Overview

This page contains information to help troubleshoot Projectwise Publishing Server.

 The first thing to do is understand how PW Publishing Server is being used. There are three main scenarios:

• stand-alone publishing
• viewing and redlining for Projectwise Web Explorer Lite and Projectwise WebParts
• background map publishing for the geospatial extension to Projectwise

Whatever the scenario, the information in the stand-alone publishing section is always relevant.

Stand-alone publishing

In this mode PW Publishing Server is used to publish file to the web using either the provided example web pages of a custom web application that may use the Vpr control.

Please look at the product readme for specific information.

Before searching any further, we must determine what type of problem we are facing. The most common ones are connectivity and publishing problems.

Connectivity / not found problems

Projectwise Publishing Server is an http server, similar to IIS but specific to publishing engineering content. It can run in two main "modes":

• "run as a web server extension": In this mode, all publishing requests must go directly to the IIS Server (normally configured on port 80). PW Publishing Server installs an ISAPI extension to IIS when you also check "automatically configure IIS" and restart the services. This is mandatory for correct operation in this mode. PW Publishing Server will open the tcp port specified in the "server port" configuration entry but will only use it to receive the requests from the ISAPI extension. Requests sent directly to this port from client machines will most likely fail. This is a good setup when a firewall is involved as all communication with the outside world will go through the normal http port 80. 
  In this mode, any "logical path" defined in the Publishing Server administration will generate a corresponding virtual directory in IIS when "automatically configure IIS" is checked. Publishing Server will only be able to publish files that reside in IIS virtual directories in this mode.
  Note that all the settings and security options of IIS are honored in this mode.
• not running as a web server extension: in this mode, PW Publishing Server opens the tcp port specified in the "server port" setting but this time client requests must go directly to this port. 
  Logical paths must be defined in the administration interface. Only files residing in these logical paths can be published. IIS Virtual directories are not used in this mode.

 If you have problems reaching the server or the server does not answer, you should follow the normal tcp/ip network troubleshooting tasks.

• Ensure the machine name you are using in your URLs can be translated to an IP address and reached from the client machines. You can normally use "ping <machinename>" to test this.
• Ensure the port you are connecting to is the correct port and is not blocked by firewalls. This depends on the mode described previously.
• Make sure the ports that Publishing Server is configured to use are available. Some ports could be used by other pieces of software (like Oracle, Antivirus...). You can use "netstat -p tcp" to look at tcp port usage.
• If you are running as a web server extension, IIS must be started and the ISAPI extension must be configured and running.

If you have 404 not found errors, verify that your logical paths / virtual directories correctly point to the files you want to publish.

Note that you cannot use mapped network drives in path mappings as these are only valid when the user that created the mapping is logged into the machine. The windows services of Publishing Server will not have access to the mappings. You can however use UNC paths.

Publishing problems

This is when the server can be reached but does not correctly publish the data. There are a few possible symptoms. You could be getting an error from the Vpr control saying that it cannot load the specified URL, or your web page could show an "Engine could not generate image file" message for example.

 Here is a quick list of requests that you can type directly in your Internet Explorer browser to test for publishing problems. Change the server name and port accordingly. It is suggested to do these from a Windows XP client machine as the enhanced security settings under Windows Server 2003 could cause additional problems.

• Publish a file in jpeg format using the following query:
  http://localhost/MSExamples/Geospatial/dgn/BSI200-M02-City%20Small.dgn?fmt=jpeg
• Publish a file in png format using the following query:
  http://localhost/MSExamples/Geospatial/dgn/BSI200-M02-City%20Small.dgn?fmt=png
• Publish a file in dpr format using the following query:
  http://localhost/MSExamples/Geospatial/dgn/BSI200-M02-City%20Small.dgn?fmt=dpr&pubcgi=dprclientcgi

If all those queries work fine, basic publishing works. In that case the problem may be specific to your data.
In all cases, a very good tool to help you diagnose the problem is the Publishing Server log. You can obtain the log by using a DOS shell to navigate to the main Publishing Server directory and type "publogdump.exe > log.txt". You can then open log.txt in notepad.

Here is a list of things to check if you have publication problems.

• Verify the Microstation prerequisites.
• Try to start the Microstation engine that is under <PWPSdir>/engine/microstation. Check if it takes a long time to start. If it does, something is causing a slowdown. Antivirus software may be slowing the loading of the application. Try turning your anti-virus off to see if it fixes the problem. If you can't turn it off, verify if the anti-virus executable is taking a lot of cpu time when Microstation is starting. 
  Sometimes Windows tries to validate the verisign signatures on dll/assembly files. If your PW Publishing Server does not have full access to the Internet this may be impossible. It takes a long time before Windows times out in this case. You can rule out this potential problem by going in Internet Explorer's options, under the "Advanced" tab, in the security section. Uncheck the following two options: "Check for server certificate revocation" and "Check for publisher's certificate revocation". After that, please close all your Internet Explorer browsers and restart the PW Publishing Server services before testing again. Note that the changes only apply to the currently logged in windows user. You must configure your PW Publishing Server services to run under the user account that you were logged into when doing this change.
• If it starts in a timely manner, make it open your dgn file and plot to a dpr file. If it doesn't open or plot, test with another file to see if it's a data-specific problem. The file may be corrupted, be very large or contain a big number of references for example.
• For 8.9.4 versions, make sure the display depth on the server machine is not set to 24 bits ( in "display properties, settings); you cannot check this with remote desktop, you need to be sitting in front of the server.
• If you changed any configuration, make sure you have restarted the PW Publishing Server services, otherwise your changes will not be taken into account.

As a note, reinstalling the server or downgrading to an earlier version will most probably not fix the problem.

Working with WEL or WebParts

In this mode, PW Publishing Server publishes files that reside in a Projectwise datasource to either the WEL or WebParts clients. Please make sure the instructions in the "PW Implementation Guide" have been followed first. This is mandatory in order for Publishing Server to be able to communicate with the PW Integration Server.

Start by making sure that Publishing Server can work stand-alone. It will be easier to diagnose problems this way.

Look in the PW Publishing Server log. If there are any errors communicating with the PW Integration Server, they should be listed there.

Background map publishing inside PWExplorer with geospatial extension

The PW Publishing Server technology is also used to publish background maps in the geospatial extension to Projectwise. Therefore, two options exist to publish the background maps:

• Run the Background Map Publishing Engine that is delivered with the PW Geospatial Server
• Run a full-blown PW Publishing Server

We must know what flavor we are running as troubleshooting will be different. First, an explanation of why these two options exist:

• PWPS is a standalone product, that can be sold separately. It is however quite often sold and installed along with ProjectWise Web
• The background map engine is a component of PW geospatial, it cannot be sold separately, and it is delivered only with the PW geospatial server installation program. It can be installed only on the same physical machine as the one on which the PW geospatial server component is installed ( which itself can only be installed on a machine that has a PW integration server installed).
• The reason we have those 2 things is that we need a map publishing engine for users purchasing PW Geospatial Server but not having the PW WEB components. And for those users who purchased both PWG, PW WEB and PWPS, we cannot ask them to install a separate background map engine when they already have Publisher, thus Publisher must work like a background map engine. 
• From a technology standpoint, the background map publishing engine is a subset of ProjectWise Publishing Server, it can publish design files live only in a background map context, and supports only one output format (DPR).

A note on workspaces

Projectwise has two mechanisms that let users configure workspace information when starting Microstation to view/edit dgn files: workspace profiles and managed workspaces. These features are supported by Projectwise Publishing Server and by the background map engine. However, the Microstation engine used internally does not have extra application extensions installed. Therefore, using workspace information referring to supplemental applications will not work and will make the publication fail. One such example is trying to use a Bentley Map workspace to publish dgn/xfm data. Make sure that the workspace configurations you have set on the Projectwise folders containing your background map files only depend on stand-alone Microstation.

PW Publishing Server as a map engine 

When PW Publishing Server is used, it must be installed in addition to PW geospatial, on the same server or on another machine, and it requires extra installation and setup steps similar to running it with the PW Web clients. See the PW Implementation Guide" for details.

When troubleshooting this, start by verifying if basic publishing works. Background map publishing will not work if basic publishing is broken. See the Stand-Alone publishing troubleshooting section.

If PW WEL of WebParts clients are installed, you can use these clients to test PW connectivity.

Make sure the PW Publishing Gateway is installed and working.

Background Map Publishing Engine

The background map publishing engine comes with the PW Geospatial server install and needs no additional installation steps before it can be used. It requires setup in some cases however, see the PW Geospatial documentation for details.

Also see the readme for the PW Geospatial Server product. Here is an excerpt of that readme:

Troubleshooting

• The ProjectWise Geospatial Background Map publishing engine that is delivered with ProjectWise Geospatial Integration Server uses ports 8081, 8082 and 8084. These settings can be changed by using the Background Map Publishing Administration program.
• Ensure that the address and port of the publishing engine are valid. They are defined in the ProjectWise Geospatial Administrator>Datasource Properties>Geospatial tab.
• Verify if the port that is defined in the Geospatial tab of the Datasource Properties dialog is compliant with the setup of the publishing engine. To confirm the publishing engine's settings, access the Administration page>General Settings menu. If your server is running as Web server extension, the port should be 80, which is the default iis port number; if it is not running as a Web server extension, then it should be 8081 (for example: myserver: 8081). 
  Depending on the publishing engine you use, access the Administration page through:
  • Start>Programs>Bentley>ProjectWise V8 XM>Background Map Publishing Administration for the ProjectWise Geospatial Background Map publishing engine.
  • Start>Programs>ProjectWisePublishingServer>ProjectWise Publishing Server Administration for the ProjectWise Publishing Server publisher engine.
• Make sure that the files used for the background maps are copied out from the ProjectWise storage area to your publishing engine cache. Depending on your publishing engine, the cache directory is:
  • Program Files\Bentley\ProjectWise\publisher\Cache\WorkingDir\ your datasource name on the ProjectWise Application Server computer for the ProjectWise Geospatial Background Map publishing engine.
  • Bentley\Program\ProjectWisePublishingServer\Cache\WorkingDir\ your datasource name on the ProjectWise Publishing Server computer for ProjectWise Publishing Server.
• If the files are not copied out, do the following (depending on the publishing engine):
  • Reinstall the ProjectWise Geospatial Application server with the background map publishing engine toggled ON for the ProjectWise Geospatial Background Map publishing engine
  • If you use ProjectWise Publishing Server, make sure that the ProjectWise publishing gateway is properly installed.

Limitations

• Due to a limitation in the ActiveX control that displays the background maps, if you want to create a map that contains several layers with different scale ranges, you need to create an empty layer (from an empty DGN file), with the same units as the other layers. This layer should have all the values (range and scale) set to 0.
• Multi-layered background maps whose layers include raster files may not display correctly when successively zooming in and out in the background map. It is advised to create mono-layered background maps when some layers contain raster files. 
• Make sure that ProjectWise Geospatial Integration Server has been installed before accessing your datasource. 
•  When the Background Map Publishing Engine (or ProjectWise Publishing Server) is running as a web server extension on a Windows 2003 Server OS, URL requests from ProjectWise Explorer or ProjectWise Web Explorer Lite (WEL) will cause an error. This error is due to the number of characters in the URL exceeding the default value of 260. To publish the Background Map, set the following registry entry: 
  1. From the Registry, introduce a DWORD value (UrlSegmentMaxLength) under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\HTTP\Parameters. 
  2. Set the value for UrlSegmentMaxLength to 0.
• When the ProjectWise Administrator user becomes non-expiring (needed for spatial component, for example), background map publication does not work. This behavior is specific to the user currently logged in ProjectWise Explorer. If this user is non-expiring, the error message, "Attach to ProjectWise failed" displays. The workaround is to add the Background Map publishing server to the ProjectWise trusted server list in the [Trusted Servers] section of dmskrnl.cfg. For more information about ProjectWise non-expiring users, please refer to the ProjectWise documentation.

See Also

Product TechNotes and FAQs

ProjectWise TechNotes And FAQs

External Links

Bentley Technical Support KnowledgeBase

Bentley LEARN Server

Comments or Corrections?

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