This section describes some common problems that may be faced when using the Test Manager application. This applies to version 2.0. The Release Note included with the software will identify any problems that have been fixed from older versions. It may be useful to consult the FAQ for further help with using Test Manager.

RunHTTPQuery
Staging Area Directory
Loading JDBC Driver Classes
UNIX File Permissions
UNIX Fonts Problems

To report a bug, please send an email to support@launchsoftware.com.

RunHTTPQuery
There are several known problems with this Execution Procedure.

If the HTTP request fails because of authorisation problems, or because the URL is wrong, an exception is thrown, rather than returning the HTTP response code. This is a bug in the JDK:

If the HTTP server requires a username/password, an Authenticator class is used to set them. However, the credentials are not reset between Testcases. The only way to reset these credentials is to restart the TestManager system.

When the output is also shown in a browser, this is implemented with a second request to the HTTP server, which may not be what is required (for dynamic content it may not even return the correct response).

Staging Area directory
Consult the FAQ for a discussion of how to refer to the Testcase staging area directory within execution procedure properties, including when to specify relative and absolute pathnames.

Loading JDBC Driver Classes
When using the RunSQLQuery and RunSQLUpdate execution procedures, it is necessary to specify the JDBCDriver property that indicates the driver class that should be loaded in order to perform the JDBC query operations. The message "Unable to load JDBC driver" may sometimes appear in the execution log file, if the driver class could not be loaded.

The Test Manager application must be told where the class files for the JDBC driver are. The jar file must be specified when invoking the application. The Test Manager command-line should be extended to include the appropriate jar files in the classpath option.

UNIX File Permissions
Some of the input data files for a Testcase may require certain permissions. For example, a UNIX script file must have execute permissions in order to run. However, the permissions on the original input data files are not preserved when those files are copied into the staging area when the Testcase is executed. Java does not support the setting of file permissions in a platform-independent way, as described in a number of Java bug reports.

The workaround for this problem is to run another execution procedure for the Testcase, which performs the file permission setting.

For example, suppose there is a Testcase which uses the RunExecutable procedure to run a script on the UNIX platform. It is necessary to ensure that this script has execute permissions before the RunExecutable procedure attempts to run it. This can be achieved by inserting another procedure before this one, with the following details:

Procedure: RunExecutable
Property: ExeName = chmod
Property: ExeArguments = 777 script file

This procedure will set the file permissions (in this example, every user will be given read, write, and execute access) on the script file in the staging area, so that it is ready for executing.

UNIX Fonts Problems
On some platforms, the text labels in the interface may appear strange. They may be clipped, so that the label is shown truncated on screen. The window from where the Test Manager application was invoked may show a number of messages of the form:

Font specified in font.properties not found ......

There is a problem with the Javasoft JDK/JRE on several UNIX platforms. This is
explained in a number of Java bug reports.

It is possible to remove this problem by making edits to the font.properties file that is supplied with the JRE. Instructions on doing this for a particular operating system can be found on the Javasoft discussion forums , by searching on "font.properties".