I have just recent run into and solved a problem where a WebSphere 6.1.0.3 nodeagent process wouldn’t start on Windows. What was odd is that it initially presented itself by not starting via the Windows Service. I was able to start it via startNode.bat just fine. When it didn’t start, the java.exe process would run, get to about 50-60mb, take 100% of cpu and then not get any further.
Next, I tried starting it via startNode.bat while running as the same user that the service was running as, and discovered that it didn’t work running as that user. Now that was interesting. Somehow there was a problem related to a specific user. The fun part was what came next. A look through all of the WebSphere logs didn’t yield anything. I turned tracing on to the highest level and that didn’t reveal anything.On the thought that maybe some file couldn’t be read or written to, I grabbed the filemon utility from Sysinternals.com and noticed a file that was being overwritten under c:\Documents and Settings\Local Settings\Application Data\javasharedresources . That was interesting, but didn’t seem that important.
Next, I used the Windows “runas” command. I logged in as the user that was unable to get startNode.bat to work. With runas, I specified to run as myself using my profile and the nodeagent started just fine. Next, I specified to run as myself, but to use the profile for the user that was broken by specifying /env. And would you believe it, now it wouldn’t start. Hmmm, so the problem was somewhere in the profile and filemon had pointed me to a file that was under the broken user’s profile!
I renamed the file under c:\Documents and Settings\Local Settings\Application Data\javasharedresources and then ran startNode.bat as the user it had not been working for. Whew, it worked! I have no idea what this file is used for, but when it was recreated, all was well. Running a difference on the files yielded nothing and the privileges appeared to be the same between the two files.