White / blank screen when opening sandbox

Symptoms

I have a sandbox with Odin Automation 6.0.

When I open my sandbox either by using the http://a.company.apsdemo.org:8080 URL or the 'Go to CP' link on developer portal, I get to a blank page.

Cause

In some cases pau and pem services on Operations Automation management node fail to start automatically.

Resolution

You can log in to the Operations Automation management node via SSH (the main sandbox host, 'a.company.apsdemo.org') and start these services manually.

Password for user root is the one that was specified during sandbox deployment. First the pau service should be started, and then the pem service:

[root@mn ~]# service pau start
Starting pau
oom_adj modified
Waiting pau to start:                                      [  OK  ]
[root@mn ~]# service pem start
Starting pleskd: Starting sc chief [success] 1.06
Starting sc ppm [success] 0.429
Starting sc OpenAPI [success] 0.464
...
Starting sc BMBridge [success] 0.339
start succesfull

If this happens often and your sandbox was deployed earlier than February 2016 try redeploying your sandbox. New deployment procedure contains a fix that should eliminate this behavior.

If this happens with sandboxes deployed later than Feburary 2016 please report such cases to support.

Internal content

Hiding the script because an alternative solution has been offered in scope of bug #APS-30526

Automation

If this happens frequently on your set, below you can find an automated script that checks every 5 minutes if pau and pem services are running and if not -- starts them.

You can install sbwatchdog-1-0.noarch.rpm on your Operations Automation management node:

# rpm -i https://kb.cloudblue.com/Attachments/kcs-64388/sbwatchdog-1-0.noarch.rpm
adding a cron job for root...
Sandbox watchdog successfully installed.

Note it should only be installed on Odin Automation 6.0.x sandboxes, it does not work with earlier versions and likely will not work with later versions. We would also advise against using it with any other Odin Automation installation than a development sandbox.

Keep in mind that if you need to stop Operations Automation for a significant length of time, you will have to uninstall this package (with rpm -e command) and install it back so it does not interfere with your work.