occured because the JVM was using the proxy server to reach internal LAN/Intranet sites. I configured the JVM to just use the direct proxy server and 'checked' bypass for local sites and I saw my wierd issues clear up. Again, I don't really know what your issue is and it may be a long shot, but play around with your proxy settings to see if that clears your issues.

[Mikael Rönnbäck]

Thanks, I'll take a look around that, though I'm unsure about it since I'm also bypassing proxy for local adresses & intranet, and I was running the session on the server vs localhost in the test. But thanks anyway for the suggestions I will do some more looking into Java :)