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Bug 70101

Summary:	Help does not work (HTTP Status 500)
Product:	[Eclipse Project] Platform	Reporter:	Stephan Hodges <stephan.hodges>
Component:	User Assistance	Assignee:	Platform-Help-Inbox <platform-help-inbox>
Status:	RESOLVED DUPLICATE	QA Contact:
Severity:	normal
Priority:	P3
Version:	3.0
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	PC
OS:	Windows XP
Whiteboard:

Description Stephan Hodges

2004-07-15 09:21:54 EDT

Help does not work for me.

This is mentioned in bug reports 47448, 47447. I have had this problem since I
started trying Eclipse, on release 3, M7, and every version after that. (Don't
know about anything earlier). Does not work on 3.0 release either.

The previous two bug reports don't indicate how to diagnose or fix the
underlying problem.

With internet explorer, I get the "HTTP Status 500" message. If I switch to
firefox, it puts a URL of "http://127.0.0.1:57929/help/index.jsp" but I get a
blank page.

I'm set up with blank host name/IP address, and zero for port (automatic). I've
tried all combinations of the help settings with no change (other than the IE
-vs- firefox)

I haven't been able to find any documentation on how to set up an external help
server, so I didn't try that approach.

Comment 1 DJ Houghton

2004-07-15 09:27:51 EDT

Potential dup of bug 47447 but this occurs in 3.0.

Comment 2 Dorian Birsan

2004-07-15 10:48:05 EDT

Stephan, take a look at the README, there may be some workarounds.
Are you using a proxy? If yes, you may want to bypass the local addresses (do 
it from the LAN Settings in the Internet Options of IE)

Comment 3 Stephan Hodges

2004-07-15 11:40:39 EDT

Fixed by removing "saxon.jar" from jre/lib/ext directory.

Trying the alternate browser "firefox" was what gave the correct clue.

The "Readme" section on "Help" details several open issues.

I don't use a proxy, so that wasn’t it for me.  My fix was this section:

--------------------------------------------------
Help browser displays a blank page

If you see a help launched with a blank page, and no errors displayed, it can be
caused by a conflict between libraries in org.eclipse.tomcat plug-in and jars
optionally installed in JRE jre/lib/ext directory. To fix the problem, ensure
that the JRE used for running Eclipse does not contain any J2EE or Apache jars
in the jre/lib/ext directory. (bug 63970)


*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 63970 ***