First Report after Deployment or Idle Time Takes Too Long (BIRT 4.4.2 with Spring Boot)

[Harshit99999123]

Hi all,

I’m using BIRT Runtime 4.4.2 as a dependency in a Spring Boot application. The application simply loads .rptdesign files from the resources folder, populates them with data, and renders the report using a typical IRunAndRenderTask.

Everything works fine, but I’ve observed the following issue:
• The first report generation after application startup, or
• A report generated after a long period of inactivity
…takes significantly longer than subsequent reports.

This appears to be some kind of engine cold-start delay or lazy resource initialization.

What I’m Looking For:
• Is there any recommended configuration or property I can set to warm up the engine or avoid this delay?
• Is this a known limitation in BIRT 4.4.2?
• Would upgrading to a newer runtime help mitigate this?

Any suggestions or workarounds would be really appreciated.

Thanks!

[hvbtup]

This appears to be some kind of engine cold-start delay or lazy resource initialization.

Yes, that's right.
You could of course run a dummy report after a cold start.

[Harshit99999123]

Hi @hvbtup ,

Thank you for your response.

I had considered a similar approach, but I’m concerned it may impact the application startup time, particularly if it involves checking or triggering BIRT-related operations during initialization.

Additionally, this issue typically surfaces after a prolonged period of inactivity. In that case, running a scheduled job to produce a dummy report periodically could mitigate the issue, but it feels like a workaround rather than an optimized solution.

Would it be possible to address this more elegantly by configuring something within the BIRT engine itself? For instance, is there a way to prevent resource unloading or to trigger a lightweight warm-up mechanism within the BIRT engine configuration?

Looking forward to your suggestions.

[hvbtup]

AFAIK BIRT does not unload anything once it's loaded. Only the first report after starting is slow.

Probably the "is slow after long inactivity" is an issue with your Spring Boot configuration (but I'm not an expert on that topic).