Platform.createFactoryObject returns null

Generally this means that your BIRT Home is not set correctly or you have a permission issue:

What is below this directory
config.setEngineHome("/usr/bin/birt-runtime/ReportEngine");

Jason, 
 
/usr/bin/birt-runtime/ReportEngine has the following content: 
<ul class='bbc'><li>(drwxr-xr-x) c backup</li><li>(drwxrwxrwx) configuration</li><li>(-rwxrwxrwx) genReport.bat</li><li>(-rwxrwxrwx) genReport.sh</li><li>(drwxrwxrwx) lib</li><li>(drwxrwxrwx) plugin</li><li>(drwxrwxrwx) samples</li><li>(drwxrwxrwx) workspace</li></ul>
I think it's the correct content and I allow to do anything. Any idea? 
 
Thx

Are you getting anything in the log file?
I assume the plugin directory is plugins not plugin.

My logs folder is empty. And you're right... it's plugins folder I've mistaken when writting previous post..

Thxs

This is strange. It looks like your code is ok. You can change the the line

config.setEngineHome("/usr/bin/birt-runtime/ReportEngine");
to
config.setBIRTHome("/usr/bin/birt-runtime/ReportEngine");

but that should not make a difference. When you build the project only add the libs in the reportengine/lib directory to the classpath.

Hi, Jason: 
 
I have all the thing like you said and it still returns null. I'm posting the whole code right below. 
 
<pre class='_prettyXprint _lang-auto _linenums:0'>
import java.util.logging.Level;

import org.eclipse.birt.core.framework.Platform;
import org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.EngineConfig;
import org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.IReportEngineFactory;

public class Report {

public static void main(String params[]) {
Report report = new Report();
report.generate();
}

public Report() {
}

public boolean generate() {
boolean result = true;
EngineConfig config = null;

try{
config = new EngineConfig( );
config.setBIRTHome("/usr/bin/birt-runtime/ReportEngine");
//config.setLogConfig("/home/boj/logs", Level.FINEST);
config.setLogConfig("/home/boj/logs/log.log", Level.FINEST);
Platform.startup( config );
IReportEngineFactory factory = (IReportEngineFactory) Platform.createFactoryObject( IReportEngineFactory.EXTENSION_REPORT_ENGINE_FACTORY );
System.out.println(factory);
}catch( Exception ex){
ex.printStackTrace();
result = false;
}
finally
{
Platform.shutdown( );
}
return result;
}
}
</pre>
 
Thx

I copied your code and pasted into my environment, changed the BIRT home to my location and it worked fine. Are you sure there is no permission issues? Can you try on a different box?

It works when trying in other pc... thx u.

I'm gonna try to find out why this app doesn't work on my pc and post whatever I'll find.

I've done tests with several pc with different os. With Mac OSX 10.4 and MS Windows XP there's no problem. But I get a null when trying with Ubuntu Linux 8.04 and 8.10. I'll post the results of a debug with Ubuntu.

Thx

I have exactly the same problem on Windows 2000 SP4.
I have checked all the items listed in this thread and they are set correctly.
Permissions are also OK.
The same code worked fine with birt-runtime-2_3_0.
Code snippet is:

EngineConfig config = new EngineConfig( );
config.setEngineHome( "C:/Program Files/birt-runtime-2_3_1/ReportEngine" );
config.setLogConfig("C:/temp", Level.FINE);
Platform.startup( config );
IReportEngineFactory factory = (IReportEngineFactory) Platform
.createFactoryObject( IReportEngineFactory.EXTENSION_REPORT_ENGINE_FACTORY );
engine = factory.createReportEngine( config );

Any ideas?
Thanks!

I have reverted to birt-runtime-2_3_0 and it works fine again, but of course I cannot use any designs created with the 2_3_1 designer;(

Any help will be appreciated as I am not competent to explore BIRT internals.
Thanks!

Can you try moving your BIRT home to a directory that contains no spaces in the path? This should not matter, but can you give it a try?

I moved the engine to a directory without spaces ("C:/birt-runtime-2_3_1/ReportEngine") and updated the classpath accordingly.
The error persists as previously posted.
Thanks for your interest!

See <a class='bbc_url' href='http://www.reportingengines.com/forum/designing-birt-reports/12697-how-downgrade-birt-report.html'>How to downgrade BIRT report - Forum - BIRT Exchange</a>

When you upgraded to BIRT 2.3.1 did you update the libs in your project?

Yes, very carefully and several times;)
I have also ensured that there are no old 2_3_0 jars in the classpath/buildpath.
Is there anywhere else I should look for potential errors?
Regards Chris

cypherdj

Hi Chris/Jason, 
 
just one quick question: what implementation of the IPlaformContext interface are you using? Is it PlatformServletContext? 
 
I've just started porting our application from Birt 2.2 to Birt 2.3.1, and I can create the factory ok, however, I cannot instantiate the report engine at present. 
 
Note that I set the EngineHome to an empty string, without adverse effects. 
 
It also sets the resource path to the root of my web app. 
 
Here's the code I used: 
<pre class='_prettyXprint _lang-auto _linenums:0'>
IPlatformContext platformCtx = new PlatformServletContext(context.getServletContext());

EngineConfig engineConfig = new EngineConfig();
engineConfig.setEngineHome("");
engineConfig.setPlatformContext(platformCtx);
engineConfig.setResourcePath(BirtReportManager.class.getResource("/").getPath());

Platform.startup(engineConfig);

IReportEngineFactory factory = (IReportEngineFactory) Platform
.createFactoryObject(IReportEngineFactory.EXTENSION_REPORT_ENGINE_FACTORY);
reportEngine = factory.createReportEngine(engineConfig);
</pre>
 
However, I'm getting an exception initialising the EmitterInfo, which did not occur in Birt 2.2, as shown below: 
 
<pre class='_prettyXprint _lang-auto _linenums:0'>
java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.EmitterInfo.<init>(Ljava/lang/String;Ljava/lang/String;Ljava/lang/String;Ljava/lang/String;Ljava/lang/String;Ljava/lang/String;Ljava/lang/Boolean;Lorg/eclipse/birt/core/framework/IConfigurationElement;)V
at org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.extension.internal.ExtensionManager.loadEmitterExtensionDefns(ExtensionManager.java:430)
at org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.extension.internal.ExtensionManager.<init>(ExtensionManager.java:110)
at org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.extension.internal.ExtensionManager.createInstance(ExtensionManager.java:119)
at org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.extension.internal.ExtensionManager.getInstance(ExtensionManager.java:128)
at org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.impl.ReportEngineHelper.<init>(ReportEngineHelper.java:77)
at org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.impl.ReportEngine.<init>(ReportEngine.java:93)
at org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.impl.ReportEngineFactory.createReportEngine(ReportEngineFactory.java:13)
</pre>
 
I'll post more on this thread as I move along, 
Cedric

Chris/Cedric,

Does the 2.3.1 WebViewer work in your app server?

Jason

cypherdj

Hi Jason,

I believe I know what the problem is in my case, and I should have known better ;-) I forgot to replace the WEB-INF/platform folder, so it was using a mix of 2.2 and 2.3 jars (2.2 jars in platform and 2.3 jars in lib).

I'm just redeploying my app now to confirm if that was indeed the issue.

Silly me!

cypherdj

Indeed, that was the problem, reports built with Birt 2.2 designer are now running against Birt 2.3 report engine.

Now I can start trying to use some 2.3 functionality in some of the reports.

Chris, if you need more help, let me know and I'll do my best to assist you.

Regards,
Cedric

Chris,

One other thing to check is to verify that the configuration directory under WEB-INF/Platform/configuration only contains the config.ini when you first startup. I have noticed in upgrades if this is not cleared it will cause issues.

Jason

PraveenRaj

Hi Boj...Hi Jason

I am facing the same problem here. Is it a problem with system or what? I am using Linux fedora environment. Please suggest.

In my case was sth quite stupid. I'm a bit scatterbrained and I forgot to check the "Build Automatically" option at the Project menu.

Second time I had this problem was while executing the action twice or more. I had a Platform.shutdown() at the end of the code. You don't start platform. That's sth done for you. So, when I did a shutdown at the end of code and repeated the action, platform was null for the second time and so on.

I hope this will help you.

PraveenRaj

Hi Boj,

I have one question, IReportEngineFactory interface is having a final String EXTENSION_REPORT_ENGINE_FACTORY="org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.ReportEngineFactory". But there is no class called ReportEngineFactory inside org.eclipse.birt.report.engine package. ReportEngineFactory class resides in org.eclipse.birt.report.engine.api.impl package instead.
Am i using wrong jar?

Also, IReportEngineFactory resides in 2 jars,

org.eclipse.birt.report.engine_2.1.2.v20070205-1728.jar
and
engineapi.jar

Which one to be used? Please help me to resolve this issue.

Rosche

Arrgh.. I'm having the same problem with the createFactoryObject(..) method! Stuck with it for the past 2 days!

It works fine on Eclipse but fails to work on my App Server when deployed..
I can't seem to figure out what the problem is.
Here is a snippet from my code:

config = new EngineConfig( );
config.setEngineHome("/birt-runtime-2_3_2/ReportEngine");
config.setLogConfig("c:/temp/log", Level.FINEST);
Platform.startup( config );
IReportEngineFactory factory = (IReportEngineFactory) Platform.createFactoryObject( IReportEngineFactory.EXTENSION_REPORT_ENGINE_FACTORY );
engine = factory.createReportEngine( config ); //throws a Null Pointer here

Am I doing something wrong?

Rosche,

Is your app in a war? Where is this directory?
config.setEngineHome("/birt-runtime-2_3_2/ReportEngine");

The error you are getting means the BIRT Plugins are not being found.

Jason

Rosche

Hi,
I'm using webMethods Integration Server (so the Application is not in a war, it is in the form of packages). The plugins are under the WEB-INF/platform/ folder of my package.
I need to set my engine home in the Java code to point to these plugins. But for some strange reason it doesn't seem to recognize the directory from my Java code when I deploy the jar.
I sincerely hope someone can help me .. I am at a loss as to how to over come this!

Rosche,

If you have them in the Web-Inf/Platform directory try

config.setEngineHome("");
IPlatformContext context = new PlatformServletContext( sc );
config.setPlatformContext( context );

Also verify that you have a configuration directrory containing only the config.ini file in the WEB-INF/Platform/configuration directory.

Jason

Rosche

Hi Jason,
Thanks for the prompt replies..
My class is a stand alone Java class which is packaged in a jar and placed in the WEB-INF/lib folder. So I guess there is no question of getting the Servlet Context (or am I wrong?)

I am calling a method of this Java class from my JSP.

I tried the snippet you gave me, but it doesn't get me any Servlet Context so it fails.

p.s - yes I do have the config.ini file under configuration folder in the platform directory.

Any suggestions?