Running "Flex test drive" - Got error while attempting to connect to data service

Question

Hi,
I'm a Flex / Flash builder beginner. I downloaded the 60 days evaluation, and started to run the "Flex test drive" :
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/testdrive.html
My configuration :
XP SP3 PRO french edition
Tomcat 6.0
My local Eclipse :eclipse-jee-helios-SR2-win32 (but also got the issue on the Flash Builder Eclipse, which version is 3.4.0 (Generation ID M20090211-1700)
Flash Builder 4 with Eclipse plug-in
All on same PC
The Test Drive proposes examples in three technologies : Cold Fusion, PHP and Java. I'm doing the Java examples.
Installation of Flash Builder, as well as step 1 of the Test Drive (Build the user interface) went fine. I could run the project, which at the end of step 1 correctly displayed the UI in my browser.
Only one problem, I don't know if it is relevant for the rest of this post : I first got an error, saying that ports 8080, 8005 and 8009, requested by Tomcat, where used. After a short Google search, I fixed it by changing these ports to 8081, 8006, and 8010, in the Tomcat 6.0\conf\server.xml file.
The Test drive second step is "Connect to data". I found some discrepancies between the Test Drive doc, and what is displayed in Flash Builder. The Test Drive says :
"Use the Data menu and the Service Wizard to create a service for your application server. For ColdFusion and Java, specify the service file you put on your application server earlier (see Figure 9 for a PHP example). For Java, select the No password required check box, select the employeeService destination, and change the service package to services.employeeservice."
--> But there is no "No password required check box".
Also, when running the "Connect to data/service..." wizard, it was not at first completely clear what to choose. The proposed choices were :
BlazeDS
ColdFusion
HTTP
LCDS
PHP
Web Service
XML
Since all others choices, when tried, declared to be unconsistent with my project's server type, I finally selected "Web Service".
In the next wizard's form, according to the Test Drive indications, I specified the URI of my EmployeeService class : C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Tomcat 6.0\webapps\testdrive\WEB-INF\classes\services\EmployeeService.class
That defined correctly the other fields.
But when pressing the "Next >" button, Flash Builder issued the following error message :
English translation : Unable to extract operations and entities from specified WSDL. Reason : an error occured while instrospecting the service.
And the full error text is :
An error occured while instrospecting the service. WSDLException: faultCode=PARSER_ERROR: Problem parsing 'file:/C:/Program%20Files/Apache%20Software%20Foundation/Tomcat%206.0/webapps/testdrive/W EB-INF/classes/services/EmployeeService.class'.: com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.io.MalformedByteSequenceException: Invalid byte 2 of 2-byte UTF-8 sequence.
It is usually relatively easy to find fixes through Google searches, but this time, it didn't work. So here I am, expecting a bunch of wise answers from all the nice Flex / FB gurus that I'm sure haunt this forum .
Thanks and best regards.
Marc.

Answer 1

For those who would have the same problem, here is how I could eventually fix it.
Since the Flex Test Drive is sometimes out of sync with flash builder 4, I recreated a project using other help pages on Adobe site :
Entry point :
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Flex/4.0/AccessingData/WSbde04e3d3e6474c4-668f02f4120d422cf08- 7ffd.html
As suggested, I used the New Project wizard to create a new project, with :
Application server type : J2EE
Check the radio button "Use remote object access service : BlazeDS"
Then, as indicated in following pages (section "Accessing BlazeDS")... :
file:///C:/Mes%20documents%20C/Commun/Developpement/Documentation/HT-Tracks/AccessingData/ help.adobe.com/en_US/Flex/4.0/AccessingData/WSbde04e3d3e6474c4-668f02f4120d422cf08-7ffe.ht ml#WSbde04e3d3e6474c4-19a3f0e0122be55e1b7-8000
...I selected the "Data / Connect to Data/Services..." menu option, which started the Data/service connection wizard.
There, I selected a BlazeDS (and not Web Services) service type, and everything went fine.
Suggestion to adobe staff : maybe it would be useful to update the Flex Test Drive to reflect Flash Builder 4 ?
Very nice product anyway, so far, congratulations...
Rgds
Marc.