OpenKM freeze on start

Symptons

OpenKM freeze in the start up process. The system seems to be waiting for some event and gets frozen but it does not launch any exception even in debug mode.

Cause

When OpenKM is configured with OpenOffice, it needs to start an instance in order to work with it. However, especially in Windows systems,  if the system is not shutted down properly it could block OpenOffice proccess and not be able to create a new instance.

Diagnosis

Looking at openkm.log file located at $TOMCAT_HOME/logs you will see the system get stuck at some point like:

In Windows server, download Process explorer application from:

And execute it looking for running instances of OpenOffice. You should find one or many of them.

Solution

Using the utility commented above, kill all processes related to OpenOffice. Once there is no more living OpenOfficess processes start OpenKM again and it will be able to create new instances.

Properties