Fixing a problematic bug with Pentaho PDI in Linux Mint 17

Some days ago, I was working with Pentaho Data Integration (known like Kettle) and in recent versions of Linux, the platform wasn’t initiate for a problem with libsoup2.4, which is a HTTP library implementation in C, and it’s used by Webkit libraries which come with Pentaho PDI. This platform uses libsoup2.4.1 to launch the quick reference site that explain some basic things about the Pentaho Business Intelligence, but for some reason, this site wasn’t been shown, and the launch process was been stopped every time that I tried to initiate the program. So, how to fix it? Keep reading. Like the name of the post, I’m using Linux Mint 17 (Qiana) in my ASUS X550C, so, first, I will provide some information about my system: Linux kernel # uname -r 3.13.0–24-generic Java version # java -version java version “1.7.0_65” OpenJDK Runtime Environment (IcedTea 2.5.2) (7u65–2.5.2–3~14.04) OpenJDK Server VM (build 24.65-b04, mixed mode) libsoup2.4.1 description # apt-cache show libsoup2.4–1 It was originally part of a SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) implementation called Soup, but the SOAP and non-SOAP parts have now been split into separate packages. libsoup uses the Glib main loop and is designed to work well with GTK+ applications. This enables GNOME applications to access HTTP servers on the network in a completely asynchronous fashion, very similar to the GTK+ programming model (a synchronous operation mode is also supported for those who want it). Features: Both asynchronous (GMainLoop and callback-based) and synchronous APIs Automatically caches connections SSL Support using GnuTLS Proxy support, including authentication and SSL tunneling Client support for Digest, NTLM, and Basic authentication Server support for Digest and Basic authentication Basic client-side SOAP and XML-RPC support This package contains the shared library. So, when I was to lauch PDI, always it said this: A fatal error has been detected by the Java Runtime Environment: SIGSEGV (0xb) at pc=0x72abb86d, pid=7937, tid=3058903872 JRE version: OpenJDK Runtime Environment (7.0_65-b32) (build 1.7.0_65-b32) Java VM: OpenJDK Server VM (24.65-b04 mixed mode linux-x86 ) Derivative: IcedTea 2.5.2 Distribution: Ubuntu 14.04 LTS, package 7u65–2.5.2–3~14.04 Problematic frame: C [libsoup-2.4.so.1+0x5486d] soup_session_feature_detach+0x1d Failed to write core dump. Core dumps have been disabled. To enable core dumping, try “ulimit -c unlimited” before starting Java again If you would like to submit a bug report, please include instructions on how to reproduce the bug and visit: http://icedtea.classpath.org/bugzilla The crash happened outside the Java Virtual Machine in native code. See problematic frame for where to report the bug. So, I began to search in Pentaho’s forums about the bug and I found two links talking about it: Spoon doesn’t start on my Ubuntu 14.04 LTS PDI-10504 But which is the problem? Like I said, Spoon uses libsoup2.4.1 to launch the site in a browser. If you are using Google Chrome, it uses WebKit libraries to call the browser, and if you use Mozilla Firefox, it uses Xulrunner libraries to do it; but like Spoon, which is based in Eclipse doesn’t know by default where are these libraries, it stops the launching process. So, how to especify this to Spoon. You need to edit the launching options to specify to Spoon which browser you will use for the site: vim /opt/data-integration/spoon.sh Then, you should search the OPT line and add this to the final these options. For 32 bits: -Dorg.eclipse.swt.browser.DefaultType=mozilla -Dorg.eclipse.swt.browser.XULRunnerPath=/usr/lib/xulrunner For 64 bits: -Dorg.eclipse.swt.browser.DefaultType=mozilla -Dorg.eclipse.swt.browser.XULRunnerPath=/usr/lib64/xulrunner So, with this fix, you can launch Spoon again with: ./opt/data-integration/spoon.sh and you will see everything working well:

Spoon launching

The site in question.

Other image of the site

Spoon working well with Big Data extensions

Conclusions

Pentaho BI Suite is one of the main products that we use here for Data Warehousing and Reporting, and its community is very active around the world. Thanks to them, I was able to fix the problem and keep working with the suite, so thanks again to them and keep doing this great work.