JVM Client98 Help

Common Problems

• The JVM Client98 program comes up OK, but then when I try to run benchmarks it fails with the error java.lang.OutOfMemoryError
• Appletviewer fails with a java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError complaining that it cannot find some file. What is the problem?

The benchmarks require at least 20MB of heap memory. On different systems they may require more heap, and will usually run faster with more heap. Many java interpreters have a property or command line flag to control the heap size. E.g.

    appletviewer -J-mx32m http://server/jvm98/SpecApplet.html
    

• I'm running Netscape Communicator, loading SpecApplet.html from the directory where I installed the suite, and all I see is a grey box. The applet doesn't run. I opened Netscape's Java console and saw the error message:

 
    Security Exception: class from local disk trying to access url:file:/home/jvm98/props/user

However, you may want to run from the local disk for test purposes, not for public reporting of results. In this case you may use another web browser that allows you finer control of your security preferences, e.g. appletviewer from the Java Development Kit, Microsoft Internet Explorer, or HotJava. In this case you may need to set properties or answer dialog boxes giving authorization for the applet to read from your disk. See Advanced Topics for more information.

• I'm getting errors with Netscape Communicator. E.g., all I see is a grey box where the applet should be, or I get an "Applet exception", or a benchmark "hangs" and never completes.

• I'm trying to run SPECjvm98 on an x86/Win-95 system using JDK1.1.6 The time reported by the run is bogus - it always reports near zero execution time (no matter how long it took):

    ======= _201_compress Finished in 0.010 secs 
    

The JIT Update for JDKTM 1.1.6 Software, Early Access 1 (or later) whose URL as of this writing is: http://developer.javasoft.com/developer/earlyAccess/jit/

• I'm running the benchmarks from a web server, but my network monitor shows there is little or no HTTP activity going on. How can this be?

Were you running in application mode earlier? If so, you may have set your CLASSPATH to load from local disk when possible instead of from the web server. Check and reset your CLASSPATH, or log out and log back in.

• Earlier I was running the benchmarks and everything was OK, but now some of them are consistently running faster or slower than before, and some of them are getting incorrect results errors. I'm certain that nothing has changed in my configuration. What could have gone wrong?

Have you been studying the benchmarks using an Integrated Development Environment? Such a tool is very useful in navigating the source code and examining relationships among classes. However if you're not careful it may recompile the source code which could make a benchmark run faster or slower. The run rules prohibit modifying the class files.

Also, if there is a bug in the IDE's compiler, it could produce incorrect code causing the JVM class loader to reject the invalid class file, or producing incorrect results.

The _999_checkit program can be used to detect recompiled class files or installations that have been otherwise corrupted. If that is the case you should remove the benchmark suite and reinstall.

• The benchmark uses deprecated methods. E.g., DataInputStream.readLine ().

Yes it does. Development of the suite began under the 1.0.2 API and concluded under the 1.1 API. We expect that later releases will be based entirely on 1.1.

• I'm running on MacOS Runtime for Java 2.0. The benchmarks seem to be running, but the display reports an error, invalid results. I opened the benchmark console and it looks like all the output for each benchmark is printed on a single line.
• I'm running on a mainframe computer that uses the EBCDIC character set, and the benchmarks fail.

Unfortunately there are three areas in the benchmarks where the portability features available in the Java platform have not been used as they should be:

1. In some places there are dependencies on the ASCII character set. Unicode should be used throughout.
2. In some places a particular line termination character (e.g. '\n' for UNIX) is hard coded. Some systems handle multiple line termination sequences, but this will cause spurious errors on other systems. Character.LINE_SEPARATOR should be used instead.
3. In some places a particular directory separator character (e.g. '/' for UNIX) is hard coded. In contexts where a URL is specified, the '/' character is correct for all systems as a component separator. However in contexts where it may be a file rather than a URL, then File.separator should be used instead.

• The results page shows up fine in my web browser, Netscape Communicator 4.04, but when I print it the bar charts disappear.

You need a web browser that can print applets, e.g. Netscape Communicator 4.05, Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.01, or Sun HotJava 1.02. If you're using an older browser, turn off Java and the SPEC ratio bar chart will appear as GIF graphs. It's not quite as nice as the Java applet graph, and the memory utilization chart does not appear, but you can view and print it in almost any browser.

• When I first generated results pages they looked OK. But then I moved them to another directory and the bars in the chart are all just white outlines.
• When I first generated results pages they looked OK. But then I moved them to another directory and the bars charts are just gray rectangles.

Wherever you move results pages you need to also have copies of the GIF images and Java class files used by the pages. Normally (if you have not overridden the default location when you generated the reporting page) the required files are:

• class/BasePeakGraph.class
• class/Graph.class
• images/spec-sm.gif
• images/basebar.gif
• images/invalid.gif
• images/peakbar.gif