Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

QUESTION: I have installed the KIM platform. When I tried to start KIM (by running start KIM), the window just flashеd up and died. What should I do?

ANSWER:

Take a look at file <KIM_HOME>\bin\config\config.bat and find the following line:

The size of the heap that the Java engine tries to reserve for KIM is set to 2GB. Most likely the machine you are trying to run it on does not allow such memory allocation. Enlarge the virtual memory of the machine to match the memory needs.

For more details, check the hardware requirements in the Administration guide.

QUESTION: I have problems using KIM through RMI when connecting from a different machine. I get messages like these:

ANSWER:

The messages mean that the RMI does not know on which IP to listen to for your incoming connections. This usually happens on machines with more than one IP address, when you have not replaced the default value for the host in the server configuration. You need to explicitly state the IP address in the server configuration, as described here and use the same address in the client application.

QUESTION: When I try to execute one of the scripts in the KIM distribution, I get the following error message:

ANSWER:

In the different windows platforms, there are different limitations for the maximum length of the command line. Many JAR files need to be included in the classpath of the JVM and you need to provide the whole path for each JAR file. This results in a very long classpath, so the overall command line is also very long.

Try to put KIM in C:\KIM for example. This will reduce significantly the length of the path to each JAR file and consequently the overall length of the command line will be shorter.

• Under Windows NT, the command line is limited to 256 characters.
• Under Windows 2000, the command line is limited to 2046 characters.
• Under Windows XP, the command line is limited to 8190 characters.

QUESTION: When I open any page in the Web UI, I get the following message:

ANSWER:

The root cause is

The interface did not initialize correctly. The exact exception is in Tomcat logs in: Tomcat/logs/localhost.<today's date>.log. The most common reason for such an error is that KIM did not start. Another common issue is to have the RMI interface configured to open a non-standard port for listening.

Use this page - http://localhost:8080/KIM/screen/ConfigDetails.jsp - to determine where the Web UI expects to find KIM. Also make sure that the RMI configuration is correct.

Valid for versions before KIM 3.5.

QUESTION: I can't see the classes I added to the ontology in the Browse Ontology screen or in Facets. What is the problem?

ANSWER:

The classes are not defined as visible. Read carefully the Extending the KIM ontology and knowledge base section in the Developer's guide.

You should also re-deploy the KIM web application container. For example, if you are using Tomcat, you do it by removing the unpacked files from tomcat-home/webapps and clearing the tomcat cache in tomcat-home/work.

If you are using the KIM-integrated Jetty web server, you don't need to do anything, just restart the KIM application.

QUESTION: Why doesn't KIM have an installer?

ANSWER:

KIM supports most of the popular operating systems, so it is hard to find an installer that is both suitable and lightweight. We believe that the standard installation procedure is simple enough for a server application with so many flexibility and configuration options. We are considering a Windows-only installer in the future.

If you are interested in the installer or have any trouble setting up KIM, do not hesitate to contact us directly.

QUESTION: What should I do if I don't have Java installed?

ANSWER:

You can download a JDK for a variety of platforms at the official site. KIM requires versions 1.5.0 or later but we recommend to always use the latest patch version of either JDK 5 or 6. KIM is a powerful application so any known issues with Java will affect it.

QUESTION: I can neither access nor create documents from the Internet. Is it because I am behind a proxy server? What should I do?

ANSWER:

You should set the standard system properties for Java:

• http.proxyHost (default: none)
• http.proxyPort (default: 80 if http.proxyHost specified)
• http.nonProxyHosts (default: none)

To set these properties, use the -Dcommand line option.

For example, right after Java in the Java line in kim(.bat), add the following options:

Keep in mind that these properties will not affect the Java RMI connections, so for example, you cannot use a proxy to connect the KIM Web UI to the KIM server.

QUESTION: Can I make the page displaying the information about entities (KIM Explorer) show a link to an external website?

ANSWER:

Yes, this is possible as KIM supports the notion of external entities. It means that if, by using the KIM Explorer, you reach a resource that is fully defined in the semantic repository, KIM will treat its URI as a URL and it will open a new browser window with that URL. So, in order to show external web links for some of the entities, you will need to add relations to these entities.

To see an example list, click this link.

This example features entities from the dbpedia ontology and not the default KIM World Knowledge Base (KB). But the principle is the same. You will probably need to generate these relations with a script.

QUESTION: How can I implement my own ontology in KIM-Gate?

ANSWER:

Follow the instructions in the GATE documentation about their Ontology Language Resource (LR).

QUESTION: How can I use the KIM Ontology in KIM-Gate?

ANSWER:

Create a GATE Ontology Language Resource (LR) using the <KIM_HOME>/context/default/kb/owl/protonu.owl as an input.

QUESTION: How can I start the Sesame Web UI?

ANSWER:

You cannot. In KIM 3.7, we use Sesame 2, which has a different model for remote access, incompatible with the old web interface.

In the mean time, you can use the JMX management for running SeRQL / SPARQL queries using in particular the com.ontotext.kim.client.SemanticRepositoryMgmt management bean. Use jconsole or VisualVM with the MBeans plugin as a JMX client. Both are located in the bin/ folder of your JDK.

QUESTION: How is the information about the annotated documents from KIM-Gate saved to SESAME and how is it retrieved?

ANSWER:

The semantic annotations are stored according to the protonkm.owl ontology in <KIM_HOME>/ontext/default/kb/owl/. Generally, all RDF in Sesame can be accessed via the SemanticRepositoryAPI. The DocumentRepositoryAPI provides an object-oriented access to the stored documents.

Only annotations with "inst" and "class" features are considered semantic annotations and only they are stored. The default KIM pipeline produces only semantic annotations.

QUESTION: How can I use the "Manage" console?

ANSWER:

Only users with the "kimmanager" role have access to the "Manage" console. The servlet container defines the users and their roles. See your server documentation for more detailed information how to create users and assign roles.

For Apache Tomcat 6.x, the documentation is here.

QUESTION: How do I re-deploy the KIM web interface?

ANSWER:

You should remove all deployments of the UI in tomcat and replace the web archive - KIM.war, with the one in KIM Clients .

This is the command sequence in Linux-based systems (substitute <KIM_HOME> and <TOMCAT_HOME> with the real paths):

If you are using the KIM-integrated Jetty web server, you don't need to do anything, just restart the KIM application.

QUESTION: What to do if KIM crashes or I have shutdown issues or severe functional problems?

ANSWER:

You must increase the logging level of KIM so that we can identify the source of the difficulty. For more details, see Configuring Logging.

QUESTION: I am using the Large Knowledge Base (LKB) gazetteer to obtain lookup annotations in the GATE framework. I was wondering how I can get the lookup annotation for the percentage character (%). If I add "2%" to the RDF dictionary, I get lookup annotations for "2" and "2%", but when I just add "%", I can't get any lookup annotations.

ANSWER:

The LKB gazetteer is designed to deal with regular names of objects and therefore it treats punctuation separately. It considers punctuation at the end of a name optional.

For example, if "Oracle Corp." exists without quotation marks in the dictionary, then both Oracle Corp and Oracle Corp. will be annotated if present in the text. The "." (dot) in the original name will not be trimmed so Oracle Corp% will not be annotated as "." (dot) is different from "%" (percentage).

As a side effect, however, pure punctuation strings cannot be annotated. We recommend that you create a regular gazetteer, which works along the LKB Gazetteer and let this gazetteer handle strings that do not contain alphanumeric characters.

If you have other questions:

If the rather limited troubleshooting options presented here do not help you resolve your problems, please contact us at kim-info@ontotext.com.

Try to isolate and construct a scenario that reproduces the issue every time. We will also need the full logging output of KIM so follow our guide on how to configure and collect maximum logging output.