Web services randomly fail to deploy properly in OC4J

Question

I have an ear with around 15 services, and sometimes (today, all the time, other times, not at all) some of the services fail to deploy correctly in that when I come to access them I get one of the following (the service that fails is generally different so the below is just an example):
2009-07-07 15:06:16.633 WARNING OWS-03005 Unable to connect to URL: http://local
host:8888/democustomer/CimsImageService due to java.security.PrivilegedActionExc
eption: oracle.j2ee.ws.saaj.ContentTypeException: Not a valid SOAP Content-Type:
text/html
OR
2009-07-07 15:06:16.711 ERROR OWS-04005 An error occurred for port: {http://serv
ices.cims.prologic.com/}CimsCategoryService: javax.xml.rpc.JAXRPCException: Erro
r loading Tie: com.prologic.cims.services.runtime.CimsCategoryWebServiceSoapHttp
_Tie.
Missing class: com.prologic.cims.services.runtime.CimsCategoryWebServi
ceSoapHttp_Tie
Dependent class: oracle.j2ee.ws.server.J2EEImplementor
Loader: oc4j:10.1.3
Code-Source: /C:/oc4j/webservices/lib/wsserver.jar
Configuration: <code-source> in META-INF/boot.xml in C:\oc4j\j2ee\home
\oc4j.jar
This load was initiated at democustomer.web.democustomer:0.0.0 using the loadCla
ss() method.
The missing class is not available from any code-source or loader in the system.
If I redeploy it often, but not always, sorts the problem out so it is not a source code issue and I guess, possibly not a deployment descriptor problem for the same reason.
I'm running on OC4J 10.1.3.1 (we need to run with this version for now).
I get the same problem very occasionally on Linux 10.1.3.n but it's rare.
Anyone out there seen this before ? It's becoming very irritating.

Answer 1

idris, the only workaround I have found is to check at container startup that each service was deployed ok, by making a call to a serviceAvailable method. That way, if I restart OC4J after a deployment I see log messages if all was not well (and in fact I can specify that the container shouldn't start if the service failed)
Class oracle.j2ee.server.OC4JStartup is the one you want and insert something like into server.xml after the cluster element (the jar conmtaining your code needs to be in the applib directory too):
     <init-library path="../applib/startupshutdown.jar" /> <!-- or wherever we put it -->
<startup-classes>
<startup-class classname="com.prologic.cms.services.StartupServer" failure-is-fatal="true" >
<execution-order>0</execution-order>
               <init-param>
                    <param-name>TestServices</param-name>
                    <param-value>true</param-value>
               </init-param>
               <init-param>
                    <param-name>deployment.port</param-name>
                    <param-value>7777</param-value>
               </init-param>
               <init-param>
                    <param-name>ASwitchToPassIn</param-name>
                    <param-value>true</param-value>
               </init-param>
               <init-param>
                    <param-name>SearchIndexRebuild</param-name>
                    <param-value>true</param-value>
               </init-param>
               <init-param>
                    <param-name>waitfor</param-name>
                    <param-value>50000</param-value>
               </init-param>
               <init-param>
                    <param-name>language</param-name>
                    <param-value>en</param-value>
               </init-param>
               <init-param>
                    <param-name>locale</param-name>
                    <param-value>UK</param-value>
               </init-param>
</startup-class>
</startup-classes>