Rebuild IBM Portal embedded Derby database without a full reinstall

Question

After exhausting all conceivable options over a matter of weeks, and after the drudgery of the back and forth with subpar IBM support, I have come to the conclusion that the only explanation for why my specific development environment fails to run a custom theme where other environments have no problems must have something to do with bad data in configurations contained in the embedded Derby database that comes packaged in the WebSphere Portal profile.

Google gives me no insights into the error I am running into, and I have confirmed the correctness of every single configuration file that even has the slightest chance of impacting the use of the Portal within a simple page. Any and all types of caching or logs have been disabled and purged and tracing reveals no additional information that is helpful to diagnosing the problem.

Are there any scripts within the installation of Portal that can be run to wipe and rebuild the embedded database? If not is the only option to scorch earth? The schema and data are cryptic to me, but if it is possible to diagnose the database for specific problems are there any tools that can do that or do I need detailed architectural knowledge to have any hope of finding bad data in this software?

Answer 1

I finally discovered what the problem is and it does indeed have nothing to do with a corrupt database, but in actuality is an inherent conflict with packaged WAR files having Subversion metadata information on the WAS Portal platform.

When running any WAR or EAR file in WAS or any WAS based product, make sure to exclude all Subversion metadata files and folders from the build. It apparently brings WAS and Portal to its knees.