HIPE Known Issues

Welcome to the HIPE Known Issues page. Please take a look at the table of contents below. You can find known issues for each HIPE version, in addition to installation/uninstallation, startup, help, Science Archive and other issues common to different HIPE versions.

This page is for known issues in the HIPE software. For known issues in data products see this page.

These known issues are applicable to the latest versions of HIPE and its dependent software (for example, Java 6/7). Any issue that is resolved with an update to the operational version of HIPE or Java, is listed on this page.

Please note that some issues detected in previous versions may still be present in HIPE 11. Scroll down and check earlier versions if you do not see your particular issue listed for HIPE 11.

Installation and de-installation issues

The installer for HIPE 13 crashes on OS X Lion (10.7)

Ticket number: INFR-1600 (Third party; Won't Fix)

Versions affected: User release for HIPE 13 (13.0.0)

Description: The installer for HIPE 13.0 crashes on OS X Lion (10.7) even if HIPE itself is currently supported on that platform.

Root cause: The installer software provider (Flexera) has dropped support for Mac OS Lion 10.7 when using authentication (special write access for protected directories).

The installer for Mac complains about write permissions. Why?

You need write permissions for the directory where you want to install HIPE. For example, you need Administrator privileges to install in /Applications. If you have installed HIPE successfully in the past, and are now experiencing write permission problems, it may be that some other application changed the permissions in the meantime. There have been cases of scientific applications such as SciSoft doing this. Once you revert write permissions to their correct values, HIPE installation should succeed.

The installer for Windows does not start and issues the error message Not a valid Win32 application. Why?

This problem has been encountered under Windows Vista because the installer had not been downloaded correctly, resulting in an empty file. The exact cause is not yet known. As a workaround, try downloading the installer in a different way (for instance, via command line FTP rather than a web browser) or from another computer.

Why does the uninstaller leave some icons and files/directories behind?

This incomplete uninstallation is a known issue and may be caused by a corrupted InstallAnywhere global registry. As a workaround, try renaming the InstallAnywhere registry file. See point 7 in the InstallAnywhere issues page for detailed information. If you add files (such as Jython scripts) into HIPE directories after installation, these will not be removed by the uninstaller.

For other issues affecting the installer, check this page.

Known issues in HIPE 15

Using high-density displays with HIPE makes Java 8 display unreadably small text and icons on Windows and Linux

Ticket number: None; Third-party.

Versions affected: All HIPE versions

Description: Java Swing does not render text and icons correctly scaled on displays with a pixel density higher than 100 pixels per inch (ppi) on Windows and Linux, causing UI elements to be very small.

Root cause: Oracle only provided pixel-dense fixes for Retina displays on macOs, leaving Windows and Linux with an inconsistent configuration. (Java tells the Operating System that it is pixel-dense aware but actually it does nothing, leaving the UI elements at their original scale.) This has been fixed for the future release of Java 9 ( JEP-263).

Workaround: There was a JVM argument to prevent Java stating that it is HiDPI aware on Windows: -Dsun.java2d.dpiaware=false . Unfortunately, it doesn't work with Java 8 because Oracle has added to the java.exe manifest file the following statement, overriding the JVM argument:

  <asmv3:application> 
    <asmv3:windowsSettings xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/SMI/2005/WindowsSettings"> 
       <dpiAware>true</dpiAware> 
    </asmv3:windowsSettings> 
  </asmv3:application> 

If you do not mind modifying your Java installation, you can edit the manifest of java.exe, javaw.exe and javaws.exe with a tool like ResEdit and set the dpiAware value to false. Then Windows will scale UI elements automatically to the proper size.

Product browser does not refresh for MyHSA data in the current session

Ticket number: HCSS-18240 (by design; won't fix)

Versions affected: All HIPE versions

Description: If you retrieve observations from the Herschel Science Archive using getObservation, these are not available from the Product Browser perspective until you restart HIPE.

Root cause: For this to happen, you have Save data on demand enabled in Preferences > MyHSA > Advanced. This happens because the Product Browser only searches in the direct retrieval sessions for MyHSA where the connection status is OFF and, in this use case, the observation has been downloaded into one which is ON-CACHED so it isn't checked when you launch the query from the product browser in the current session. When you close HIPE and re-open it, it locks this direct retrieval session so it is OFF and that is why it then works and resolves the ProductRef locally in a new session.

Workaround: Restart HIPE. NOTE: Disabling the Save data on demand option will not work because then the observation will not be saved locally so the Product Browser will still not find it.

You cannot import your saved session state and variables from HIPE 14

Ticket number: HCSS-21177 (Third party; Jython breaking change)

Versions affected: HIPE 15 (opening) any previous version (saved session state)

Description: While trying to restore the saved session state and variables, you receive the following exception:

herschel.ia.task.TaskException: failed: The file <yourSerFile.ser> could not be loaded
 Because org.python.core.PyObject; local class incompatible: stream classdesc serialVersionUID = -5518487409570819225, local class serialVersionUID = -2690220732157457541

Where yourSerFile.ser is the saved session state and variables generated with HIPE 14 and earlier.

Root cause: A change in how the serialisation is handled in the new version of Jython (2.7) used in HIPE 15.

Workaround: None at the moment.

Known issues in HIPE 14

scanamorphosNoiseSpectrum task outputs can have subtle differences between runs due to using a different random seed each time

Ticket number: PACS-6858

Versions affected: 14.x

Description: Maps reduced using the JScanam method can have subtle (always below the noise level) differences in the output flux between runs.

Root cause: While initialising a (pseudo) random number generator in task scanamorphosNoiseSpectrum, used internally in scanamorphosIndividualDrifts, the seed is left up to the system, so the distribution of the values is different between runs and this affects the final result.

Workaround: None at the time, because this behaviour is not controlled by any user property or parameter.

WCS information of HIFI spectral cubes for Solar System Objects (SSO) should not be changed within HIPE

Ticket numbers: HCSS-20497 / HIFI-6196 (Won't fix; by design)

Versions affected: All.

Description: HIFI FITS keywords are now also correct for SSO as well as standard maps. The HIPE software allows now the WCS projection type of OFLN-GLS and OFLT-GLS.

Root cause: HIFI maps are read correctly by the HIPE software, but the actual projection types of OFLN-GLS and OFLT-GLS are NOT implemented in HIPE, just the keywords are accepted.

Workaround: None, the manipulation of WCS coordinates for SSO should not be done within HIPE.

Known issues in HIPE 13

HSA ping from HIPE does not work (but connection is OK), affecting SPIRE calibration updating

Version affected: HIPE 13

The testing of the HSA connection from HIPE is reporting that HIPE is unable to connect to the HSA. This is, in fact, not true and data can be retrieved from the HSA with no problems. It is a problem with the ping itself. As a consequence the spire-cal Updater is not working. A workaround exists that it is to retrieve the latest calibration tree (the appropriate one to work with HIPE 13.0) directly from the HSA by running this command from the command line:

cal=spireCal(calTree="spire_cal_13_1", saveTree=True) 

It is not possible to use getObservation with obsid and tag parameters

Ticket number: HCSS-20262 (Won't fix; by design)

Versions affected: All versions of HIPE since 11.0.

Description: When using both obsid and tag as parameters for getObservation (GetObsTask), the task is unable to retrieve tagged observations from local pools.

Root cause: The task will first look in MyHSA pool (which does not store tags, being a cache for the archive), when no poolname is supplied as an argument, and won't find any tagged observation there.

Workaround: Always use the poolname where the tagged observation is stored. MyHSA does not support tags.

STR switch-overs and SVV resets are not properly handled by the auxiliary processor creating the pointing product

Affected versions: HIPE versions prior to 14.1.

Description: In HCSS 13.0, the auxiliary processor that creates the pointing product was updated to automatically check for STR switch-overs and SVV rests and applies the corrections whenever appropriate. However, this was only implemented for the "simple-corrected" attitude (column simpleCorrFilterQuat) and not for the "gyro-propagated" one (column filterQuat).

Hence, the astrometry of the SPG 13.0 products retrieved from the archive (processed with the gyro-propagated attitude) are still affected by these anomalies.

Workaround: it is required to reprocess the data. Since the simpleCorrFilterQuat is properly corrected for the anomalies, it is possible to overwrite the column filterQuat of the pointing product with the simpleCorrFilterQuat and then launch the pipeline processing ensuring that you use the new pointing product.

However, in case of doubt of if you have observations in one of the ODs referred below and processed with SPG < 13.0, please contact the HSC Helpdesk for more information and support. Please refer to the HSC Helpdesk web link

The problem was initially fixed in HIPE 14.0. However, it was found that the STR misalignment was not properly handled in early ODs (<= 113) and has been fixed in HIPE 14.1. (see SPR HCSS-20990). Nevertheless, some issues still exist for a small set of SPIRE parallel observations in OD 111 (investigation on-going).

A more comprehensive description and a full list of affected periods and observations is given here.

Older HIPE versions

Known issues for older HIPE versions are listed in a separate page.

General HIPE startup issues

HIPE does not start at all, without giving error messages. What's wrong?

This can happen for different reasons, that are explored in the next entries. When you start HIPE by clicking on its icon and a problem occurs, you may only see a terminal/command window appear for a fraction of a second, leaving you without information on the error.

To obtain more information about the error, try invoking HIPE directly from a terminal/command window ([installation_dir]/apps/hipe) and examine the text output. Note that the output from some errors can be quite lengthy, so you may need to scroll up to discover the root cause.

The next entries list some common problems that prevent HIPE from starting.

HIPE cannot start: the JVM cannot reserve enough memory

This only applies if you installed HIPE using the installer, and not downloading a developer build from the Continuous Integration System.

The cause is that the Java virtual machine is unable to start with the designated amount of memory.

The terminal/command window from which you invoke HIPE shows the following error message that indicates insufficient memory:

Error occurred during initialization of VM
Could not reserve enough space for object heap
Could not create the Java virtual machine.

To fix this error you have to modify two properties in the installed.properties file within your HIPE installation directory. There is no need to reinstall HIPE.

The properties you need to modify are the following. You have to lower the amount of allocated memory:

java.vm.memory.max
java.vm.options=-XX:PermSize

Possible values are the following:

java.vm.memory.max=1024m
java.vm.options=-XX:PermSize=128m

Try running HIPE after modifying the values until it successfully starts.

You may have the same properties defined in a hipe.props or user.props file, located in the .hcss directory within your home directory. In this case, any values set in hipe.props override those in user.props, which override those in installed.properties. Make sure to edit the properties in the file with highest proprity for your changes to take effect. See this page for more information on property files and their precedence order.

HIPE cannot start: SAXNotRecognizedException

Ticket number: HCSS-7112

The terminal/command window from which you invoke HIPE shows a SAXNotRecognizedException.

To solve this issue, add the following line to the installed.properties file in your HIPE installation directory:

java.vm.options = -Djavax.xml.parsers.SAXParserFactory=com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.SAXParserFactoryImpl

HIPE cannot start: exception access violation.

Ticket number: HCSS-7139

The terminal/command window from which you invoke HIPE shows an EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION error related to a class in org.apache.xerces.

Restart HIPE to resolve the issue.

This error is probably due to a bug in the Java Virtual Machine, and has so far been found only on Windows XP 32 bit.

I get startup messages about missing HIFI/PACS/SPIRE modules. Is that serious?

You are probably referring to messages such as the following (for HIFI; messages for PACS and SPIRE are the same):

Import "from herschel.hifi.all import *" returns:
          Import Error -> No module named hifi

Such messages are harmless and just reflect the fact that you have not installed the software related to the specified instruments.

Java 8 issues

Trying to use the Versant object database with Java 8 will not work

Versions affected: HIPE 14.0.

Description: If you use developer builds installed using Java 8, you can experience errors related to Versant. HIPE versions 12 and 13 use Java 7 because of these Versant incompatibilities. The user installer will set up a private JRE with version 7 isolated from the system Java installation, so you will not be affected by this issue.

Root cause: The Versant version included in HCSS software is completely incompatible with Java 8.

Java 7 issues

In a Windows domain-joined computer (or with special folder redirection for user profiles) Java can be unable to write to the user home directory

Description: When executing HIPE in the context of a user that has redirected shell folders, environment variables in the Desktop path in the Registry or doesn't have a roaming profile for the domain, the Java VM cannot determine the working directory for the user or, as it is called in Windows parlance, "home path". Instead, it uses the "user profile" directory, which can be shared between several users, be read-only or even can be unresolvable for Java because it contains environment variables. In those cases, writing to this home directory (in Java terms "user.home") can fail with an error message like the one shown below.

Error message: HIPE writes a WARNING message when Java is unable to resolve the correct home directory for the user. Other error messages can be displayed and they are related to HIPE-managed pools like MyHSA, preferences, automatic backup files or anything that it is written automatically to the .hcss directory inside the home dir.

18-Mar-14 11:41:16.968 WARNING LogView : Could not log to file:
java.io.IOException: Couldn't get lock for C:\Users\wrongdir\.hcss\apps\hipe\logs\hipe_user_20140318_114116.log
       at java.util.logging.FileHandler.openFiles(Unknown Source)
       at java.util.logging.FileHandler.(Unknown Source)
       at herschel.ia.jconsole.views.LogView.(LogView.java:119)
       at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
       at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(Unknown Source)
       at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(Unknown Source)
       at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Unknown Source)
       at java.lang.Class.newInstance(Unknown Source)
       at herschel.share.util.ObjectUtil.newInstance(ObjectUtil.java:153)

wrongdir is the directory that Java has retrieved using the faulty algorithm described below. user is the Windows username of the current user. In a "normal" set-up, these two strings should match.

Root cause: Due to a bug in Java, probably present since the first version, the Virtual Machine uses a non-supported method for determining the user home directory (which is retrieving a well known path from the Registry: the Desktop path, and considering the base directory as home directory). This usually works for single user, or multiple user computers which are not joined to a Windows domain, but causes errors if the computer is domain-joined, has special configuration for the redirection (symbolic links) of user directories or any other non-standard configuration related to user profiles.

Workaround: If the special folder redirection is not applied using group policies but it is a persistent change of configuration (perhaps added to the system image used to install Windows), you can change the path of the value Desktop to a user-writable directory. This value is inside the following Registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders

NOTE: Please take care editing the Windows Registry and be sure to follow the Microsoft recommended procedure.

Application blocked by security settings when trying to launch external Web Start applications that lack the proper publisher certificate (e.g. Aladin)

Description: As part of the security overhaul for the latest versions of Java 7, Oracle has also introduced a mechanism in which Web Start applications that are not signed with the proper publisher certificate or are self-signed are blocked. See the screenshot below in Error message.

Error message: When sending images to Aladin (which currently is self-signed), the following modal dialogue appears:

Workaround: General instructions on how to override the security mechanisms set in place by Oracle in the latest versions of the JRE are described here. Our recommendation is that you add the site from which the .jnlp file of Aladin is downloaded to the Java Exception Site List. These are the steps:

• Open the Java Control Panel (inside Control Panel in Windows, inside System Preferences in OS X, depends on the distribution in Linux).
• Click on the Security tab.
• Inside the Exception Site List panel, click on the Edit Site List... button.
• Click Add in the dialogue that opens.
• Enter the root URI for the Aladin site (http://aladin.u-strasbg.fr).
• An alert is displayed telling you that trusting HTTP sites is a security risk. Please click Continue to acknowledge the alert and complete the addition.

The Web Start applications downloaded from the sites you add in this way will not be subject to security checks.

Cannot find Java Runtime Environment (JRE) when launching external Web Start applications from HIPE on Mac OS X

Description: In certain combinations of Mac OS X 10.7 and Java 7, you might get an error message when trying to open the HSA user interface from HIPE. In that case, an error appears (see Error Message below) that states that there is no Java Runtime Environment installed. Even installing again, the HSA does not execute correctly.

Ticket number: HCSS-18932

Error message: The error displayed is similar to this screenshot:

Root cause: This error is due to a change in the repository directory for the Java Runtime Environment and the Java Developer Kit distributions from previous versions. References to older versions of the plug-in are kept in the system and conflict when launching Java Web Start applications. This issue is related to the one below.

Workaround: The simple workaround is to:

1. Completely remove java 7 from the system following the instructions in http://www.java.com/en/download/help/mac_uninstall_java.xml and http://docs.oracle.com/javase/7/docs/webnotes/install/mac/mac-jdk.html
2. Then reinstall the Java Developer Kit 7 (JDK) and Java Runtime Environment 7 from a Firefox browser following the instructions at http://www.java.com/en/download/help/mac_install.xml

Java dialogue pops up after closing an external application launched from HIPE using Java Web Start on Mac OS X

Description: When you close an external application opened from HIPE (like the Herschel Science Archive, VOSpec, Aladin, etc.), the dialogue in section "Error message" below pops up.

Error message: The following modal dialogue is displayed after closing the external application:

Root cause: This is a known bug (although is not available at Oracle's bug database at the moment, it is in OpenJDK bug database) of Java on Mac OS X that will be fixed in Java 7 Update 60. The error is apparently caused by the presence of an alternative JavaLaunchHelper implementation in a dynamic library (.dylib extension) provided by a third party and registered as a Safari browser plug-in.

Workaround: There is no workaround at the moment (see below in "Side effects") except waiting for the new update from Oracle.

Side effect: This message does not actually indicate an error, as the external application was correctly launched, used and closed. The modal dialogue is displayed because HIPE gathers any console (error) output when the external application is executing and displays it in a modal dialogue when it is closed.

Warning appears in the console when running HIPE with a user that is not administrator in Windows 8 and later

Ticket number: HCSS-18807

Error message: This appears in a Command Prompt when starting HIPE.

WARNING WindowsPreferences <init>: Could not open/create
prefs root node Software\JavaSoft\Prefs at root 0x80000002. Windows RegCreateKey
Ex(...) returned error code 5.

Root cause: In a Windows installation with Java 7 version 21 or later, the Windows Preferences classes in Oracle's JVM try to read from the Windows Registry key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\JavaSoft\Prefs . Since the key has not been created by the Java installer (as was the case in previous versions of Java), these classes try to create them and fail due to insufficient privileges. This is displayed on the Java console as seen above in the warning message.

Workaround: This warning message can be safely ignored. But if you want to remove it completely the easiest workaround is starting HIPE at least once as administrator.

Side effects: The attempt to read this Registry key does not affect the behaviour of HIPE, since HIPE stores the user preferences in the CURRENT_USER hive of the Windows Registry.

General Help System issues

When Google Chrome is the default browser for Mac OS X, the navigation arrows at the top of the help pages are not rendered

After repeated uses of the help pages for HIPE with Chrome, the images for the navigation arrow icons located in the header of the pages are (supposedly) retrieved from the browser cache but not rendered at all.

Workaround: The current workaround for this behaviour is to clear Google Chrome's cache, following these instructions.

The help does not work anymore! What's wrong?

First, check if your issue is that described below, in Why is the HIPE Help System suddenly unable to connect to any help page? If not, you have probably encountered a bug. The following are known issues that can prevent you from viewing the documentation, resulting either in a blank page or an error message:

• A caching bug in Safari 4.0 can be solved by clearing the browser cache. Alternatively, open the help page with another web browser: copy and paste the address (something like http://127.0.0.1:8082/index.jsp?mark=null) to the address bar of the other browser.
• A problem with Jetty's file management (Jetty is part of the help system) can result in error messages when viewing the documentation of any installed HIPE version. In particular, you may get an HTTP ERROR: 404 NOT FOUND message in your browser, and a message about index.jsp not found in the command line terminal. There are two options to solve the problem:
  • Delete the temporary directory created by the help system in /private/var/folders/[1]/[2]/T/yahajs_[username]_[HIPE version]/jetty/instance_[instance number]/webapp (the first ellipsis [1] is a pair of alphanumeric characters and the second [2] is a string of 30 alphanumeric characters). For Linux, the path will be something like /tmp/yahajs_[username]_[HIPE version]/jetty/instance_[instance number]/webapp depending on the distribution.
  • If the previous solution does not work, please try rebooting the computer.
• Older browser versions may not display documentation correctly. For example, links from HIPE to the Help System, like the Help in URM menu entries for tasks, work in Firefox 3.6.x but not in Firefox 3.0.x. Other legacy browsers may have similar problems.
• If you are using Linux and get an error message like Firefox can not contact the server www.%u.com, change your default browser from firefox %u to firefox %s (same if mozilla is your default browser). See the documentation of your Linux distribution for how to change default web browser. Alternatively, in HIPE choose Edit --> Preferences, go to Help & Documentation and enter the path to Firefox, or to another browser on your system, in the Browser field. Click Test to check if it works.
• In general, when you encounter a problem with the Help System you should follow these steps:
  • See if the help works with another browser. If possible, upgrade your browser to the latest version.
  • Clear the browser cache
  • Delete the browser cookies
  • Reboot the computer

If none of the above works, please raise a ticket with the Helpdesk.

Is there a way to open the HIPE Help System without starting HIPE?

Yes, via the hipe_help command, which resides in the apps folder in your HIPE installation. The hipe_help command will start a standalone Help System in a window called Yet Another JAva Help System. Press the Display button to open the Help initial page in your default browser.

The Help System opens in my web browser. Does it mean I need to be connected to the Internet?

No, the Help System resides on your computer and does not need Internet connection, except of course for links to online resources, such as YouTube videos and pages hosted on the Herschel Wiki website, including the What's New and Known Issues documents.

Why does searching the documentation take such a long time?

When you execute the first search with a new HIPE version, HIPE has to index the contents of the documentation. This can take up to several minutes, depending on the performance of your system. Indexing of the documentation is only done for the first search. Subsequent searches will be much faster.

We are investigating ways to include pre-built indexes in the documentation shipped with HIPE, so you will not have to wait for the results of your first search.

Why is the HIPE Help System suddenly unable to connect to any help page?

The Help System relies on a local web server to display help pages. If you close the application that started the web server, the server will shut down as well:

• If you started the Help System from HIPE, quitting HIPE will stop the Help System.
• If you started the Help System with the show_help command, closing the Yet Another JAva Help System window will stop the Help System.

Note that when the Help System stops, any browser window or tab showing help pages will remain open, but links on them will not work anymore.

Why are several important packages missing from the Javadoc?

You are probably looking at the static Javadoc located in the doc/api/ folder of your HIPE installation. The complete Javadoc can now be accessed from the HIPE Help System by clicking on HCSS Developer's Reference Manual (API) in the Developer Reference section. The plan is to remove the static version of the Javadoc completely.

Is it possible to have the traditional, frame-based Javadoc layout?

Javadoc pages appear within the HIPE Help System frame structure. If you click on the FRAME link on any Javadoc page, you will obtain the traditional Javadoc layout. To go back to the HIPE Help System layout you will have to use the Back button of your browser (clicking on the NO FRAMES link will not work). To avoid losing the HIPE Help System layout, you may want to right-click on the FRAMES link to open the traditional Javadoc layout into a new tab of your web browser.

How can I provide feedback/requests regarding HIPE documentation?

You can leave a comment using the box at the bottom of any documentation page in the HIPE Help System. You must be connected to the Internet to view and submit comments.

Alternatively, you can click the envelope icon on the top toolbar of any help page. This opens a new message in your email client, where you can add your feedback.

If you want your issue to be officially tracked and supported, please raise a ticket with the Helpdesk of the Herschel Science Centre.

Other help issues

• URM categories: Some entries in the three instruments User's Reference Manuals have wrong or missing categories.
• URM examples: Some examples in the User's Reference Manuals may not work as expected. Please use the feedback icon in the HIPE Help System to let us know about broken examples.
• JIDE vs HIPE: The documentation shipped with HIPE may still mention JIDE in some places. JIDE was the data reduction application that came before HIPE and is no longer supported. All references to JIDE can be applied to HIPE.

Herschel Science Archive issues

Herschel Science Archive (HSA) UI cannot start if the Java cache is corrupted

Ticket: HCSS-19940

Description: When trying to open the HSA UI from HIPE, you receive an exception trace similar to this one:

INFO: HAIO request: http://archives.esac.esa.int/hsa/aio/jsp/product.jsp?urn=urn:hsa:herschel.ia.obs.BrowseImageProduct:283481&protocol=HTTP
Jan 15, 2015 4:38:58 PM herschel.ia.pal.pool.hsa.myhsa.cache.AbstractDownloadJob warn
WARNING: java.io.IOException: Error writting file 'D:\data\MyHSA\session\1421311115192\products\1342220914-herschel.ia.obs.ObservationContext-601367.xml':
java.io.FileNotFoundException: file:\D:\data\MyHSA\session\1421311115192\products\1342220914-herschel.ia.obs.ObservationContext-601367.xml
(Invalid syntax in filename, directory name or volume name.)
at herschel.ia.pal.pool.hsa.xml.HsaXmlManager.writeXmlFile(HsaXmlManager.java:706)
at herschel.ia.pal.pool.hsa.xml.HsaXmlManager.writeXmlFile(HsaXmlManager.java:661)
at herschel.ia.pal.pool.hsa.myhsa.cache.HsaCachedReadPool.getXmlRootFor(HsaCachedReadPool.java:189)

Root cause: The Java cache directory (where Java stores JAR files downloaded from the Internet) is corrupted.

Workaround: Do not try to clear the cache using Java Control Panel -> General -> Settings -> Delete files (select all checkboxes), as Java won't be able to clear it because of the corruption. Delete the storage directory (C:\Users\username\AppData\LocalLow\Sun\Java\Deployment\cache on Windows Vista, 7 and 8.1; C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Sun\Java\Deployment\cache on Windows XP) and Java will re-create the cache successfully. For more information about the paths, check this link on application data directories on different versions of Windows or the official description of the Java cache on Java's website.

If you change the default path for the MyHSA directory, be sure to use / as directory separator

Ticket: HCSS-19940

Description: When changing the default path for the MyHSA directory ( Edit > Preferences > MyHSA ) on Windows, use forward slashes for the path. This text box takes the content as a Java String, considering the Windows directory separator (\) as an escape character. Example D:\data\myhsa should be entered as D:/data/myhsa.

How to log in with new credentials after changing the password for HSA I have changed/reset the password of the account I use to access Herschel Science Archive, but HIPE still tells me I am logged in (with the old password), even after restarting HIPE. How do I log in with the new password?

Description: HIPE stores your HSA password for you if you log in and check the "Remember Me" checkbox. If you restart you can access the HSA without having to enter your info again.

However, if you reset your password using the Automated user Password Fixer, and restart HIPE, then HIPE will still report you as being logged in, even though you can't be, because you haven't told HIPE your new password yet.

Versions affected: HIPE 11 or earlier.

Ticket number: HCSS-17907

Workaround: To work around the situation, double-click on your username in the HIPE status bar at the bottom of the window to log out explicitly. (If you are not logged in, the status bar will show a label "HSA Log-in" and you don't need to do anything).

After this, you can double-click again to log in again, using the correct password, or you can wait until HIPE prompts you to log in.

I have downloaded FITS files in a tar archive from the HSA, but they are corrupted. How can I fix them?

You may have used WinZip under Windows. WinZip has an option called TAR file smart CR/LF conversion, in the Miscellaneous tab of the Configuration dialogue window (at least up to version 15.0), that is enabled by default and causes the corruption. Disable the option to solve this problem. You can also use other software such as 7-Zip.

In the HSA user interface I can query and select observations, but I do not get the option in the HSA to pass the data to HIPE, or in HIPE to load the selected products. Why?

If you are using Windows, the problem might be that you instructed your browser to auto-detect proxy settings. In Windows this is a system-wide setting which affects any application connecting to the Internet, including HIPE.

You can change proxy settings for HIPE by following the instructions in the HIPE Owner's Guide.

When I click Send to external Application in the HSA interface, nothing seems to happen. What is going on?

The data is being transferred in the background. Clicking Send to external Application should bring to the front the main HIPE window, which will tell you that data is indeed being received. In some cases however the HIPE window does not appear. Bring it to the front manually to follow the progress of your action.

When I try to retrieve data from the HSA I get an error message in the console about an invalid magic number for FITS file. What is going on?

The reason is that the "data" being downloaded is in reality a small file containing an error message. Two issues have been shown to cause this problem:

• Your HSA password has non-alphanumeric characters in it. Change it to a password containing only letters and numbers.
• Your HSA username has uppercase characters. Write it using only lowercase letters.

Other issues

HCSS applications do not run shutdown hooks when terminating the launcher

Ticket number: INFR-1425

Description: Shutdown hooks added to the running instance of the Java Runtime may not be executed when terminating a HCSS application started with the common launcher launcher.jar.

Root cause: This happens because the hooks are added to the child process created by the launcher and terminating the launcher process does not guarantee that the hooks will run. For more information see this bug in Oracle's database.

Workaround: Kill the child process directly in the manner appropriate to each platform. Shutdown hooks added to the child process will execute.

HIPE crashed/froze! What do I do?

If you cannot find a solution in this document, you may have found a bug in HIPE. Please report it by opening a Helpdesk ticket. If the system produced a dump file when the crash happened, make sure to include it in your ticket. For more information about dump files and where to look for them, see the HIPE Owner's Guide.

Cannot open a FITS file created by HIPE

If you export a FITS file from HIPE and modify it with an external program, HIPE may not be able to import it anymore. If this happens, follow these steps:

1. Open the FITS file with a FITS editing program such as fv.
2. Delete the HCSS____ keyword from the header of all extensions.
3. Save the file.

HIPE should now be able to read the file.

Cannot run WebStart applications on Mac OS X Lion or Mountain Lion because of security settings

WebStart applications that can be opened from within HIPE include the HSA User Interface, Aladin, VOSpec and so on. When trying to open one of such applications, a window like the following may appear:

This is caused by the security settings of the Gatekeeper feature of Mac OS X. For more information about Gatekeeper, see the Apple support website.

To allow a WebStart application that is blocked, change the Allow applications downloaded from option in Gatekeeper from Mac App Store to one of the two less restrictive options. If the application has a valid certificate, the Mac App Store and identified developers option will suffice. Otherwise you will need to select the Anywhere option.

The Gatekeeper feature only handled Java applications for the Apple-specific version in older Mac OS X (before Mac OS 10.7.2). The Java version from Oracle has a mechanism for validating publisher certificates completely independent from the operating system (see the related archived known issue for the HSA UI).

"Invalid context" errors on Mac OS X Lion

When you start HIPE form a Terminal window on Mac OS X Lion, you may see errors such as these:

java[40745] <Error>: CGContextGetCTM: invalid context

These errors are harmless and can be safely ignored.

Problems saving observations

When saving observation to your computer, you may experience problems in the following cases:

• When saving data to NFS-mounted disks (you may get an IllegalMonitorStateException).
• When saving data to a FAT32 filesystem from a Mac (you may get an OverlappingFileLockException).
• In any case involving large observations or the use of the bg command (you may get an org.apache.lucene.store.LockObtainFailedException).

Both problems are solved by setting the following property:

hcss.ia.pal.pool.lstore.lock = simple

See the HIPE Owner's Guide for information on how to set properties.

If this solution does not work, please try removing the lock files (write.lock) present in the local store directory. This bash one-liner script can speed up the process on UNIX-based systems (including OS X):

find <pool> -name 'write.lock' -exec rm {} \;

Why do I get a ClassCastException when trying to save an observation with the saveObservation command?

You probably retrieved the observation without having the corresponding instrument software installed (for instance, you retrieved a PACS observation without having the PACS modules in HIPE).

To solve this problem follow these steps:

1. Reinstall HIPE, including the software of the desired instrument.
2. Delete the following directories (home being your home directory):
   • home/.hcss/lstore/hsa_cache
   • home/.hcss/pal_cache/hsa
3. Retrieve the observation again.

I get an OutOfMemoryError related to PermGen space. What can I do?

Add or edit the following property in your hipe.props property file:

java.vm.options = -XX:MaxPermSize=256m

Note that this parameter is specific to the Sun/Oracle Java implementation, which is the only one officially supported by HIPE.

For more information about property files, see the HIPE Owner's Guide.

There are PACS files I cannot delete on Windows! Why?

It might not be possible to delete the following files on Windows because their full path exceeds the 260 characters limit. This is caused by a limitation in Windows Explorer and the Command Prompt to maintain backwards compatibility (even if the operating system supports longer file paths).

• PCalSpectrometer_RelCalSourceFlux_FM_v1.fits_2009...80Z.fits
• PCalSpectrometer_RelCalSourceFlux_FM_v2.fits_2009...55Z.fits
• PCalSpectrometer_RelCalSourceFlux_FM_v2.fits_2009...14Z.fits
• PCalSpectrometer_RelCalSourceFlux_FM_v2.fits_2009...21Z.fits
• PCalSpectrometer_RelCalSourceFlux_FM_v2.fits_2009...58Z.fits

You can avoid this problem by installing HIPE with a short initial path, such as C:\hipe, so that full paths remain below the limit.

If you already have several files with long paths that you wish to delete, you can delete them from the Command Prompt (CMD.EXE) prepending the path with \\?\. For example for deleting C:\too\long\path\fitsfilename.fits you should write:

C:\>del \\?\C:\too\long\path\fitsfilename.fits

and press Enter.

HIPE does not accept keyboard input anymore! What's wrong?

If you are running Linux, this could be due to a compatibility problem between Java and the input method in use, like IBus or SCIM (Smart Common Input Method). A workaround is to stop the service of the input method or uninstall it. Please refer to the documentation of your distribution for how to do so.

The problem is described in more detail on these pages:

• http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=6506617
• http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=6299259

What are all the tmp_product_sink_* pools in my local store directory?

You may find these pools in your local store directory (by default .hcss/lstore in your home directory) after reducing data with HIPE. These are temporary pools that are not deleted upon quitting HIPE due to a known bug. You can safely delete them by hand after quitting HIPE.</verbatim>