Deployment of new EAR not successful as changes are invisible

Question

Hi,
Our application is deployed as an EAR, which internally consists of JARs and EJBs. We do not have a control on the code as it is provided by a third party vendor.
Until recently we were using Welogic 9.2 and everytime we get a new EAR, we replace the old file on the filesystem with the new one and then Stop-Start the Admin server using backend scripts and the changes would be visible.
We recently upgraded to Weblogic 10.3 and were able to deploy the existing EAR without any issues. When the time came to replace the EAR, the same action mentioned above doesn't seem to work. While the application startsup fine, the changes aren't visible and it seems as though the deployment is still pointing to the old EAR. We have verified that the deployment is pointing to the correct EAR and also tried this a couple of times, but without any luck.
The console and AdminServer logs are also clean. I also checked the documentation to verify if the deployment process has changed, but couldn't notice any relevant updates.
Please let me know if I am missing some step or if you have any suggestions.
Regards,
Raghu

Answer 1

Hi,
Thanks for your suggestions.
When I had first replaced the EAR - I had restarted the app server and it looked like the application had been installed successfully. Then I remember performing an "Update" and it failed due to "PermGen space". Then I deleted and installed the application again and it worked fine.
Since delete/install re-deploys the application, I thought that it had worked fine and ignored the "PermGen space" error. But in reality, it looks like the old EAR's classes are still active - based on the front-end result.
That is history. Today, based on your suggestion, I directly tried to "Update" existing application (with the new EAR). It constantly failed with different exceptions and the most common one being "PermGen space". Some other exceptions are listed below. Each of these were faced during different attempts to "Update" the application.
- weblogic.application.ModuleException: Exception starting module: EJBModule(norkom_wlm_ejb.jar) - PermGen space
- weblogic.application.ModuleException: [HTTP:101216]Servlet: "configuratorInitServlet" failed to preload on startup in Web application: "norkom_cms_us".
java.lang.NullPointerException
- weblogic.application.ModuleException: Exception preparing module: EJBModule(norkom_base_ejb.jar) - PermGen space
Once when I tried to "Delete" the application, I faced the below error.
- com.bea.netuix.nf.UIControlException: com.bea.netuix.nf.UIControlException: Could not retrieve PageFlow for uri [com/bea/console/actions/app/install/Flow.jpf] for portlet [AppApplicationInstallPortlet].
Since the "java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: PermGen space" error was the most common and since increasing the value of the MEM_ARGS field in setDomainEnv.sh helped with Weblogic 9.2, I decided to do the same in 10.3 Below is how it looks now. I have highlighted the lines which were changed by me. As I don't understand their terminologies, I adopted a trial-error method.
MEM_ARGS="-Xms2048m -Xmx3072m" *********** Raghu ***********
export MEM_ARGS *********** Raghu ***********
if [ "${JAVA_VENDOR}" = "Sun" ] ; then
#WLS_MEM_ARGS_64BIT="-Xms256m -Xmx512m"
WLS_MEM_ARGS_64BIT="-Xms2048m -Xmx3072m" *********** Raghu ***********
export WLS_MEM_ARGS_64BIT
#WLS_MEM_ARGS_32BIT="-Xms256m -Xmx512m"
WLS_MEM_ARGS_32BIT="-Xms2048m -Xmx3072m" *********** Raghu ***********
export WLS_MEM_ARGS_32BIT
else
WLS_MEM_ARGS_64BIT="-Xms512m -Xmx512m"
export WLS_MEM_ARGS_64BIT
WLS_MEM_ARGS_32BIT="-Xms512m -Xmx512m"
export WLS_MEM_ARGS_32BIT
fi
MEM_ARGS_64BIT="${WLS_MEM_ARGS_64BIT}"
export MEM_ARGS_64BIT
MEM_ARGS_32BIT="${WLS_MEM_ARGS_32BIT}"
export MEM_ARGS_32BIT
if [ "${JAVA_USE_64BIT}" = "true" ] ; then
MEM_ARGS="${MEM_ARGS_64BIT}"
export MEM_ARGS
else
MEM_ARGS="${MEM_ARGS_32BIT}"
export MEM_ARGS
fi
MEM_PERM_SIZE_64BIT="-XX:PermSize=128m"
export MEM_PERM_SIZE_64BIT
MEM_PERM_SIZE_32BIT="-XX:PermSize=48m"
export MEM_PERM_SIZE_32BIT
if [ "${JAVA_USE_64BIT}" = "true" ] ; then
MEM_PERM_SIZE="${MEM_PERM_SIZE_64BIT}"
export MEM_PERM_SIZE
else
MEM_PERM_SIZE="${MEM_PERM_SIZE_32BIT}"
export MEM_PERM_SIZE
fi
#MEM_MAX_PERM_SIZE_64BIT="-XX:MaxPermSize=256m"
MEM_MAX_PERM_SIZE_64BIT="-XX:MaxPermSize=3072m" *********** Raghu ***********
export MEM_MAX_PERM_SIZE_64BIT
After doing this, "Updating" even the old EAR is consistently failing, mainly with the "PermGen space" error. Hence I am totally stuck and clueless how to proceed.
Please let me know your thoughts.
Regards,
Raghu