Troubleshoot Tanzu Developer Tools for IntelliJ

This topic helps you troubleshoot issues with Tanzu Developer Tools for IntelliJ.

Unable to view workloads on the panel when connected to GKE cluster

Symptom

When connecting to Google’s GKE clusters, an error appears with the text WARNING: the gcp auth plugin is deprecated in v1.22+, unavailable in v1.25+; use gcloud instead.

Cause

GKE authentication was extracted into a separate plug-in and is no longer inside the Kubernetes client or libraries.

Solution

Download and configure the GKE authentication plug-in. For instructions, see the Google documentation.

Deactivated launch controls after running a launch configuration

Symptom

When you run or debug a launch configuration, IntelliJ deactivates the launch controls.

Cause

IntelliJ deactivates the launch controls to prevent other launch configurations from being launched at the same time. These controls are reactivated when the launch configuration is started. As such, starting multiple Tanzu debug and live update sessions is a synchronous activity.

Starting a Tanzu Debug session fails with Unable to open debugger port

Symptom

You try to start a Tanzu Debug session and it immediately fails with an error message similar to:

Error running 'Tanzu Debug - fortune-teller-fortune-service': Unable to open debugger port (localhost:5005): java.net.ConnectException "Connection refused"

Cause

Old Tanzu Debug launch configurations sometimes appear to be corrupted after installing a later version of the plug-in. You can see whether this is the problem you are experiencing by opening the launch configuration:

1. Right-click workload.yaml.
2. Click Modify Run Configuration… in the menu.
3. Scroll down and expand the Before Launch section of the dialog.
4. Verify that it contains the two Unknown Task entries com.vmware.tanzu.tanzuBeforeRunPortForward and com.vmware.tanzu.tanzuBeforeRunWorkloadApply.

Because these two tasks are unknown causes, these steps of the debug launch are not run. This in turn means that the target application is not deployed and accessible on the expected port, which causes an error when the debugger tries to connect to it.

It might be that although the launch configuration appears corrupt when seen in the launch config editor, in fact there is no corruption. It’s suspected that this problem only occurs when you install a new version of the plug-in and start using it before first restarting IntelliJ.

There is possibly an issue in the IntelliJ platform that prevents completely or correctly initializing the plug-in when the plug-in is hot-swapped into an active session instead of loaded on startup.

Solution

Closing and restarting IntelliJ typically fixes this problem. If that doesn’t work for you, delete the old corrupted launch configuration and recreate it.

Timeout error when Live Updating

Symptom

When you attempt to Live Update your workload, the following error message appears in the log:

ERROR: Build Failed: apply command timed out after 30s - see }}{{https://docs.tilt.dev/api.html#api.update_settings{{ for how to increase}}

Cause

Kubernetes times out on upserts over 30 seconds.

Solution

Add update_settings (k8s_upsert_timeout_secs = 300) to the Tiltfile. For more information, see the Tiltfile documentation.

Tanzu Panel empty when using a GKE cluster on macOS

Symptom

On macOS, the Tanzu Panel doesn’t display workloads or any other resources when using a GKE cluster. Other tools, such as the Tanzu CLI Apps plug-in, display resources correctly.

Cause

gke-cloud-auth-plugin is required to properly authenticate to a GKE cluster. However, when starting IntelliJ from Dock or Spotlight, environment variables set by using .profile, .bash_profile, or .zshrc are not available. For more information, see this YouTrack issue.

This might cause gke-cloud-auth-plugin to be missing from PATH when launching IntelliJ and prevent the Tanzu Panel from reaching the cluster.

Solution

Open IntelliJ from the CLI. Example command:

open /Applications/IntelliJ\ IDEA.app

Tanzu Panel is empty when the context is set by using the KUBECONFIG environment variable

Symptom

On macOS, the Tanzu Panel doesn’t display workloads or any other resources when setting the Kubernetes context by using a KUBECONFIG environment variable. Other tools, such as the Tanzu CLI Apps plug-in, display resources correctly.

Cause

When starting IntelliJ from Dock or Spotlight, environment variables set by using .profile, .bash_profile, or .zshrc are not available. This causes the panels to be empty because the extension can’t find the right Kubernetes context. For more information, see this YouTrack issue.

Solution

Open IntelliJ from the CLI. For example:

open /Applications/IntelliJ\ IDEA.app

Tanzu panel shows workloads but doesn’t show Kubernetes resources

Symptom

The Tanzu panel shows workloads but doesn’t show Kubernetes resources in the center panel of the activity pane.

Cause

When switching the Kubernetes context, the activity pane doesn’t automatically update the namespace, but the workload pane detects the new namespace. Therefore, the Tanzu panel shows workloads but doesn’t show Kubernetes resources in the center panel of the activity pane.

Solution

Restart IntelliJ to properly detect the context change.

Tanzu Workloads panel workloads only have describe and delete action

Symptom

Some or all workloads in the Tanzu Workloads panel only have describe and delete actions.

Cause

By design, only associated workloads have apply, debug, and Live Update workload actions available.

Solution

Open a project that contains a module that can be associated with your deployed workloads.

Workload actions do not work when in a project with spaces in the name

Symptom

Workload actions and Live Update do not work. The console displays an error message similar to:

Error: unknown command "projects/my-app" for "apps workload apply". Process finished with exit code 1

Cause

Improper handling of paths that contain spaces causes the shell to misinterpret some commands, such as tanzu workload apply .... This causes anything executing these commands to fail when the name of a project, or any parts of its path on disk, contain spaces.

Solution

1. Close the code editor.
2. Move or rename your project folder on the disk, ensuring that no part of its path contains any spaces.
3. Delete the project settings folder from the project to start with a clean slate. The folder is .idea if using IntelliJ and .vscode if using VS Code.
4. Open the code editor and then open the project in its new location.

A lock wrongly prevents Live Update from starting again

Symptom

A lock incorrectly shows that Live Update is still running and prevents Live Update from starting again.

Cause

Restarting your computer while running Live Update without terminating the Tilt process beforehand.

Solution

Delete the Tilt lock file. The default location for the file is ~/.tilt-dev/config.lock.

UI liveness check causes an EDT Thread Exception error

Symptom

An EDT Thread Exception error is logged or reported as a notification with a message similar to "com.intellij.diagnostic.PluginException: 2007 ms to call on EDT TanzuApplyAction#update@ProjectViewPopup".

Cause

A UI liveness check detected something taking more time than planned on the UI thread and freezing the UI. You might experience a brief UI freeze at the same time. This happens more commonly when starting IntelliJ because some initialization processes are still running. This issue is also commonly reported by users with large projects.

If slow startup processes cause the issue, the UI freeze is likely to be brief. If a large number of files causes the issue, the UI freeze is likely to be more severe.

Solution

There is no workaround currently other than trying to reduce the number of files in your project, though that might not be practical in some cases. A fix is planned for the next release.

Frequent application restarts

Symptom

When an application is applied from IntelliJ it restarts frequently.

Cause

An application or environment behavior is triggering the application to restart.

Observed trigger behaviors include:

• The application itself writing logs to the file system in the application directory that Live Update is watching
• Autosave being set to a very high frequency in the IDE configuration

Solution

Prevent the trigger behavior. Example solutions include:

• Prevent 12-factor applications from writing to the file system.
• Reduce the autosave frequency to once every few minutes.