IBM IMS® Explorer for VS Code

Known issues and limitations

The IBM IMS Explorer for VS Code extension has some known issues and limitations. This page provides the status of the current release. Also review the list of open issues and enhancement requests in our Github repositoryopen in new window. It might list issues that are not yet documented here.

Java™ 21 64-Bit JRE or SDK required

If the right version of Java cannot be found in the current user's path or if no JAVA_HOME environment variable was defined, you might see error messages in the Output view of VS Code. Such errors could also be caused by other reasons such as not enough free memory for Java on your system.

The IMS Explorer for VS Code extension starts by searching for Java in the following locations, in the order specified:

  1. ims.explorer.connection.property.javaHome
  2. java.jdt.ls.java.home
  3. JAVA_HOME environment variable
  4. System PATH
  5. Platform-specific discovery (e.g., /usr/libexec/java_home -V on macOS, where java.exe on Windows)

If your installation is not found and you see a IMS Explorer failed to start error reporting Java cannot be found, try specifying a path to your Java for your ims.explorer.connection.property.javaHome or java.jdt.ls.java.home value in your VS Code settings, or setting your system's JAVA_HOME environment variable. To configure the ims.explorer.connection.property.javaHome path for a supported Java installation, see Configuring the extension.

Java appears to be installed but IMS Explorer for VS Code does not function

If you already have a different but unsupported version of Java installed on your system when attempting to install IMS Explorer for VS Code, you may receive an error stating that the version of Java on your system is incompatible. Installing a supported version of Java while VS Code is running may resolve this error, however certain functions of the extension do not run as expected.

Ensure that a supported version of Java is installed and specified by your JAVA HOME setting in extension settings. Close and relaunch VS Code to ensure the changes take effect.

Source and DDL views do not auto-refresh

When editing DBD source or DDL files, changes are not automatically reflected in other open views (such as table views or visualization views). This is due to VS Code memory limitations that prevent automatic synchronization of changes across different view types. This behavior is expected and cannot currently be changed.

To refresh the view, you can manually refresh the view by clicking the refresh icon in the view toolbar or by using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Shift+R (Windows/Linux) or Cmd+Shift+R (macOS). This will force a refresh of the view and ensure that you are seeing the most up-to-date information.

Reporting issues

If you want to provide feedback or report an issue, contact IBM support or open an issue in the GitHub repositoryopen in new window. Any report and feedback is appreciated.