Troubleshooting: Instance creation fails with "Could not build a list of prerequisite profile templates for profile template"

The build fails when you attempt to create a WebSphere Commerce instance and you see a "Could not build a list of prerequisite profile templates for profile template" error.

In your log files, you might see an error similar to the following snippet.
Could not build a list of prerequisite profile templates for profile template 
AppServer_install_dir/V7/Express/profileTemplates/default
When the ConfigCommerceServer Ant task is called to create the WebSphere Application Server profile, the Ant task fails.

Problem

In the instance_name_create.log file, an entry exists resembling the following snippet.
<record> <date>2011-05-12T09:15:44</date>
    <millis>1305252944216</millis> 
    <sequence>1</sequence>
    <logger>com.ibm.wsspi.profile.WSProfileCLI</logger> 
    <level>INFO</level>
    <class>com.ibm.wsspi.profile.WSProfileCLI</class> <method>invokeWSProfile</method>
    <thread>0</thread>  
    <message>Incoming command line is: { "-registry","[WAS_INSTALL]/AppServer/V7/Express/profileRegistry/profileregistry.xml"  ,
    "-create","-profilePath"  ,"[WAS_INSTALL]/AppServer/V7/Express/profiles/testportal",
    "-templatePath"  ,"[WAS_INSTALL]/AppServer/V7/Express/profileTemplates/default ",
    "-nodeName" ,"DEVTEST" ,"-cellName" ,"DEVTEST " ,"-hostName"  ,"DEVTEST.myHostName
    " ,"-serverName" ,"server1" ,"-startingPort" ,"9101  " ,"-enableAdminSecurity","true" ,
    "-adminUserName" ,"configadmin"  ,"-adminPassword" ,"********",
    "-samplesPassword" ,"********"  ,"-profileName" ,"testportal" }</message>
    </record>
The -templatePath argument, while valid, contains whitespace characters, as do other arguments supplied to the manageprofiles script. The trailing whitespace characters cause the instance creation failure.

Solution

  1. Open the WC_installdir/instances/instance_name/properties/createInstance.properties file and ensure that there are no trailing white space or tab characters in the file.
    Note:
    • Ensure that you use a text editor that can save the file in a form that is compatible with your operating system
    • Ensure that the file transfer method from the editing machine onto the instance's machine does not edit the whitespace characters
  2. After you remove the whitespace characters from the createInstance.properties file, rerun Instance creation or the subsequent Ant tasks; beginning with ConfigureCommerceServer.