I have spent several days writing rules and tests for them in Guvnor, and kept having strange results.  A test would sometimes fail, repeatedly, and then finally start working after I would delete and recreate some portion of it, or change a value.

After two of us spent many hours trying to identify the extent of the problem, we concluded the following:
1.  The problem happens under both IE and Firefox.
2.  The problem happens less frequently under Firefox if we install and turn on a third-party plug-in which disables Firefox caching web pages.
3.  Saving a new rule or test will allow us to work with it (edit - save - test scenarios).  However, frequently the rule or test will just disappear once we log out.
4.  A "Save" and "Check-in" will often work correctly if we cross our fingers and do the following:
        a.  Save it once  (the screen updates, and you can check the version history)
        b.  Refresh the browser
        c.  Make the change again
        d.  Save it a second time
5.  After doing a "Save" and "Check-in", you can immediately do a "view source" and see your changes in place.  However, if you then close the test (or rule) and re-open it, you will often find that the change is gone, and the test or rule looks like it did before you made the change.

A sample screenshot appears below.  In this case, I created the test with the "performedTime" set to 20-Sep-2008.  I ran the test and it failed, because the rule was checking for greater than or equal to 21-Sep-2008.  I then changed the date on the test to 21-Sep-2008, did a "save changes" and a "Check-in", and then ran the scenario again.

As you can see below, the asserted object contains the date 20-Sep-2008, even though the test clearly shows 21-Sep-2008.



Does anybody have any ideas on this?  If I copy the above test into a new test, it will often work the first time, but then it may disappear, once I logout, even though it was saved and checked-in.

It almost seems like there is something wrong with the imbedded repository, and / or the first running of the test created fact objects that are persisting and being found the second time I ran the changed test. ...

We are running the Final release of Drools Guvnor 5.1.1 found in drools-5.1.1-guvnor.zip downloaded on 4-Sep-2010
We are running under Tomcat 6.0, with the recommended jar files replaced.

Thanks for your help!

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David Shields
Division of Clinical Informatics
Department of Community and Family Medicine
Duke University Medical Center

Phone (864) 787-8551