Workarounds to Known Issues in FME 2017.x

Liz Sanderson
Liz Sanderson
  • Updated

FME Version

Known Issues with FME 2017.1.2.x

GML Writer writes invalid NaNs

Problem GML writer requires nans to be written as ‘NaN’ to be considered valid geometry coordinate values. As of 2017.1 we began writing them as ‘nan’ instead of ‘NaN’.
Workaround Setting the GML writer advanced parameter Minimum Decimal Places to 1 or higher causes the correct value for ‘NaN’ to be written.
Status This will be fixed in FME 2018.0.1 and above.

 

 

Invalid GeoJSON root structure with multiple feature types

Problem GeoJSON writer produces an invalid GeoJSON root structure if writing more than one feature type. The GeoJSON writer currently wraps the JSON feature collections with an array when multiple feature types are output. The GeoJSON standard mandates a FeatureCollection object as the root so this is incorrect (it is valid JSON but not valid GeoJSON).
Workaround Write one feature type per GeoJSON output document. This can be done using one writer per feature type or dataset fanout on feature type name. In this case the root object is a FeatureCollection and our output is valid.
Status We plan on making a major change to the GeoJSON writer for FME 2018.1 The current plan is to eliminate the array wrapper and properly support multiple feature types in a way that is consistent with the GeoJSON specification. We plan on adding a featureType property to the Feature object, instead of the array of named FeatureCollections that exists at the moment. If you have any comments or concerns on these planned changes please contact support.

 

 Issues fixed between FME 2017.1.1 and FME 2017.1.2

 

Database Connection Upload via Publish Wizard

Problem New database connections cannot be uploaded via the publish to server wizard. Existing connections are unaffected.This only affects the 2017.1.1 minor release.
Workaround 1) Uncheck the database connection in the publish wizard

pub1.png

2) Manually create it via the FME Server Web UI

pub2.png

Status A fix has been completed and was made available with the release of FME 2017.1.2. FME 2018.0 betas more recent than b18188 also contain a fixed publish wizard.

 

Issues fixed between FME 2017.1 and FME 2017.1.1

 

Twitter Transformer Authentication

Problem In July, changes occurred to the Twitter API authentication service which caused related Twitter transformers in FME to cease functioning.
Workaround See: Knowledge Article for potential solution involving the HTTPCaller
Status 2017.1 has updated logging to identify and report occurrences of this issue at run-time. The transformers themselves were fixed with the release of 2017.1.1

 

Data Inspector Crash on Read Error

Problem Inspector can crash when the reader returns an error, depending on the format. For example, an XML error report from a WFS server can cause the Inspector to crash.
Workaround Use Workbench with an Inspector instead of Data Inspector.
Status This was fixed with the release of 2017.1.1

 

Issues fixed between FME 2017.0.1.x and FME 2017.1

 

Ubuntu Kernel Upgrade crashing FME

Problem

On June 19, 2017 Ubuntu released a security update for both the 14.04 and 16.04 kernels that are incompatible with the Java subsystem used by FME.

Workaround See: Knowledge Article
Status

See: Knowledge Article

 

Can't Edit Web Service Properties in Publish Wizard

Problem When publishing a workspace to FME Server from FME Workbench, the "Edit..." button on the Register Services prompt of the Publish to FME Server Wizard is not accessible. This occurs when the "Change All Hosts" button on the Services page of the web interface is invoked.
Workaround Running the addServices.bat file located in <FMEServer>\Clients\utilities\ will resolve this issue. The serviceWorkspaceDefs.xml file will need to be edited if you have changed your hostname.
Status Fixed in FME 2017.1

 

Issues fixed between FME 2017.0.1 and 2017.0.1.1

Sharepoint authorization

Problem Changes to the sharepoint.com login process have resulted in issues authenticating user accounts when connecting with FME.
Workaround Update to latest FME official release.
Status Fixed in 2017.1.1 update (released May 17th). Also fixed in 2017.1 beta stream (b.17483 and above available here).

 

Issues fixed between FME 2017.0.0.1 and 2017.0.0.2

High Data Volumes

Problem

Individual large features (>~1MB) in conjunction with low memory can result in a crash

Workaround Some workflows will be able to avoid the crash by adjusting the memory "redline" to discourage stashing.

 

Knowledge Center: How to control FME Server Engine Memory Usage

Detail When FME detects a low memory situation it will attempt to store ("stash") features on disk. Stashing of features that require more than 1MB in serialized form will crash FME.
Status Fixed in 2017.1. Mitigated in 2017.0.0.2 such that no crash will occur, but large features will not be stashed to disk, possibly resulting in virtually memory being exhausted sooner than would have occurred in FME 2016.

 

FME 2017.1 betas are available here.

FME 2017.0.0.2 was released April 3rd.

 

Issues fixed between FME 2017.0.0.0 and 2017.0.0.1

Planet Data

Problem

No Assets are visible

Workaround Manually enter applicable Asset(s) for the selected Item Type.
Detail To list Assets for a given Item Type, the Planet Data Reader queries for an arbitrary Item for the given Item Type, and presents its Assets in the GUI picker. On February 9, the Planet Data API changed to hide Assets that the user cannot download.
Status Fixed in FME 2017.0.0.1

 

Buffering with group-by

Problem

Buffering with a group-by can cause a crash with large enough parameters

Workaround

a. Do not use group-by

OR

b. Use custom transformer group-by instead, containing a Bufferer

Status

Fixed in FME 2017.0.0.1

 

@DateTimeNow() TimeZone Defaults

Problem

@DateTimeNow() by default returns local zoned datetimes, but most users appear to have local unzoned datetimes. Zoned and unzoned datetimes cause a type mismatch in @DateTimeDiff() and this issue affects DateTimeCalculator as well.

Workaround Execute @DateTimeNow(localUnzoned) instead, which returns unzoned local datetimes. Detail After calling @DateTimeNow(), use @DateTimeCast() or @DateTimeFormat() to reformat the timestamp value into other temporal types.

 

Example 1: @DateTimeCast(@DateTimeNow(),date) returns today's date in local time.

Example 2: @DateTimeFormat(@DateTimeNow(utc),%Y%m%d%H%M%S) returns an unzoned UTC datetime.

Status

Fixed in FME 2017.0.0.1

 

Dashboard Migration

Problem

As part of upgrading the Dashboards solution, migrating 2016 to 2017 does not import the Dashboards_DailyTotalQueuedTime subscription, but it still appears in the security page.

Workaround The administrator can add the subscription and remove it to get rid of the subscription from the Security UI page
Status

Fixed in FME 2017.0.0.1

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