Troubleshooting

BootCaT gets stuck while "retrieving URLs"

This could depend on one of the following causes:

Wrong account Key

Cause 1: maybe when subscribing to Windows Azure Marketplace you choose “Bing Search API - Web results only” instead of “Bing search API”

Solution: see this page for instructions on how to obtain the correct account key.

Cause 2: Maybe you used your “Customer ID” instead of your “Primary Account Key”

Solution: see this page

NB: please note that when you use the wrong account key (for any of the reasons listed above), Bing might block your access to the service and refuse to answer all requests coming from your computer (even those made using a legitimate key) for a few hours. This means that if you realise you used the wrong account key, you might need to wait a few hours (I'm not sure how many) before you can try again with the correct key. 1) requests are probably blocked based on IP address, so switching to a different network might be helpful (e.g. switching to your home wifi if you tried it at work or vice versa).

Mac OS X and Java

If you don't have Java, the first time you run BootCaT, Mac OS X (up to version 11, El Capitan) will install its own flavour of Java (version 6) and after you've installed it, it's very, very difficult to remove it.

Unfortunately, BootCaT requires at least Java 7. So you'll need to install version 7 or 8, but doing this this will not remove Java 6, you're basically stuck with it forever.

Having two versions of Java installed confuses BootCaT, especially in the “Collecting URLs” step. The only workaround to this problem is to make Java 7 the default for your system, and this requires you to use the command line.

Here's a step by step guide to fixing the problem:

open Terminal and find out the current default Java version on your machine by typing:

java -version

Download the Java JDK from this site and run the installer

go back to Terminal and type:

cd /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/

The CurrentJDK symlink in this directory was still pointing to an older Java version. To resolve this, remove the symlink and create a new one pointing to the new Java 7 JDK (you may need to use sudo to run these commands):

rm CurrentJDK
ln -s /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_21.jdk/Contents/ CurrentJDK
</cdoe>
* this should have fixed the problem, check your default Java version by typing
<code>
java -version

You should now see java version “1.7.0_21” (or similar).

"Collecting URLs" stops working

Cause: for reasons yet to be determined, sometimes “Collecting URLs” stops working

Solution: try the following workaround ( please note that this will make BootCaT 'forget' your Windows Azure Marketplace accountKey, so either make a copy of it before you start this procedure or make sure you can retrieve it from somewhere else ):

close BootCaT

Windows XP users, remove the folder .bootcat located in C:\Documents and Settings\<your username>\

Windows Vista/7/8 users, remove the folder .bootcat located in C:\Users\<your user name>\appData\Roaming\

Mac/Linux users, remove the folder .bootcat located in your home folder.

restart BootCaT