Submitting a Support Request

|  |  |  | FAQ Submitting a Support Request |

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Submitting a Support Request

There are times when we all get stuck and need a little help. Sending a support request is one of the many ways that you can get that help. Why would you want to submit a help request directly to the OpenEJB team as opposed to using the mail list groups and how is this different than submitting a bug?

While using the mail list groups is a great way to bounce ideas around and get some help, many members of the OpeneJB team regularly monitor the groups, submitting a support request will guarantee that you will get some help from someone on the team and, since the request is tracked, it's a way to make sure that your question is not forgotten.

But how is this different than a bug? If you are sure that your problem is the result of a bug in the OpenEJB system, then by all means, submit a bug report. If you're not sure, then submit a Support Request. We'll escalate this into a bug report, if it turns our to be a problem with OpenEJB.

- How do I submit a Support Request?
- How do I collect detailed information for my Support Request?
- How do track a Support Request that I submitted?

## How do I submit a Support Request?

It's very easy! Go to the SourceForge.net: Submit New Issue/Request page. You'll see that you are prompted to fill in several fields. The more fields that you fill in, the faster and more accurate the answers will be from the support group. Let's review these fields.

The first field is Category. Use this field to tell the support team which part of the OpenEJB system that you're having questions about. If nothing seems to match, then just leave it blank.

The next field is Group. This field is used to specify the version that you're using. If nothing seems to match, then just leave it blank.

The next field is Summary. It's very important that a compact descriptive phrase gets placed in here to avoid any delay in the processing of the request.

The final field is Detailed Description. In addition to a detailed description, it would be helpful if you provided the following additional information:

- | OS version
- | Java VM version
- | Java CLASSPATH

and if available

- | OpenEJB log files

Information on how to collect this information is given below and in the FAQ Finding OpenEJB Log Files.

## How do I collect detailed information for my Support Request?

The figure below is a snippet of output from an OpenEJB test. It contains various information that is useful to include in a Support Reqest. The first line is the OS; here it is Windows_NT. If you know the version of your OS you should include it in your Support Request.

Part of the output from OpenEJB's tests

    --------------SUPPORT INFO-------------
    Windows_NT
    Using JAVA_HOME:     f:\jdk1.3.1
    Using OPENEJB_HOME:  G:\dev\openejb_faq
    OPTIONS:             -Dopenejb.test=foo
    --------------SUPPORT INFO-------------
    OpenEJB 0.8.3    build: 20020922-1103
    http://openejb.sf.net

The next line contains the value of the environmental variable JAVA_HOME. Here it is f:\jdk1.3.1, which would indicate that the version of Java being used by OpenEJB is JDK v1.3.1.

The next environmental variable OPENEJB_HOME points to where OpenEJB's home is. Here it is G:\dev\openejb_faq.

NOTE

The next environmental variable OPENEJB_HOME, if it has not already been set, will be set by the script openejb.bat or openejb.sh. Problems will occur if you run these scripts from any directory other than where they reside. This is one of the most common problems that new users run into.

The next line contains the options that are passed on to the Java VM. Here it is -Dopenejb.test=foo.

The final line that we're interested in, not necessarily the last that is output by the tests, contains the OpenEJB verison number and its build time stamp. Here it is 0.8.3 and 20020922-1103 respectively.

## How do track a Support Request that I submitted?

You can arrange to be emailed whenever the status of your Support Request changes or when a suppport person or developer adds notes and comments to your request.

If you don't know the URL to your request, you can go to the OpenEJB: Browse Support Requests page. Once you've selected the issue that you wish to monitor you will see an email field, if you're not logged into SourceForge; enter your email address. If you are logged into SourceForge, you will not see this field; you will not have to enter your email account since the notification will be sent to your SourceForge account. Click the Monitor button to begin monitoring that Support Request.

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