Classic JVM hangs when running Tomcat as Windows Service

Question

Hi!
I am running a Tomcat 3.2.4 application, written with Java 1.3.1_01.
To run it as a Windows Service (W2000), I am using a slightly altered version of JavaService, which works fine so far: I can use both the "hotspot" and the "server" JVM's (by selecting the jvm.dll from the respective subfolder of the JDK/jre/bin folder).
However, when I try to run the same application with the "classic" JVM, the service starts, inside of it Tomcat starts, the first output appears (to the stdout logfile) and after some time Tomcat simply hangs - it doesn't respond to anything anymore, 0% CPU, no output to logfiles anymore, doesn't even respond to normal Tomcat shutdown (e.g. when stopping the service, Windows waits the standard timeout then just kills it).
Using the classic JVM in a console (e.g. not through JavaService and the classic/jvm.dll) works fine! No problems!
Anyone here who can offer any help on this?
Any hints why Tomcat may behave correctly in 5 out of six possible configurations (hotspot-server/client as service or console or classic as console) but hanging with 1 configuration (classic as service)?
Also, on my W2000 box where this happens, the moment Tomcat hangs, I hear a Windows warning sound being played (the standard warning gong), like it happens when an info dialog pops up - only there is no dialog or whatever and the same moment Tomcat's CPU usage drops to 0% (although the app is still in startup and should do some more work for a few seconds).
This also doesn't always happen at the same moment during startup, but each time at a different moment, e.g. I can not pin it down to something that is done during startup, it just happens a short while (sometimes earlier, sometimes later) after startup...
Of course, I could simply say "forget classic, it's being phased out anyway", only: The SAME thing happens with IBM's Java 1.3 VM too (except for the gong sound, which seems to be Sun-JVM specific ;-)! And I would very much like my app to be able to run on IBM's VM (usually I'm using Sun's VMs everywhere, but we have a few stray W2000 boxes with SP2 where Sun's 1.3.1_0x VMs crash with our application [not hang like described above, but really crash, even when run as a console]) and on those boxes the IBM JVM in a console works fine - now I only have to get it working as a service too (and while researching why it hangs I saw that Sun's classic JVM hangs too, so I figured, I first find out why that happens, with the hope that the fix is applicable to IBM's JVM too...).
Thanks already,
Johannes

Answer 1

re setting classpath when using JavaService
for Win2k, Tomcat 3.3.1a, JDK1.2
below is my script for creating/installing JavaService
(based on Alexandria web site version). However, if i
try to add .jar files to classpath (ie, CP environment
variable), the service does not work. It only works
when this single .jar file is there. How can .jar or
.zip files be added to classpath for this service?
I've not been working with Tomcar as a service, so can't help directly, but can offer some comments that might be of use (apologies if they aren't!).
There are Tomcat scripts for V3.1, V3.2 and V4 with the JavaService code from Alexandria SC. Looks like you need one for V3.3 as well?
In these others, there are fairly long lists of jar files in the classpath, so I would expect it to work correctly for the version you are using (unless there is a problem with the way that classloaders are involved, which is something that is known to get in the way for some app server-based programs).
I would expect the classpath to work if changed from what you have listed to something like the following:
set CP=%TOMCAT_HOME%\lib\tomcat.jar;%TOMCAT_HOME%\lib\jaxp.jar;%TOMCAT_HOME$\lib\other_library.jar
Is that what you have tried to do, and found problems?
Does this version of Tomcat bundle all of its resources into a single jar file (tomcat.jar), or is that a file you have created yourself?
Is the problem found when loading and starting Tomcat itself, or from within your server-based application?
Does it fail to load a 'standard' Tomcat library archive, or a jar file containing your own program code?
set CP=%TOMCAT_HOME%\lib\tomcat.jar
echo %CP%
JavaService.exe -install "Jakarta-Tomcat"
%java_home%\jre\bin\classic\jvm.dll
-Djava.class.path=%CP% -Dtomcat.home=%TOMCAT_HOME%
-Djava.security.policy=%TOMCAT_HOME%/conf/tomcat.policy
-Xms128m -Xmx128m -start
org.apache.tomcat.startup.Main -params start -stop
org.apache.tomcat.startup.Main -params stop -out
%TOMCAT_HOME%\logs\stdout.log -err
%TOMCAT_HOME%\logs\stderr.log
Regards,
John Rutter