Spotfire Analyst: Information Designer tool fails to launch with error "Could not start Information Designer because the Information Services did not respond as expected."

Problem:

The Information Designer tool in the Spotfire Analyst client fails to open with an error popup stating:
"Could not start Information Designer because the Information Services did not respond as expected."

Details:

The Information Designer tool is launched from a menu item in the Spotfire Analyst client. There are several known reasons why it might fail to launch.

Solutions:

The intention of this article is to direct the reader to the best resource, based on further detail of the problem scenario. Each of the below Knowledge Base articles specifies a different detail error message, along with recommended resolution steps. Some of these solutions are also outlined in Spotfire Server Administration Guide.

1. An error "Address already in use: bind" is reported in Information Services <Spotfire Server home>\tomcat\logs\informationservices\server.log file:

FATAL ws.server.InformationServicesServer: Information services server has failed, exiting process with status=1
The HTTP service located at http://... is unavailable.  This could be because the service is too busy or because no endpoint was found listening at the specified address. Please ensure that the address is correct and try accessing the service again later.

If the Information Services Java process is not running, this might be because port 9445 is not available. Make sure that port 9445, or the port you configured to use with information services, is available.

2.  Spotfire Server is configured with OpenID authentication and outbound internet access is not permitted (from Spotfire Server) without the use of a proxy:

https://support.revvitysignals.com/hc/en-us/articles/29398976320148-Spotfire-Analyst-Unable-to-access-Information-Designer-in-Spotfire-14

3.  Error "431 Request Header Fields Too Large" is displayed:

ws.external.InformationServiceHttpProxyHandler: 431 Request Header Fields Too Large: 
"<h1>Bad Message 431</h1><pre>reason: Request Header Fields Too Large</pre>" 
InformationModelException at Spotfire.Dxp.Data: The remote server returned an unexpected response: (431) 431

Possible solutions are provided in these articles:

https://support.revvitysignals.com/hc/en-us/articles/21049688244884-Spotfire-Information-Designer-fails-to-start-after-upgrade-to-Spotfire-14-0-with-Error-431-Request-Header-Fields-Too-Large

https://support.revvitysignals.com/hc/en-us/articles/23600172022420-Unable-to-launch-Information-Designer-from-Spotfire-Analyst

4. Kerberos delegation failure to authenticate users to Information Services process:

The HTTP request is unauthorized with client authentication scheme 'Negotiate'. The authentication header received from the server was ''.

A possible solution is provided in this article: https://support.revvitysignals.com/hc/en-us/articles/23600204365204-In-Spotfire-server-12-2-0-or-later-Information-Designer-tries-to-reauthenticate-when-Kerberos-is-in-use

Notes:

a) It is important to apply constrained delegation, not just default (unconstrained) delegation.

b) The second resolution listed, to set "information-services.external-process.enabled=false" in configuration file, is not recommended, because it may result in further error message: "Could not read the selected data. Failed to read data (HRESULT: 80131500)" and Information Designer will still not launch.

As of this writing, the following detail errors for this state does not have a KB article, or a known resolution.  "The Server could not be reached" along with "The remote server returned an error: (401) Unauthorized".

In case none of the above articles are helpful, the below link to a section of the Spotfire Installation Guide covers general troubleshooting tips for the Information Designer.

https://docs.tibco.com/pub/spotfire_server/latest/doc/html/TIB_sfire_server_tsas_admin_help/server/topics/information_services_troubleshooting.html