DSpace 7.3 Server Errors on Update/Install

[Mike Schouten]

Salutations!

I spent the day trying to update our DSpace 7.2.1 servers to 7.3.  This process has been mostly painless for all the previous versions, but this time I encountered one or more problems that I've been completely unable to decipher.

I ran the update across two servers, one of which had some customization work done (submission forms, etc) and the other was completely stock apart from some migrated content.  I followed the update process as outlined (https://wiki.lyrasis.org/display/DSDOC7x/Upgrading+DSpace), but after I was done, the server webapp did not start with Tomcat.  I tried refreshing the database with my 7.2.1 backup and updating it again, having a feeling something might have gone wrong with the database update.  Sure enough, there was a null pointer exception during the database update... something to do with updating default entity types.  But checking "./dspace database info" afterward suggested that all updates were successfully installed.  So I'm not sure if that's at all related to the server start problem.

Moving along, I also tried erasing the database and creating it from scratch using "dspace database migrate", only to get the same error once, though indications the database was set up correctly afterward, just like with updating the 7.2.1 database.  I also tried a fresh_install instead of an update of the server files/directory and kept getting the same errors.  I did notice the difference in the Search core for Solr and reinitialized/refreshed that core with no effect.  I copied my local.cfg file from 7.2.1 unaltered on both servers.

I'm attaching two error logs which should, in theory, contain only the log messages related to the problem actions.  The "db_migrate_error" log is the result of running "[dspace]/bin/dspace database info" followed by "[dspace]/bin/dspace database migrate".  The "webapp_startup_error" log is what results from trying to start tomcat and, thereby, the DSpace server.

Any ideas or hints for what to try would be greatly appreciated!

Michael Schouten

Library IT

MacEwan University

[Tim Donohue]

Hi Michael,

Based on the logs, it looks like you have database connection issues because you might have a misconfiguration. This is the line of the logs that seems to be the problem..

2022-06-28 18:35:11,378 WARN unknown unknown org.hibernate.engine.jdbc.env.internal.JdbcEnvironmentInitiator @ HHH000342: Could not obtain connection to query metadata org.hibernate.boot.registry.selector.spi.StrategySelectionException: Unable to resolve name [org.dspace.storage.rdbms.hibernate.postgres.DSpacePostgreSQL82Dialect] as strategy [org.hibernate.dialect.Dialect]

That tells me that in your backend's local.cfg (or dspace.cfg) you have this set:

db.dialect =  org.dspace.storage.rdbms.hibernate.postgres.DSpacePostgreSQL82Dialect

This is an OLD setting from DSpace 6.x, as that " DSpacePostgreSQL82Dialect" class no longer exists in DSpace 7.  In DSpace 7, you should use the default Hibernate dialect for Postgres, so the correct setting is:

db.dialect = org.hibernate.dialect.PostgreSQL94Dialect

I'm not sure if that's the only problem, but it's definitely a misconfiguration that will cause issues in your database layer.  So, I'd recommend correcting that setting and restarting Tomcat, and trying the "./dspace database info" and "./dspace database migrate" commands again.  Hopefully that'll fix it for you.  If it doesn't, let us know on this list what the new error is.

Tim

[Mike Schouten]

Infinite thanks!  At your suggestion, I restored my 7.2.1 database, changed the db.dialect entry in my local.cfg and ran the database update script.  This time there were no errors.  Likewise, after a server restart the DSpace webapp started successfully and my initial queries suggest all is well.  So problem solved!  That could have taken me weeks to find if ever... I had visually scanned local.cfg.EXAMPLE for changes, but I completely missed the difference in db.dialect.

Thanks again!

Mike