Running two different versions of TIBCO Spotfire Node Manager(TSNM) at the same time on one machine is not supported

Running two different versions of TIBCO Spotfire Node Manager(TSNM) at the same time on one machine is not supported

If two different versions of  TIBCO Spotfire Node Manager (TSNM) are installed on same server machine, the Node Manager (service) which is started first, always has a communication issue and stops working. Whereas Node Manager installed later runs/works as expected. This applies to both Web Player and Automation services.

The screenshot here is from an environment which is running TIBCO Spotfire Node manager 7.11 and 7.13 on one machine.


For problematic Spotfire version, you can see below error in Spotfire server logs (server.log) :
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WARN 2019-05-17T16:22:04,964+0530 [monitor-110] service.monitor.RemoteServiceMonitor: Polling failed for https://seematss02:9501/4997f28a-fb78-4549-9836-ce9b19b8d248/managementService/getServiceInformation
org.springframework.web.client.ResourceAccessException: I/O error on GET request for "https://seematss02:9501/4997f28a-fb78-4549-9836-ce9b19b8d248/managementService/getServiceInformation": sun.security.validator.ValidatorException: PKIX path validation failed: java.security.cert.CertPathValidatorException: Path does not chain with any of the trust anchors; nested exception is javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException: sun.security.validator.ValidatorException: PKIX path validation failed: java.security.cert.CertPathValidatorException: Path does not chain with any of the trust anchors.
.....
Caused by: javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException: sun.security.validator.ValidatorException: PKIX path validation failed: java.security.cert.CertPathValidatorException: Path does not chain with any of the trust anchors  
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Cause: 

Let's say, you installed Node Manager(NM) version 7.13 and 7.11 on same server machine with no ports conflicts.

For example, you first installed Node Manager version 7.13 pointing to it's corresponding Spotfire server version and it's up and running.
Later you installed Node Manager version 7.11 pointing to it's corresponding Spotfire server version and it's up and running.

Now, if you check after some time, Node Manager version which started first(7.13) has an issue for Web Player instance as shown in above screenshot.

This issue occurs because Node Manager installed later(version 7.11) overwrites the certificate used by Node Manager installed first(version 7.13).

At startup, Web Player saves a certificate in the "Local computer->Personal->Certificates" and this process overwrites any other Web Player certificate that already exists in the store, so that's why the other(e.g. 7.13) Web Player's instance running on the other Node Manager stops working.

If you restart the Node Manager(e.g. 7.13) on where the Web Player's instance does not work, then the Web player's instance on the other Node Manager(e.g. 7.11)  stop working as the certificate is again overwritten by the Web Player's that was restarted(e.g. 7.13). Running 2 Node Managers of different versions, at the same time on one machine is not supported.
It will only work if you run 1 Node Manager service at a time, just not both Node Manager services at the same time.