CMS Snapshot Analysis - Run Analyzer - Fatal Error - Universal Analyzer - PHP or FLEX language

Introduction

For UA languages using a plugin such as PHP or FLEX from CoE, there is a known bug in UA that can lead to a crash in Anaman in 7.0.X (from 7.0.9 to at least 7.0.19). It occurs when the plugin computes some violations in a file which is unknown from the analyzer.

Explanation of the process

• During the UA processing, once the objects have been successfully analyzed, the analyzer checks whether or not an external plugin exists for the current techno. Usually, this plugin can be found in the folder "%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\CAST\CAST\<CAST_VERSION>\configuration\Languages\<TECHNO_NAME>\plugin"   where <CAST_VERSION> with the version of CAIP (i.e. "7.0", "7.1", "7.2") and <TECHNO NAME> with the name of the techno (i.e. "PHP, "FLEX", etc.).
• If a plugin is found, it is launched with the base folder of the sources to analyze as parameter.
• Then, the UA loads the xml file(s) generated by this plugin and containing the results of its computation.
• All the violations extracted from the results file(s) are posted to the KB.

Description of the crash

During this process, a crash occurs if the xml results file(s) refers to sources files that does not exists in the KB (see CAST-32265).

This can happen in 2 identified situations:

1. The user has flagged some files as "ignored" in the UA job configuration wizard. Since the list of ignored files is not provided to the plugin, it generates some metrics for files ignored by UA (see CAST-32264).
2. The plugin did not generate any file but an old and irrelevant file still exists from a previous analysis and UA tries to load it anyway (see CAST-32246).

As a Workaround

1. Avoid ignoring files for these techno, instead physically remove files from the sources to analyze
2. Ensure that no results file(s) exists from the plugin. Check the 2 following folders:
   1. "%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\CAST\CAST\<CAST_VERSION>\configuration\Languages\<TECHNO_NAME>\"
   2. "%ALLUSERSPROFILE%\CAST\CAST\<CAST_VERSION>\configuration\Languages\<TECHNO_NAME>\plugin\"

If you are facing this issue on a supported version of CAST AIP then contact CAST Technical Support with relevant input.