Starting bbcomm in Java v3 Bloomberg API

Question

When I use the Java Bloomber V3 API it usually works. However, sometimes, especially after a reboot, bbcomm.exe is not running in the background. I can start it manually by running blp.exe, but I wondered if there was a way of doing this via the API?

I'm still waiting on Help-Help ...

Answer 1

bbcomm.exe is automatically started by the V3 API.

Answer 2

After talking to the help desk, it turns out that on 64 bit Windows, running under a 64bit JVM bbcomm is not automatically started. This does not happen under 32bit Java - under 32 bit bbcomm automatically runs.

So my solutions are either to wait for the problem to be fixed by Bloomberg (now I understand it) or to check this specific case.

To check the specific case:

• if running under a 64 bit windows (System property os.arch)
• and if running under a 64bit JVM (System property java.vm.name)
• then try and start a session
• If this fails, assume bbcomm.exe is not running. Try to run bbcomm.exe using Runtime.exec()

I haven't tested the above yet. It may have exactly the same issues as Bloomberg have with 64bit VMs.