Oracle Apps Technology

BEA-141281 unable to get file lock

2012-01-12T09:05:00.000-08:00

./startManagedWebLogic.sh soa_server1
SOA Managed Server wouldn't start with this error:

BEA-141281 unable to get file lock, will retry

cd $MW_HOME/user_projects/domains/soa_domain/servers/soa_server1/tmp
rm *.lok

Retry command
./startManagedWebLogic.sh soa_server1

java.lang.NegativeArraySizeException

2011-12-14T14:18:00.000-08:00

On starting weblogic on Solaris 10, I got this error

Could not load the performance pack that can take advantage of /dev/(e)poll device due to:
java.lang.NegativeArraySizeException.

I checked ulimit:

ulimit -n
65536

I reduced ulimit to 65534:

ulimit -n 65534

and weblogic started up fine.

I remember reading somewhere that java has array overflow issues if ulimit is set to maximum.

A connection to the server could not be established: null (user=DBA.ADMIN)

2011-12-14T08:43:00.000-08:00

This morning I got a call from various people complaining about OTM not allowing them to login. Anyone who tried logging in got this error:

A connection to the server could not be established: null (user=any_valid_otm_user)

I checked $GLOG_HOME/logs/weblogic/console.log.0:

INFO | 2011/12/14 09:40:07 | -- OTM Event: serverReady
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | javax.management.MBeanException: MBean invoke failed: weblogic.management.mbeanservers.edit.EditTimedOutException:
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 |
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | javax.management.MBeanException: MBean invoke failed: weblogic.management.mbeanservers.edit.EditTimedOutException:
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at weblogic.rmi.internal.ServerRequest.sendReceive(ServerRequest.java:205)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at weblogic.rmi.internal.BasicRemoteRef.invoke(BasicRemoteRef.java:222)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at javax.management.remote.rmi.RMIConnectionImpl_1033_WLStub.invoke(Unknown Source)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at weblogic.management.remote.common.RMIConnectionWrapper$16.run(ClientProviderBase.java:876)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at weblogic.security.acl.internal.AuthenticatedSubject.doAs(AuthenticatedSubject.java:363)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at weblogic.security.service.SecurityManager.runAs(SecurityManager.java:147)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at weblogic.security.Security.runAs(Security.java:61)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at weblogic.management.remote.common.RMIConnectionWrapper.invoke(ClientProviderBase.java:874)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at javax.management.remote.rmi.RMIConnector$RemoteMBeanServerConnection.invoke(RMIConnector.java:993)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at glog.util.jmx.JMXConnection.call(JMXConnection.java:104)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at glog.util.j2ee.remote.WLManagementHelper$Edit.(WLManagementHelper.java:54)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at glog.util.j2ee.jdbc.WLConnectionPoolInstance.create(WLConnectionPoolInstance.java:139)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at glog.util.j2ee.jdbc.ASConnectionPoolInstance.(ASConnectionPoolInstance.java:52)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at glog.util.datasource.AppServerConnectionPoolInstance.(AppServerConnectionPoolInstance.java:9)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at glog.util.datasource.AppServerConnectionPool.getNewInstance(AppServerConnectionPool.java:71)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at glog.util.datasource.AppServerConnectionPool.getInstance(AppServerConnectionPool.java:61)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at glog.util.datasource.AppServerConnectionPool.reserve(AppServerConnectionPool.java:34)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at glog.util.datasource.DataSource.reserve(DataSource.java:143)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at glog.util.datasource.DataSource.reserve(DataSource.java:137)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at glog.util.jdbc.noserver.T2SharedConnection$ReferencedConnection.addRef(T2SharedConnection.java:301)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at glog.util.jdbc.noserver.T2SharedConnection$ReferencedConnection.addRef(T2SharedConnection.java:291)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at glog.util.jdbc.noserver.T2SharedConnection.open(T2SharedConnection.java:57)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at glog.server.useraccess.UserAccessSessionBean.getUserAccess(UserAccessSessionBean.java:154)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at glog.server.useraccess.UserAccessSessionServerSideEJBWrapper.getUserAccess(UserAccessSessionServerSideEJBWrapper.java:87)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at glog.server.useraccess.UserAccessSessionHome_uzvgzz_EOImpl.getUserAccess(UserAccessSessionHome_uzvgzz_EOImpl.java:1600)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at glog.server.useraccess.UserAccessSessionHome_uzvgzz_EOImpl_WLSkel.invoke(Unknown Source)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at weblogic.rmi.internal.BasicServerRef.invoke(BasicServerRef.java:589)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at weblogic.rmi.cluster.ClusterableServerRef.invoke(ClusterableServerRef.java:230)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at weblogic.rmi.internal.BasicServerRef$1.run(BasicServerRef.java:477)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at weblogic.security.acl.internal.AuthenticatedSubject.doAs(AuthenticatedSubject.java:363)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at weblogic.security.service.SecurityManager.runAs(SecurityManager.java:147)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at weblogic.rmi.internal.BasicServerRef.handleRequest(BasicServerRef.java:473)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at weblogic.rmi.internal.wls.WLSExecuteRequest.run(WLSExecuteRequest.java:118)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.execute(ExecuteThread.java:201)
INFO | 2011/12/14 09:47:01 | at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.run(ExecuteThread.java:173)

I googled and found a few hits and in one of them found this line:

When I'm trying to deploy my project on weblogic I've got this error:
2007-02-09 16:05:15 CET Error Deployer BEA-149181 Deployment Service encountered error while aborting the edit session before start. Initiato
r for this edit session is 'principals=[kernel identity = -1632281053]'. Error is 'weblogic.management.provider.EditNotEditorException: Not edit lock
owner'
weblogic.management.provider.EditNotEditorException: Not edit lock owner

On seeing those words: Not edit lock owner, I realized that the previous day, I was trying to create SFTP File control in OTM Weblogic console. It wasn't letting me create a new one, till I clicked Lock and Edit. So I quickly logged into weblogic console and clicked on Release Configuration button. The subsequent logins to OTM started working after this.

passwordless ssh doesn't work

2011-12-08T07:56:00.000-08:00

On both source and target servers ensure these permissions exist:

$ chmod go-w ~/
$ chmod 700 ~/.ssh
$ chmod 600 ~/.ssh/authorized_keys
$ chmod 600 ~/.ssh/id_rsa
$ chmod 644 ~/.ssh/id_rsa.pub
$ chmod 644 ~/.ssh/known_hosts

It didn't work for me in one case where $HOME directory had 777 permission

Looking at /var/log/auth.log on my server revealed the problem: sshd was
refusing to use my public key because my home directory was
group-writable. In order to do pubkey auth, both the home directory
and the .ssh directory must writable only by the owner.

Two parts: first, turn up debugging on your ssh sever. Edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config and increase LogLevel to DEBUG. Then force your ssh server to reload it's config with killall -HUP .

That will cause the server to add much more details to your /var/log/secure and/or /var/log/auth logfiles.

Secondly (actually you cant try this first), increase the debug level on the client side. ssh in to the box with

$ ssh -vvv hostname

and that will print out lots more info about where the process is failing.

If you do turn up the debug level on your ssh server, don't forget to turn it back down when you are finished.

Where is OA_HTML defined in R12

2011-11-21T18:50:00.000-08:00

OA_HTML is defined in $ORA_CONFIG_HOME/10.1.3/j2ee/oacore/config/oc4j.properties

IGW_BUDGET_CATEGORY_V invalid in R12

2011-11-17T10:12:00.000-08:00

If you are getting this in 11i then you can apply this patch as per article
Patch 6629280: APPSST11G:11510CU2: IGW: INVALID GROUP BY EXPRESSION IN VIEW DUE TO CBO IFX

Originally we got 70 invalids after applying R12.1.3 patch 9239090. Oracle advised us to run utlirp.sql, followed by utlrp.sql.

We ran utlirp.sql which invalidates all objects
then ran utlrp.sql which reduced the count to 53
then we ran utlrp.sql which reduced the count to 2:

VIEW IGW_BUDGET_CATEGORY_V
PACKAGE BODY IGW_REPORT_PROCESSING

The package was not compiling because of the invalid view. So I extracted the definition of the view from a working R12.1.3 instance through dbms_metadata:

SQL> connect apps/appspassword
SQL> set heading off
SQL> set long4000
SQL> select dbms_metadata.get_ddl('VIEW','IGW_BUDGET_CATEGORY_V') from dual;

CREATE OR REPLACE FORCE VIEW "APPS"."IGW_BUDGET_CATEGORY_V" ("PROPOSAL_ID", "VERSION_ID", "BUDGET_PERIOD_ID", "LINE_ITEM_ID", "EXPENDITURE_TYPE", "EXPENDITURE_CATEGORY_FLAG", "BUDGET_CATEGORY_CODE", "BUDGET_CATEGORY", "BASE_AMT", "OH_APPLIED_FLAG", "OH_COST", "EB_COST") AS
SELECT pbcv.proposal_id,
pbcv.version_id,
pbcv.budget_period_id,
pbcv.line_item_id,
pbcv.expenditure_type,

pbcv.expenditure_category_flag,
pbcv.budget_category_code,
fl.meaning budget_category,
SUM (pbcv.line_item_cost + pbcv.eb_cost) base_amt,
DECODE (pbcv.oh_cost, 0, 'N', 'Y') oh_applied_flag,
pbcv.oh_cost,
pbcv.eb_cost
FROM igw_budget_complete_v pbcv, igw_lookups_v fl
WHERE pbcv.budget_category_code = fl.lookup_code
AND fl.lookup_type = 'IGW_BUDGET_CATEGORY'
GROUP BY pbcv.proposal_id,
pbcv.version_id,
pbcv.budget_period_id,
pbcv.budget_category_code,
fl.meaning,
pbcv.line_item_id,
pbcv.expenditure_type,
pbcv.expenditure_category_flag,
DECODE (pbcv.oh_cost, 0, 'N', 'Y'),
pbcv.oh_cost,
pbcv.eb_cost

I have corrected the indentation above. You may have to correct indentation if you plan to copy from the output generated by dbms_metadata.

Executed this and we have zero invalids now:

1 CREATE OR REPLACE FORCE VIEW "APPS"."IGW_BUDGET_CATEGORY_V" ("PROPOSAL_ID ", "VERSION_ID", "BUDGET_PERIOD_ID", "LINE_ITEM_ID", "EXPENDITURE_TYPE", "EXPEND ITURE_CATEGORY_FLAG", "BUDGET_CATEGORY_CODE", "BUDGET_CATEGORY", "BASE_AMT", "OH _APPLIED_FLAG", "OH_COST", "EB_COST") AS
2 SELECT pbcv.proposal_id,
3 pbcv.version_id,
4 pbcv.budget_period_id,
5 pbcv.line_item_id,
6 pbcv.expenditure_type,
7 pbcv.expenditure_category_flag,
8 pbcv.budget_category_code,
9 fl.meaning budget_category,
10 SUM (pbcv.line_item_cost + pbcv.eb_cost) base_amt,
11 DECODE (pbcv.oh_cost, 0, 'N', 'Y') oh_applied_flag,
12 pbcv.oh_cost,
13 pbcv.eb_cost
14 FROM igw_budget_complete_v pbcv, igw_lookups_v fl
15 WHERE pbcv.budget_category_code = fl.lookup_code
16 AND fl.lookup_type = 'IGW_BUDGET_CATEGORY'
17 GROUP BY pbcv.proposal_id,
18 pbcv.version_id,
19 pbcv.budget_period_id,
20 pbcv.budget_category_code,
21 fl.meaning,
22 pbcv.line_item_id,
23 pbcv.expenditure_type,
24 pbcv.expenditure_category_flag,
25 DECODE (pbcv.oh_cost, 0, 'N', 'Y'),
26 pbcv.oh_cost,
27* pbcv.eb_cost
28 /

View created.

SQL> alter package IGW_REPORT_PROCESSING compile body;

Package body altered.

SQL> select instance from v$thread;

INSTANCE
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
exampler12

SQL> select count(*) from dba_objects where status='INVALID';

COUNT(*)
----------
0

Use Opera to access edelivery.oracle.com

2011-11-02T06:25:00.001-07:00

After Oracle SSO enabled edelivery.oracle.com, we were unable to access the site through Opera browser. Whenever we clicked on Sign On/Register button a screen with Oracle Access Manager would come up with

Error

System error. Please re-try your action. If you continue to get this error, please contact the Administrator.

A google search revealed the answer from OTN. You have to make Opera identify itself as Internet Explorer. It works fine then. This is from http://www.opera.com/support/kb/view/843/

Go to edelivery.oracle.com. Click on Sign in / Register button. Wait for the error to appear.
Right click anywhere on the site, click Edit Site Preferences.
Click the "Network" tab
In the "Browser identification" drop-down, select "Identify as Internet Explorer" or "Identify as Firefox"
Click "OK"
Reload the page

UX: useradd: ERROR: Inconsistent password files

2011-10-18T13:57:00.000-07:00

While using useradd command to add my user, I got this error:

UX: /usr/sbin/useradd: ERROR: Inconsistent password files. See pwconv(1M).

Logged in as root, I checked the no. of lines in /etc/passwd and /etc/shadow:

# cat /etc/shadow |wc -l
299
# cat /etc/passwd |wc -l
300

vi /etc/passwd

I saw that last line was a blank and removed the blank line.

Using useradd command worked now without issues.

Weblogic hangs at BEA-002014 IIOP subsystem enabled

2011-09-15T18:05:00.000-07:00

After a server reboot, OTM Weblogic would not start up. It was forever waiting after showing these lines in weblogic.log:

####Sep 15, 2011 5:22:38 PM EDT Info IIOP weblogic.justanexample.com gc3-appotms1 [ACTIVE] ExecuteThread: '0' for queue: 'weblogic.kernel.Default (self-tuning)' WLS Kernel 1316121758429 BEA-002014 IIOP subsystem enabled.

A google search with keywords "Weblogic hang BEA-002014 IIOP subsystem enabled" led me to

https://forums.oracle.com/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=923601

Vivek Tripathi gave a solution two years ago in 2009:

Hmmmm ... Last line in the logs are
"<2/07/2009 08:54:10 PM CDT>

"

Usually after enabling IIOP subsystem weblogic server initiates "security". I will suggest to rename the "ldap" directory present under location "\servers\\data" and start the server.
This issue may be due to corrupt LDAP data.

I stopped Apache and Weblogic

cd $GLOG_HOME/weblogic/domains/otm/servers/gc3-appotms1/data

mv ldap ldap.old

Restarted Apache and Weblogic

Weblogic came up fine after this.

[HTTP:101216]Servlet: "action" failed to preload on startup in Web application: "ccg.war".

2011-09-13T17:17:00.001-07:00

While deploying ccg in a freshly installed Weblogic 10.3.5, this error was coming:

[HTTP:101216]Servlet: "action" failed to preload on startup in Web application: "ccg.war". java.lang.NullPointerException at org.apache.commons.digester.Digester.getXMLReader(Digester.java:899) at org.apache.commons.digester.Digester.parse(Digester.java:1647) at org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet.parseModuleConfigFile(ActionServlet.java:708) at org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet.initModuleConfig(ActionServlet.java:670) at org.apache.struts.action.ActionServlet.init(ActionServlet.java:329) at javax.servlet.GenericServlet.init(GenericServlet.java:241) at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper$ServletInitAction.run(StubSecurityHelper.java:283) at weblogic.security.acl.internal.AuthenticatedSubject.doAs(AuthenticatedSubject.java:321) at weblogic.security.service.SecurityManager.runAs(SecurityManager.java:120) at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper.createServlet(StubSecurityHelper.java:64) at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubLifecycleHelper.createOneInstance(StubLifecycleHelper.java:58) at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubLifecycleHelper.(StubLifecycleHelper.java:48) at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletStubImpl.prepareServlet(ServletStubImpl.java:539) at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext.preloadServlet(WebAppServletContext.java:1985) at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext.loadServletsOnStartup(WebAppServletContext.java:1959) at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext.preloadResources(WebAppServletContext.java:1878) at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext.start(WebAppServletContext.java:3153) at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppModule.startContexts(WebAppModule.java:1508) at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppModule.start(WebAppModule.java:482) at weblogic.application.internal.flow.ModuleStateDriver$3.next(ModuleStateDriver.java:425) at weblogic.application.utils.StateMachineDriver.nextState(StateMachineDriver.java:52) at weblogic.application.internal.flow.ModuleStateDriver.start(ModuleStateDriver.java:119) at weblogic.application.internal.flow.ScopedModuleDriver.start(ScopedModuleDriver.java:200) at weblogic.application.internal.flow.ModuleListenerInvoker.start(ModuleListenerInvoker.java:247) at weblogic.application.internal.flow.ModuleStateDriver$3.next(ModuleStateDriver.java:425) at weblogic.application.utils.StateMachineDriver.nextState(StateMachineDriver.java:52) at weblogic.application.internal.flow.ModuleStateDriver.start(ModuleStateDriver.java:119) at weblogic.application.internal.flow.StartModulesFlow.activate(StartModulesFlow.java:27) at weblogic.application.internal.BaseDeployment$2.next(BaseDeployment.java:636) at weblogic.application.utils.StateMachineDriver.nextState(StateMachineDriver.java:52) at weblogic.application.internal.BaseDeployment.activate(BaseDeployment.java:205) at weblogic.application.internal.SingleModuleDeployment.activate(SingleModuleDeployment.java:43) at weblogic.application.internal.DeploymentStateChecker.activate(DeploymentStateChecker.java:161) at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.AppContainerInvoker.activate(AppContainerInvoker.java:79) at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.operations.AbstractOperation.activate(AbstractOperation.java:569) at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.operations.ActivateOperation.activateDeployment(ActivateOperation.java:150) at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.operations.ActivateOperation.doCommit(ActivateOperation.java:116) at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.operations.AbstractOperation.commit(AbstractOperation.java:323) at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.DeploymentManager.handleDeploymentCommit(DeploymentManager.java:844) at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.DeploymentManager.activateDeploymentList(DeploymentManager.java:1253) at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.DeploymentManager.handleCommit(DeploymentManager.java:440) at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.DeploymentServiceDispatcher.commit(DeploymentServiceDispatcher.java:163) at weblogic.deploy.service.internal.targetserver.DeploymentReceiverCallbackDeliverer.doCommitCallback(DeploymentReceiverCallbackDeliverer.java:195) at weblogic.deploy.service.internal.targetserver.DeploymentReceiverCallbackDeliverer.access$100(DeploymentReceiverCallbackDeliverer.java:13) at weblogic.deploy.service.internal.targetserver.DeploymentReceiverCallbackDeliverer$2.run(DeploymentReceiverCallbackDeliverer.java:68) at weblogic.work.SelfTuningWorkManagerImpl$WorkAdapterImpl.run(SelfTuningWorkManagerImpl.java:528) at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.execute(ExecuteThread.java:209) at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.run(ExecuteThread.java:178)

The issue is caused by the following setup: Existence of ‘xercesImpl.jar’ file in the ccg-war directory (Location: /WEB-INF/lib) caused errors on the Weblogic 11g application server while deplying CCG applications.

As per My Oracle Support article "CCG 5.5.1 Deployment With Weblogic 10.3.0.1/11g Fails [ID 1265899.1]"

This is explained in the following bug:
Bug 10251676 - CCG 5.5.1 DEPLOYMENT WITH WEBLOGIC 10.3.0.1 FAILS

Solution
1. Delete Weblogic cache and restart it before applying the workaround below.
2. Remove the ‘xercesImpl.jar’ file from ccg-war directory (Location: /WEB-INF/lib)
3. Redeploy CCG applications on Weblogic 11g application server. (Refer to the CCG Install Guide v5.5.1 for detailed instructions.

Weblogic Cache exists in $MW_HOME/user_projects/domains/ccg/servers/AdminServer/tmp
I had named my domain ccg. You can replace that with your domain name in the above path.

So I did this:

Stop Weblogic Server
rm /ccg/WEB-INF/lib/xercesImpl.jar
rm -rf $MW_HOME/user_projects/domains/ccg/servers/AdminServer/tmp
mkdir $MW_HOME/user_projects/domains/ccg/servers/AdminServer/tmp
Start Weblogic Server

The issue was resolved.

GRC An error occurred during the login process

2011-09-13T14:32:00.000-07:00

On a freshly installed Oracle EGRC(Enterprise Governance Risk and Compliance) 8.6.3 on OEL 5.6, I got this error in front end:

An error occurred during the login process.

On checking $MW_HOME/grc863/grc/log/grc.log, I found this error:

2011-09-13 14:27:25,529 ERROR [el.Default (self-tuning)'] LoginServiceImpl:233 Error during User Authentication : No Configuration was registered that can handle the configuration named JdbcAuth
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: No Configuration was registered that can handle the configuration named JdbcAuth
at com.bea.common.security.jdkutils.JAASConfiguration.getAppConfigurationEntry(JAASConfiguration.java:130)
at oracle.apps.grc.security.AuthenticationEnforcer.authenticate(AuthenticationEnforcer.java:77)
at oracle.apps.grc.ui.login.server.LoginServiceImpl.isLogin(LoginServiceImpl.java:148)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
at com.google.gwt.user.server.rpc.RPC.invokeAndEncodeResponse(RPC.java:562)
at com.google.gwt.user.server.rpc.RemoteServiceServlet.processCall(RemoteServiceServlet.java:188)
at oracle.apps.grc.ui.common.server.context.AACGRemoteServiceServlet.processCall(AACGRemoteServiceServlet.java:73)
at com.google.gwt.user.server.rpc.RemoteServiceServlet.processPost(RemoteServiceServlet.java:224)
at com.google.gwt.user.server.rpc.AbstractRemoteServiceServlet.doPost(AbstractRemoteServiceServlet.java:62)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:727)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:820)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper$ServletServiceAction.run(StubSecurityHelper.java:227)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper.invokeServlet(StubSecurityHelper.java:125)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletStubImpl.execute(ServletStubImpl.java:300)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.TailFilter.doFilter(TailFilter.java:26)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:56)
at oracle.apps.grc.ui.webapp.servlet.ApplicationResourceRequestFilter.doFilter(ApplicationResourceRequestFilter.java:262)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:56)
at oracle.security.jps.ee.http.JpsAbsFilter$1.run(JpsAbsFilter.java:111)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at oracle.security.jps.util.JpsSubject.doAsPrivileged(JpsSubject.java:313)
at oracle.security.jps.ee.util.JpsPlatformUtil.runJaasMode(JpsPlatformUtil.java:413)
at oracle.security.jps.ee.http.JpsAbsFilter.runJaasMode(JpsAbsFilter.java:94)
at oracle.security.jps.ee.http.JpsAbsFilter.doFilter(JpsAbsFilter.java:161)
at oracle.security.jps.ee.http.JpsFilter.doFilter(JpsFilter.java:71)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:56)
at oracle.dms.servlet.DMSServletFilter.doFilter(DMSServletFilter.java:136)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:56)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.RequestEventsFilter.doFilter(RequestEventsFilter.java:27)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:56)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext$ServletInvocationAction.wrapRun(WebAppServletContext.java:3715)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext$ServletInvocationAction.run(WebAppServletContext.java:3681)
at weblogic.security.acl.internal.AuthenticatedSubject.doAs(AuthenticatedSubject.java:321)
at weblogic.security.service.SecurityManager.runAs(SecurityManager.java:120)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext.securedExecute(WebAppServletContext.java:2277)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppServletContext.execute(WebAppServletContext.java:2183)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletRequestImpl.run(ServletRequestImpl.java:1454)
at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.execute(ExecuteThread.java:209)
at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.run(ExecuteThread.java:178)

I checked startManagedWeblogic.sh script and found that there was a space before jaas.conf

JAVA_OPTIONS="-Xms8192m -Xmx16384m -Xss512k -XX:MaxPermSize=512m -Doracle.security.jps.auth.debug=true -Doracle.security.jps.auth.debug.verbose=true -Djava.security.debug=access,failure -Djava.security.auth.login.config="/GE/erpgrca1/grcapp/weblogic/grc863/grc/WEB-INF/ jaas.config" -Djava.awt.headless=true -Dweblogic.security.SSL.trustedCAKeyStore="/GE/erpgrca1/grcapp/weblogic/wlserver_10.3/server/lib/cacerts" ${JAVA_OPTIONS}"
export JAVA_OPTIONS

I started Weblogic again and a new error showed up in grc.log:

2011-09-13 14:43:05,456 ERROR [el.Default (self-tuning)'] LoginServiceImpl:233 Error during User Authentication : No Configuration was registered that can handle the configuration named JdbcAuth
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: No Configuration was registered that can handle the configuration named JdbcAuth
at com.bea.common.security.jdkutils.JAASConfiguration.getAppConfigurationEntry(JAASConfiguration.java:130)
at oracle.apps.grc.security.AuthenticationEnforcer.authenticate(AuthenticationEnforcer.java:77)
at oracle.apps.grc.ui.login.server.LoginServiceImpl.isLogin(LoginServiceImpl.java:148)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
at com.google.gwt.user.server.rpc.RPC.invokeAndEncodeResponse(RPC.java:562)
at com.google.gwt.user.server.rpc.RemoteServiceServlet.processCall(RemoteServiceServlet.java:188)
at oracle.apps.grc.ui.common.server.context.AACGRemoteServiceServlet.processCall(AACGRemoteServiceServlet.java:73)
at com.google.gwt.user.server.rpc.RemoteServiceServlet.processPost(RemoteServiceServlet.java:224)
at com.google.gwt.user.server.rpc.AbstractRemoteServiceServlet.doPost(AbstractRemoteServiceServlet.java:62)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:727)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:820)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper$ServletServiceAction.run(StubSecurityHelper.java:227)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.StubSecurityHelper.invokeServlet(StubSecurityHelper.java:125)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.ServletStubImpl.execute(ServletStubImpl.java:300)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.TailFilter.doFilter(TailFilter.java:26)
at weblogic.servlet.internal.FilterChainImpl.doFilter(FilterChainImpl.java:56)
at oracle.apps.grc.ui.webapp.servlet.ApplicationResourceRequestFilter.doFilter(ApplicationResourceRequestFilter.java:262)

I went through the documentation again and realized that I needed to do this:

If you are installing EGRCC to perform analysis in Oracle EBS or PeopleSoft instances:
1. Stop the Administration Server.
2. Open the file StartWebLogic.sh in a text editor. The file resides in the /user_projects/domains//bin directory.
3. Add the following line to the file, replacing with the full path to the grc863 directory you created earlier (see step 5 of ―Preparing Additional Files‖ on page 2-7).

SAVE_JAVA_OPTIONS="-Xms512m -Xmx4096m -Xss512k -XX:MaxPermSize=512m -Doracle.security.jps.auth.debug=true -Doracle.security.jps.auth.debug.verbose=true -Djava.security.debug=access,failure -Djava.security.auth.login.config="/grc/WEB-INF/ jaas.config" -Djava.awt.headless=true -Dweblogic.security.SSL.trustedCAKeystore="/wl server_10.3/server/lib/cacerts" ${JAVA_OPTIONS}"

You may use a maximum memory setting (-Xmx) larger than 4096m if your server has enough memory to support the larger value.
4. Start the Administration Server

Once I did the abve steps, I was able to login to GRC with the default username/password : admin/admin

Sendmail connects to localhost only

2011-09-07T06:06:00.000-07:00

In a new Solaris build, we go this problem about sendmail. It was connecting on sendmail port 25 only if hostname was localhost or 127.0.0.1. It was not listening on all the other IPs plumbed on the box. Here's what I did to make it listen on all IPs:

Stop sendmail
svcadm disable sendmail

cd /etc/mail
chmod 600 sendmail.cf

Search for this line:
O DaemonPortOptions=NAME=NoMTA4, Family=inet, Addr=127.0.0.1

Remove , Addr=127.0.0.1 so that the line now reads:
O DaemonPortOptions=NAME=NoMTA4, Family=inet

chmod 444 sendmail.cf

Start Sendmail
svcadm enable sendmail

Retest by doing

telnet hostname_of_server 25

If it still doesn't work, do this:

svccfg -s sendmail setprop config/local_only=false

svcadm refresh sendmail

svcadm restart sendmail

OTM HTTP-400 Bad Request

2011-08-26T08:44:00.000-07:00

Some users reported HTTP-400 Bad Request errors in ERPOTMD1. Here's what was happening:

1. If the first window you open was an OTM instance, everything worked fine.

2. If you started E-Business Suite and then accessed OTM, HTTP-400 Bad Request would result.

3. This was happening in IE8, Firefox6.

4. Apache error.log showed:

[Wed Aug 24 14:41:43 2011] [error] [client 3.75.208.77] request failed: error reading the headers

I googled and found this:

http://allthingsunix.inside.quest.com/thread.jspa?threadID=4667

This post advised:

request headers can be quite long, try setting

LimitRequestFieldsize 12392

in the server context.

See http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/mod/core.html#limitrequestfieldsize

So I checked the value of this variable in Apache httpd.conf and found that it was set to:

LimitRequestFieldSize 2048
LimitRequestLine 4096

I changed it to

LimitRequestFieldSize 20480
LimitRequestLine 40960

And bounced Apache and Weblogic.

Problem was resolved. For official confirmation from Oracle about this fix, I logged SR. Oracle OTM Development was ok with this change.

adgendbc.sh java.sql.SQLException: Invalid number format for port number

2011-08-17T13:49:00.000-07:00

Bimal asked me about this one. While running adconfig on an R12 clone, the following error was being reported:

Unique constraint error (00001) is OK if key already exists

Creating the DBC file...
java.sql.SQLException: SO Exception was generated
Database connection to jdbc:oracle:thin:@(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS_LIST=(LOAD_BALANCE=YES)(FAILOVER=YES)(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcp)(HOST=R1213q2.justanexample.com)(PORT=1553)))(CONNECT_DATA=)) failed
ADD call failed with exit code 1

Updating Server Security Authentication
java.sql.SQLException: Invalid number format for port number
Database connection to jdbc:oracle:thin:@host_name:port_number:database failed
Updating Server Security Authentication failed with exit code 1
Restoring DBC file from backed up location $INST_TOP/appltmp/TXK/R1213q2_Wed_Aug_17_14_32_2011.dbc

adgendbc.sh ended at Wed Aug 17 14:32:04 EDT 2011

adgendbc.sh exiting with status 1
ERRORCODE = 1 ERRORCODE_END
.end std out.

.end err out.
****************************************************

We noticed the blank CONNECT_DATA and did node cleanup and re-ran autoconfig. However it still failed:

Unique constraint error (00001) is OK if key already exists

Creating the DBC file...
java.sql.SQLRecoverableException: No more data to read from socket raised getting GUEST_USER_PWD - ignoring
java.sql.SQLRecoverableException: No more data to read from socket- Database error performing ADD

ADD call failed with exit code 1

Updating Server Security Authentication
java.sql.SQLException: Invalid number format for port number
Database connection to jdbc:oracle:thin:@host_name:port_number:database failed
Updating Server Security Authentication failed with exit code 1
Restoring DBC file from backed up location $INST_TOP/appltmp/TXK/R1213q2_Wed_Aug_17_16_11_2011.dbc

adgendbc.sh ended at Wed Aug 17 16:11:16 EDT 2011

adgendbc.sh exiting with status 1
ERRORCODE = 1 ERRORCODE_END
.end std out.
Unable to update GUEST_USER_PWD in database to GUEST/ORACLE - java.sql.SQLRecoverableException: No more data to read from socket

After a lot of searching in My Oracle Support I found this article: Adgendbc Fails With Database Connection Failure [ID 1302708.1]. It asked us to do this:

The following change to the database parameters allows Autoconfig, and specifically adgenfbc.sh, to complete successfully. Please make this change and then re-run autoconfig.

alter system set JAVA_JIT_ENABLED= FALSE scope = both;

We did this, but the error still appeared.

So we bounced the database. After bouncing the database it worked fine:

$ cd $INST_TOP/admin/install
$ ./adgendbc.sh

adgendbc.sh started at Wed Aug 17 16:20:52 EDT 2011

Enter the APPS username: apps

Enter the APPS password:

SQL*Plus: Release 10.1.0.5.0 - Production on Wed Aug 17 16:21:02 2011

Copyright (c) 1982, 2005, Oracle. All rights reserved.

Enter value for 1: Enter value for 2: Enter value for 3: Connected.
[ APPS_DATABASE_ID ]
Application Id : 0
Profile Value : orpogpq2
Level Name: SITE
INFO : Updated/created profile option value.
.

PL/SQL procedure successfully completed.

Commit complete.

Disconnected from Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.1.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, Oracle Label Security, OLAP, Data Mining
and Real Application Testing options

==============================
* * * * DBC PARAMETERS * * * *
==============================
fnd_jdbc_buffer_min=1
fnd_jdbc_buffer_max=5
fnd_jdbc_buffer_decay_interval=300
fnd_jdbc_buffer_decay_size=5
fnd_jdbc_usable_check=false
fnd_jdbc_context_check=true
fnd_jdbc_plsql_reset=false

====================================
* * * * NO CUSTOM PARAMETERS * * * *
====================================

Unique constraint error (00001) is OK if key already exists

Creating the DBC file...
ADD executed successfully - $INST_TOP/appl/fnd/12.0.0/secure/orpogpq2.dbc

Updating Server Security Authentication
AUTHENTICATION SECURE executed successfully - $INST_TOP/appl/fnd/12.0.0/secure/R1213q2.dbc

adgendbc.sh ended at Wed Aug 17 16:21:39 EDT 2011

adgendbc.sh exiting with status 0
ERRORCODE = 0 ERRORCODE_END

OTM java.lang.NullPointerException

2011-07-20T06:58:00.000-07:00

In OTM we got this error reported by end users:

On many screens for example User Manager > New Button > key in all details > Click Finish.

Users Finder > Results

Results
Errors
Create Another Modify Another

Error

java.lang.NullPointerException

Stack Trace
java.lang.NullPointerException

java.lang.NullPointerException
at glog.util.jdbc.noserver.T2SharedConnection$ReferencedConnection.setAutoCommit(T2SharedConnection.java:421)
at glog.util.jdbc.noserver.T2SharedConnection$ReferencedConnection.release(T2SharedConnection.java:326)
at glog.util.jdbc.noserver.T2SharedConnection.close(T2SharedConnection.java:61)
at glog.database.security.dbrealm.RdbmsRealm.createUser(RdbmsRealm.java:642)
at glog.database.security.dbrealm.RdbmsRealm.createUser(RdbmsRealm.java:652)
at glog.database.security.dbrealm.CachingRealm.newUser(CachingRealm.java:483)
at glog.database.security.SecurityUserImpl.create(SecurityUserImpl.java:65)
at glog.database.security.SecurityUtil.createUser(SecurityUtil.java:52)
at glog.database.security.SecuritySessionBean.createUser(SecuritySessionBean.java:40)
at glog.database.security.SecuritySessionServerSideEJBWrapper.createUser(SecuritySessionServerSideEJBWrapper.java:167)
at glog.database.security.SecuritySessionHome_snlvan_EOImpl.createUser(SecuritySessionHome_snlvan_EOImpl.java:5947)
at glog.database.security.SecuritySessionHome_snlvan_EOImpl_WLSkel.invoke(Unknown Source)
at weblogic.rmi.internal.BasicServerRef.invoke(BasicServerRef.java:589)
at weblogic.rmi.cluster.ClusterableServerRef.invoke(ClusterableServerRef.java:230)
at weblogic.rmi.internal.BasicServerRef$1.run(BasicServerRef.java:477)
at weblogic.security.acl.internal.AuthenticatedSubject.doAs(AuthenticatedSubject.java:363)
at weblogic.security.service.SecurityManager.runAs(SecurityManager.java:147)
at weblogic.rmi.internal.BasicServerRef.handleRequest(BasicServerRef.java:473)
at weblogic.rmi.internal.wls.WLSExecuteRequest.run(WLSExecuteRequest.java:118)
at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.execute(ExecuteThread.java:201)
at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.run(ExecuteThread.java:173)

Fix Errors

This was due to the fact that DB Listener was down. Once DB listener was brought up, this error disappeared.

opendaemonsocket: daemon MTA-v6: server SMTP socket wedged

2011-07-17T20:16:00.000-07:00

After installing a newly available build of Solaris 10, sendmail was disallowing connections from anything but localhost. We tried taking a diff between sendmail.cf of older build and the new sendmail.cf and found that the old sendmail.cf had extra lines for DaemonPortOptions :

O DaemonPortOptions=Name=MTA-v4, Family=inet
O DaemonPortOptions=Name=MTA-v6, Family=inet6
O DaemonPortOptions=Port=587, Name=MSA, M=E

After including the DaemonPortOptions of MTA-v4 and MTA-v6, it started giving this error message:

opendaemonsocket: daemon MTA-v6: server SMTP socket wedged

So we removed the MTA-v6 line, and the above error stopped coming. Meanwhile I had googled this error and found this post on OpenSolaris forms. Based on the information, I reasoned that changing the parameter to false would allow connections from other hosts:

svccfg -s sendmail setprop config/local_only=false
svcadm refresh sendmail
svcadm restart sendmail

This worked perfectly fine. Since we don't use Solaris Zones, there was no need to use the pfexec command.

Oracle Fusion Apps for Linux x86-64 available for download on edelivery

2011-06-09T17:35:00.001-07:00

While looking for something completely different, on edelivery.oracle.com I was surprised to find Oracle Fusion Apps appearing in the drop down of products. Sure enough, Oracle Fusion Apps is now available for download for Linux x86-64:

Weblogic is replacing OC4J as middleware in R12.2

2011-06-06T22:56:00.001-07:00

I just read Steven Chan's blog about June 2011 EBS Techstack Roadmap which has some slides on upcoming R12.2. Most notable in R12.2:

Latest middleware: Fusion Middleware 11g

WebLogic Server to replace Fusion Middleware 10g Oracle Containers for Java (OC4J)

Latest database: Oracle 11gR2 11.2 Database

Online patching via Edition-Based Redefinition
Improved performance via database result caching

Oracle has been steadily pushing Weblogic as its chosen Application server for all its products which require an application server. Notable among these products are Oracle Transportation Management (OTM), Oracle Governance, Risk and Compliance (GRC) Suite. Now EBS will also use Weblogic as the application server. Oracle Application Server or OC4J is the terminal release as Oracle Application Server 11g is Oracle Weblogic application server.

So all Oracle Apps techies brush up your skills and learn how Weblogic operates.

R12 AppsLocalLogin shows blank page

2011-05-31T12:47:00.000-07:00

This issue has already been reported to me twice, so I am documenting this for future:

R12 AppsLocalLogin shows blank page

A check of logs shows this:

cd $LOG_HOME/ora/10.1.3/j2ee/oacore/oacore_default_group_1
vi application.log
Go to the end of the file

11/05/31 15:38:07.918 html: LeakSetting:
global:true,session:false,aggressive:false,stderr:false,appslog:false,corelog:false
ignoring:null
11/05/31 15:39:40.810 html: chain failed
javax.servlet.ServletException: java.lang.RuntimeException: Guest user/pwd does not exist or match: GUEST/ORACLE
at com.evermind[Oracle Containers for J2EE 10g (10.1.3.5.0) ].server.http.EvermindPageContext.handlePageThrowable(EvermindPageContext.java:899)
at com.evermind[Oracle Containers for J2EE 10g (10.1.3.5.0) ].server.http.EvermindPageContext.handlePageException(EvermindPageContext.java:816)
at _AppsLocalLogin._jspService(_AppsLocalLogin.java:303)
at com.orionserver[Oracle Containers for J2EE 10g (10.1.3.5.0) ].http.OrionHttpJspPage.service(OrionHttpJspPage.java:59)
at oracle.jsp.runtimev2.JspPageTable.service(JspPageTable.java:473)
at oracle.jsp.runtimev2.JspServlet.internalService(JspServlet.java:594)
at oracle.jsp.runtimev2.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:518)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:856)
at com.evermind[Oracle Containers for J2EE 10g (10.1.3.5.0) ].server.http.ResourceFilterChain.doFilter(ResourceFilterChain.java:64)
at oracle.apps.jtf.base.session.ReleaseResFilter.doFilter(ReleaseResFilter.java:26)
at com.evermind[Oracle Containers for J2EE 10g (10.1.3.5.0) ].server.http.EvermindFilterChain.doFilter(EvermindFilterChain.java:15)
at oracle.apps.fnd.security.AppsServletFilter.doFilter(AppsServletFilter.java:318)
at com.evermind[Oracle Containers for J2EE 10g (10.1.3.5.0) ].server.http.ServletRequestDispatcher.invoke(ServletRequestDispatcher.java:642)
at com.evermind[Oracle Containers for J2EE 10g (10.1.3.5.0) ].server.http.ServletRequestDispatcher.forwardInternal(ServletRequestDispatcher.java:391)
at com.evermind[Oracle Containers for J2EE 10g (10.1.3.5.0) ].server.http.HttpRequestHandler.doProcessRequest(HttpRequestHandler.java:908)
at com.evermind[Oracle Containers for J2EE 10g (10.1.3.5.0) ].server.http.HttpRequestHandler.processRequest(HttpRequestHandler.java:458)
at com.evermind[Oracle Containers for J2EE 10g (10.1.3.5.0) ].server.http.AJPRequestHandler.run(AJPRequestHandler.java:313)
at com.evermind[Oracle Containers for J2EE 10g (10.1.3.5.0) ].server.http.AJPRequestHandler.run(AJPRequestHandler.java:199)
at oracle.oc4j.network.ServerSocketReadHandler$SafeRunnable.run(ServerSocketReadHandler.java:260)
at oracle.oc4j.network.ServerSocketAcceptHandler.procClientSocket(ServerSocketAcceptHandler.java:234)
at oracle.oc4j.network.ServerSocketAcceptHandler.access$700(ServerSocketAcceptHandler.java:29)
at oracle.oc4j.network.ServerSocketAcceptHandler$AcceptHandlerHorse.run(ServerSocketAcceptHandler.java:879)
at com.evermind[Oracle Containers for J2EE 10g (10.1.3.5.0) ].util.ReleasableResourcePooledExecutor$MyWorker.run(ReleasableResourcePooledExecutor.java:298)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662)

Start an sqlplus session

SQL> conn apps/appspassword
Connected.
SQL> select fnd_web_sec.validate_login('GUEST','ORACLE') FROM DUAL;
select fnd_web_sec.validate_login('GUEST','ORACLE') FROM DUAL
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-03113: end-of-file on communication channel

Check the Database Alert Log
Tue May 31 15:50:51 2011
Exception [type: SIGSEGV, Address not mapped to object] [ADDR:0x0] [PC:0x108250218, ioc_pin_shared_executable_object()+1240] [flags: 0x0, count: 1]
Errors in file /appsr1213/oracle/11.2.0/admin/vision_vision/diag/rdbms/vision/vision/trace/vision_ora_10944.trc (incident=121312):
ORA-07445: exception encountered: core dump [ioc_pin_shared_executable_object()+1240] [SIGSEGV] [ADDR:0x0] [PC:0x108250218] [Address not mapped to object] []
Use ADRCI or Support Workbench to package the incident.
See Note 411.1 at My Oracle Support for error and packaging details.
Tue May 31 15:50:54 2011
Sweep [inc][121312]: completed

If you open two unix sessions side by side:

First session: connect to sqlplus as apps and execute
select fnd_web_sec.validate_login('GUEST','ORACLE') FROM DUAL;

Second session: tail Database alert log

You'll notice that whenever this sql is executed in first session, the alert log will immediately log an ORA-07445 error.

This is an 11.2.0.2 bug. The workaround is to bounce the database and listener. Once I learn more about this bug, I'll update this post.

Can't locate strict.pm in @INC

2011-05-13T13:25:00.000-07:00

On running adcfgclone.pl on 11.2.0.2 RDBMS ORACLE_HOME, the following error occurred.

$ perl adcfgclone.pl dbTechStack
Can't locate strict.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /erpR1213/oracle/11.2.0/perl/lib/5.8.3 /erpR1213/oracle/11.2.0/perl/lib/site_perl/5.8.3 /erpR1213/oracle/11.2.0/appsutil/perl ../lib/5.10.0/sun4-solaris-thread-multi-64 ../lib/5.10.0 ../lib/site_perl/5.10.0/sun4-solaris-thread-multi-64 ../lib/site_perl/5.10.0 ../lib/5.10.0 ../lib/5.10.0/sun4-solaris-thread-multi-64 ../lib/site_perl .) at adcfgclone.pl line 27.
BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at adcfgclone.pl line 27.

This is a known issue and now documented in My Oracle Support Article ADPreclone Fails When Can't Find Strict.PM Following Database Upgrade to 11gR2 [ID 1139403.1].

11.2.0.2 ships with perl 5.10.0. So you need to change the values of context variables pointing to PERL5LIB and ADPERLPRG inside the context file.

vi $CONTEXT_FILE
Global replace 5.8.3 with 5.10.0
Save
cd $ORACLE_HOME/appsutil/template
vi adxdbctx.tmp
Global replace 5.8.3 with 5.10.0

Run adcfgclone.pl, or adconfig or adpreclone.pl and it will work now.

Files in which OTM stores IP address and port

2011-04-27T07:24:00.001-07:00

During the recent upgrade of OTM v6.1.0 to OTM v6.2.1, I discovered that OTM stores IP address of its servers in the following files:

$GLOG_HOME/tomcat/conf/server.xml
$GLOG_HOME/weblogic/domains/otm/config/config.xml.fresh
$GLOG_HOME/apache/conf/httpd.conf
$GLOG_HOME/apache/conf/workers.properties

For Apache and Weblogic services, OTM listens on virtual IP of the instance, so there is no port conflict as the Virtual_IP:Port remains unique.

However, the Tomcat component listens on localhost on port 8007 by default. So if you have two OTM instances share the same physical box as application tier, you need to change the default port of 8007 to some other port which is available. This change is made in $GLOG_HOME/tomcat/conf/server.xml.

DBUA unable to recognize oracle user as unix owner when unix uid is 9 digits

2011-04-12T15:43:00.000-07:00

While upgrading an Oracle instance from 11.2.0.1 to 11.2.0.2, through DBUA I discovered a bug. If the unix uid of the oracle user is 9 digit, DBUA refuses to recognize oracle as the unix owner of the software. This issue doesn't occur with older oracle ids which were 5 digit. We got a similar issue in past with runInstaller for which an SR was logged and Oracle opened bug 10205927. For the current issue with DBUA, I have logged a new SR

Till this bug is fixed by Oracle, DBUA will fail for any instance whose oracle user has unix uid of 9 digit. All upgrades to 11.2.0.2 on such instances will have to use the manual upgrade process.

I'll update this post with more details, after Oracle responds on the SR.

Multiple FFP invalid objects after installing R12.1.3

2010-12-16T12:10:00.000-08:00

We got 250+ invalid objects whose name started with FFP:

FFP55375_01011990 FFP50508_01011900 FFP50512_01011900 FFP52744_01071999 FFP50510_01011900 FFP52724_01071999 FFP55355_01011990 FFP55058_01011990 FFP60833_01012000 FFP60793_01012004 FFP60963_01012000 FFP60964_01012000 FFP60606_01011990 FFP60607_01011990

A quick search on My Oracle support revealed some articles with similar errors for 11i:

Applied Patch 9062727 (11i.Hr_pf.K.Delta.5) And Left With FFP<######> Invalid Packages [ID 1096417.1]

The above article pointed to this article:

How to compile fast formula from the server (via FFXBCP) (Doc ID 167689.1) and I executed this command:

$ FFXBCP apps/apps 0 Y %% %%

Log filename : L5826316.log

Report filename : O5826316.out

All the FFP invalids were resolved after executing the above command.

ORA-00904: "AD_PA_MISC"."GET_TOTAL_TIME": invalid identifier

2010-12-06T11:31:00.000-08:00

I upgraded a freshly installed R12.1.1 Vision instance to 12.1.3 by applying patch 9239090. Howerver I got errors wherever adtimrpt.sql was executed after a patch similar to this:

sqlplus -s APPS/APPS @/jaer12/appl/ad/12.0.0/sql/adtimrpt.sql 550206 adt550206

The spooled file would give this error:

Product Information page

rpad(ad_pa_misc.get_total_time(inner.session_id,

ERROR at line 5:

ORA-00904: "AD_PA_MISC"."GET_TOTAL_TIME": invalid identifier

I checked the instance for availability of package AD_PA_MISC, and found that it was non existant.

So I checked what files created this package by

cd $AD_TOP/patch/115/sql

grep ad_pa_misc *

adpamisb.pls:REM | Body for ad_pa_misc package

adpamisb.pls:CREATE or REPLACE package body ad_pa_misc as

adpamisb.pls:END ad_pa_misc;

adpamiss.pls:REM | Specification for ad_pa_misc package

adpamiss.pls:CREATE OR REPLACE package ad_pa_misc as

adpamiss.pls:end ad_pa_misc;

So adpamiss.pls is the package specification and adpamisb.pls is the package body.

I connected as apps and executed adpamisb.pls and adpamiss.pls

This has created the missing ad_pa_misc package. I re-executed the failing sql again and it succeded this time:

sqlplus -s APPS/APPS @/jaer12/appl/ad/12.0.0/sql/adtimrpt.sql 550206 adt550206

Spooling to adt550206.lst

Spooling to adt550206.csv

List of all tables which are updated during ASCP Collections

2010-11-24T12:23:00.000-08:00

I found this Article in My Oracle Support which has a list of all the tables which get populated during ASCP collections:Troubleshooting Missing Data Collection Entities [ID 558477.1]

How to start and stop telnet in Solaris 10

2010-11-16T13:27:00.000-08:00

To check status of telnet

$ svcs telnet

STATE STIME FMRI

disabled Mar_18 svc:/network/telnet:default

To stop telnet

svcadm disable telnet

To start telnet

svcadm enable telnet

ORA-00600: internal error code, arguments: [kccpb_sanity_check_2], [1651], [1603]

2010-10-27T20:17:00.001-07:00

Today Imdad pinged about this issue in Database:

ALTER DATABASE MOUNT

Wed Oct 27 09:22:13 2010

Setting recovery target incarnation to 2

Wed Oct 27 09:22:13 2010

Errors in file /jic1001/oracle/10.2.0/admin/jic1001_jic1001/bdump/jic1001_lgwr_28101.trc:

ORA-00600: internal error code, arguments: [kccpb_sanity_check_2], [1651], [1603], [0x000000000], [], [], [], []

Wed Oct 27 09:22:13 2010

Errors in file /jic1001/oracle/10.2.0/admin/jic1001_jic1001/bdump/jic1001_lgwr_28101.trc:

ORA-00600: internal error code, arguments: [kccpb_sanity_check_2], [1651], [1603], [0x000000000], [], [], [], []

Wed Oct 27 09:22:13 2010

LGWR: terminating instance due to error 470

Instance terminated by LGWR, pid = 28101

Solution was to recover the database by recreating controlfile.

ORA-39083: Object type ROLE_GRANT failed to create with error:

2010-08-06T22:21:00.000-07:00

I got this error when I was trying to do a full import of a dump file.

$ impdp "'/ as sysdba'" full=y directory=data_pump_dir dumpfile=fullexport.dmp logfile=fullimport.log

Import: Release 11.2.0.1.0 - Production on Sat Aug 7 01:02:52 2010

Copyright (c) 1982, 2009, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

Connected to: Oracle Database 11g Enterprise Edition Release 11.2.0.1.0 - 64bit Production
With the Partitioning, OLAP, Data Mining and Real Application Testing options
Master table "SYS"."SYS_IMPORT_FULL_01" successfully loaded/unloaded
Starting "SYS"."SYS_IMPORT_FULL_01": "/******** AS SYSDBA" full=y directory=data_pump_dir dumpfile=fullexport.dmp logfile=fullimport.log
Processing object type SCHEMA_EXPORT/ROLE_GRANT
ORA-39083: Object type ROLE_GRANT failed to create with error:
ORA-01919: role 'QUALYS_ROLE' does not exist
Failing sql is:
GRANT "QUALYS_ROLE" TO "SYS" WITH ADMIN OPTION

Job "SYS"."SYS_IMPORT_FULL_01" completed with 1 error(s) at 01:03:06

I checked the dump file and it was only 141 KB in size. Then I checked the export log file and realized that I had forgotten to put full=y while doing expdp. So it was just a schema export of SYS and did not have the full database.

Once I realized this and took an export with expdp full=y command, the import completed successfully.

ORA-28000: the account is locked at OCI call OCISessionBegin

2010-08-05T15:33:00.000-07:00

If you ever get this error in OTM/FTI Transportation Intelligence screens:

State: HY000. Code: 10058. [NQODBC] [SQL_STATE: HY000] [nQSError: 10058] A general error has occurred. [nQSError: 17001] Oracle Error code: 28000, message: ORA-28000: the account is locked at OCI call OCISessionBegin. [nQSError: 17014] Could not connect to Oracle database. (HY000)

Your HDOWNER user is locked out at database stage. Unlock the user

Login as the unix owner of ROD database. Make sure your ORACLE_HOME and other environment variables are set correctly.

sqlplus /nolog
conn / as sysdba
alter user HDOWNER account unlock;

Zebra printer and pasta driver

2010-08-04T19:48:00.001-07:00

Shiva described a Zebra printer issue to me. They had configured Zebra007 printer on Dev and Test, and it printed fine. However when the same printer was configured on Production instance, it did not print anything. I worked with Puneet and Sateesh to check the windows printer queue. Whenever a print job was executed in Dev or Test (non-Production) instances, the label printed correctly. However when they tried to print from Production, it would not print anything, though a pasta*.tmp appeared in windows printer queue for 2 seconds.

I also got a sample file example.zpl from Sateesh to find out the contents, This file was a plain text file which contained print control characters. This is an ingenious way to print without installing expensive proprietary drivers from vendors. If such a file is sent as a raw file to printer, the printer interprets the special characters and prints labels correctly. So they were using Pasta printing to print a text file. This didn't make sense, as pasta is typically used to convert (preprocess) pdf files generated by XML Publisher (now known as BI Publisher) into postscript format and send to printer.

I examined the $FND_TOP/resource/pasta.cfg in Production and non-Production instances. They were different. Non-production pasta files had everything commented, whereas Production pasta file had this entry:

$ cd $FND_TOP/resource
$ cat pasta.cfg
/* $Header: pasta.cfg 115.23 2003/03/28 22:57:31 mnagakur noship $ */

[DEFAULT]

preprocess=/usr/local/bin/pdf2ps {infile} {outfile}
printCommand=lp -c -d{printername}
errorlogfile=pasta_pdf2.log

I realized then that, the printing was successful in development, as pasta was not doing any kind of preprocessing and printing the file. It failed in Production because the text file containing printer commands was going through preprocessing:

/usr/local/bin/pdf2ps example.zpl pasta8282.ps

Error: /undefined in .CT~~CD,~CC^~CT~
Operand stack:

Execution stack:
%interp_exit .runexec2 --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- 2 %stopped_push --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- false 1 %stopped_push 1 3 %oparray_pop 1 3 %oparray_pop 1 3 %oparray_pop 1 3 %oparray_pop .runexec2 --nostringval-- --nostringval-- --nostringval-- 2 %stopped_push --nostringval--
Dictionary stack:
--dict:1129/1686(ro)(G)-- --dict:0/20(G)-- --dict:70/200(L)--
Current allocation mode is local
Current file position is 17
GPL Ghostscript 8.54: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1

The solution was to create a new pasta driver pasta_zebra.cfg where the preprocess line would be commented:

$ cat pasta_zebra.cfg
/* $Header: pasta.cfg 115.23 2003/03/28 22:57:31 mnagakur noship $ */

[DEFAULT]

; preprocess=/usr/local/bin/pdf2ps {infile} {outfile}
printCommand=lp -c -d{printername}
errorlogfile=pasta_pdf.log

I tested this on commandline with this command:

FNDPSTAX -pnZebra007 -f/tmp/example.zpl -c1 -Fpasta_zebra.cfg

And it printed the first correct label from Production instance.

This command would be the final result of the printing inside E-Business Suite.

connect / as sysdba ORA-01031 Insufficient privileges

2010-08-03T20:15:00.000-07:00

On a freshly installed 11gR2 Oracle Database, I set the following environment variables:

ORACLE_BASE
ORACLE_HOME
ORACLE_SID
TNS_ADMIN
TWO_TASK
LD_LIBRARY_PATH

However when I tried to connect to it:

sqlplus /nolog
conn / as sysdba
ORA-1031 Insufficient Privileges

A search on My Oracle Support showed this:

Error: ORA 1031
Text: insufficient privileges
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Cause: An attempt was made to change the current username or password without
the appropriate privilege. This error also occurs if attempting to
UPDATE a table with only SELECT privileges, if attempting to CONNECT
INTERNAL, or if attempting to install a database without the necessary
operating system privileges.
Action: Ask the database administrator to perform the operation or grant the
required privileges.

However I got my answer from this article:

UNIX: Checklist for Resolving Connect AS SYSDBA Issues [ID 69642.1]

It turned out that unsetting the environment variable TWO_TASK resolved the issue:

unset TWO_TASK
sqlplus /nolog
conn / as sysdba
Connected.

Oracle Transportation Management (OTM) installation on Solaris 10

2010-07-28T13:46:00.000-07:00

We got a new project which uses OTM. Here are the high level steps for installation of OTM:

1. Go to edelivery.oracle.com, enter your information and login.
2. Select E-Business Suite in dropdown
3. Scroll Down to Oracle Transportation Management
4. Download OTM and Weblogic Server
5. Download RDBMS 11gR2 Server and Client from Oracle Technology Network
6. Install 11gR2 Database and create a blank database
7. Install Weblogic Server
8. Install OTM
9. Execute the file $OTM_HOME/install/gc3env.sh
10. Go to $OTM_HOME/glog/oracle/script8 and edit a file called create_all.sql modify the line which reads:
41 SELECT DECODE(UPPER(nvl('&&4','Y')),'Y','./import_content.sh','N','imp
ort_content.cmd') ws_content_import

Change ./import_content.sh to . ./import_content.sh

If you don't do this, this script fails. This issue is documented in My Oracle Support Articles:
Installation or Oracle Transportation Management 6.0 on Solaris [ID 974412.1]
Cannot Log on to a new OTM 6.0 Installation [ID 975529.1]

No fields appear after username in Workflow configuration page

2010-07-19T13:45:00.000-07:00

I got a mail about an issue after April 2010 CPU patches. Nothing was appearing after the user field in Workflow Configuration page in Oracle Applications Manager

Solution was given by Imran:

"NOTE: - Execute the steps given in 1082747.1 - defective share.zip After applying this patch"

The issue was related to the missing class files under $JAVA_TOP/oracle/bali/share/nls folder, after restoring them the issue was fixed.

dbms_utility.port_string

2010-07-14T08:49:00.000-07:00

While going through a trace file I came across this SQL:

SELECT DBMS_UTILITY.PORT_STRING FROM DUAL;

Dbms_utility.port_string allows to find out what hardware and OS an Oracle instance runs on:

SQL> SELECT DBMS_UTILITY.PORT_STRING FROM DUAL

PORT_STRING
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SVR4-be-64bit-8.1.0

This was run on a Solaris box which has Solaris 10 64-bit OS with 64-bit SPARC processors.

Oracle July 2010 CPU Article ID

2010-07-07T11:17:00.001-07:00

While searching for something else on My Oracle Support I found this:

ORACLE CRITICAL PATCH UPDATE ADVISORY - JULY 2010 [ID 1127913.1]

Purpose

NOTE: THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL DOCUMENT - PLACEHOLDER ONLY

ORACLE CRITICAL PATCH UPDATE ADVISORY - JULY 2010

NOTE: THIS IS NOT AN OFFICIAL DOCUMENT - PLACEHOLDER ONLY

Gather Schema Statistics

2010-06-28T13:50:00.000-07:00

Gurtej asked this question: While submitting gather schema stats for APPS ...what should be the estimate percent and degree should be ? How should GSS be scheduled in Production. Currently it is scheduled like this:
APPS, 10, 8, NOBACKUP, , LASTRUN, GATHER, , Y

Here's the answer gleaned from various articles in My Oracle Support:

There is no set schedule for gathering schema statistics. On some systems the program should be run weekly. On other systems once per month will be often enough. The schedule will vary greatly depending on the amount and nature of the data and how often the data changes.

It will be necessary to try different schedules over time and monitor performance to determine the most effective schedule.

As a general rule, run Gather Schema Statistics under the following circumstances:

1. After there has been a significant change in data in either content or volume.

2. After importing data.

3. Any time end-users notice a deterioration in performance in routine day-to-day business transactions or when running concurrent programs.

Estimate Percentage / Modification threshold defines the percentage which should be used to initiate gather stats for those objects which have actually changed beyond the threshold. The default is 10% (i.e. meaning any table which has changed via DML more than 10%, stats will be collected, otherwise it will be skipped

Further Reading: Tuning All layers of E-Business Suite:

OracleNavigate.Responsibility was not found on this server

2010-06-03T14:59:00.001-07:00

We got this error in one of the instances cloned freshly on clicking on the
System Administration responsibility:

Not Found
The requested URL /pls/$ORACLE_SID/OracleNavigate.Responsibility was not found on this server.

Fix:

Change Self Service Personal Home Page mode profile option on site level to Framework Only

vi line too long error

2010-05-26T20:22:00.000-07:00

Most of the times while viewing big log files in vi editor, you would get "Line too Long" error. A simple solution to this problem is to use the fold command:

fold -80 yourfile.log > folded.log

What code is called by DBUA

2010-05-26T08:45:00.000-07:00

We have standardized on DBUA for all our upgrades and do not use the manual upgrade process. Manual upgrade process is preferred by DBAs for the amount of control it gives them. However, manual is prone to more human errors. As per My Oracle Support Article ID 870814.1, when you start an upgrade through DBUA it performs the following checks:

=> Invalid user accounts or roles
=> Invalid data types or invalid objects
=> De-supported character sets
=> Adequate resources, including rollback segments, tablespaces, and free disk space
=> Missing SQL scripts needed for the upgrade
=> Listener running (if Oracle Enterprise Manager Database Control upgrade or configuration is requested)
=> Oracle Database software linked with Database Vault option. If Database Vault is enabled, then DBUA will return an error asking you to disable Database Vault prior to upgrade. See "Disable Oracle Database Vault"
=> Stale optimizer statistics
=> Time zone file versions
=> Enterprise Manager Database control Repository exists in the database or not

However, when DBUA gets stuck or reports errors in its pretty face GUI, we do not know what has gone wrong. If you upgrade to 11g the DBUA logs are present in $ORACLE_BASE/cfgtoollogs/dbua. But the logs do not really tell you what scripts were called. So I decided to check what's in dbua.

cd $ORACLE_HOME/bin
file dbua
dbua: executable shell script

I opened dbua in vi and towards the end it has:

CLASSPATH=$DBMA_CLASSPATH:$JRE_CLASSPATH:$EWT_CLASSPATH:$SWING_CLASSPATH:$SHARE_
CLASSPATH:$GDK_CLASSPATH:$ASSISTANTS_COMMON_CLASSPATH:$HELP_CLASSPATH:$ICE_BROWS
ER_CLASSPATH:$NETCFG_CLASSPATH:$I18_CLASSPATH:$XMLPARSER_CLASSPATH:$JDBC_CLASSPA
TH:$SRVM_CLASSPATH:$EM_CLASSPATH:$INSTALLER_CLASSPATH

#run dbma
$JRE_DIR/bin/java $JRE_OPTION $IBM_STREAM_NIO -Dsun.java2d.font.DisableAlgorithm
icStyles=true $INSTALL_LIB_LOCATION -DORACLE_HOME=$OH -mx128m -classpath $CLASS
PATH oracle.sysman.assistants.dbma.Dbma $*

So it calls a java class oracle.sysman.assistants.dbma.Dbma

All the code that is being called seems to be inside $ORACLE_HOME/assistants/dbua

There's a file called mep.cfg in this directory, which has the minimum values for init.ora parameters, obsolete parameter list, changed parameter list etc.

There is a file called dbma.jar in /gpsatc10/oracle/11.2.0/assistants/dbua/jlib

This jar file has all the code which is called by DBUA. These are java classes. I downloaded the jar file and unzipped it on my PC. However class files are binary in nature and you can't really see all the code. I'll try to map the information in the log file with the java classes and update this article in future.

Open docx, xlsx, pptx formats in MS Office 2000 - 2003

2010-04-29T06:30:00.000-07:00

How to open docx, xlsx, pptx files in MS Office 2000 ? This was a question posed by Anand. A few google search revealed Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack.

By installing the Compatibility Pack in addition to Microsoft Office 2000, Office XP, or Office 2003, you will be able to open, edit, and save files using the file formats in newer versions of Word, Excel, and PowerPoint . The Compatibility Pack can also be used in conjunction with the Microsoft Office Word Viewer 2003, Excel Viewer 2003, and PowerPoint Viewer 2003 to view files saved in these new formats.

java.security.cert.CertificateException: sun.security.pkcs.ParsingException: ObjectIdentifier() -- data isn't an object ID (tag = 48)

2010-04-21T19:12:00.000-07:00

Sameer had reported this error whenever he tried to use any web application which used Sun JRE:

Java Plug-in 1.6.0_19
Using JRE version 1.6.0_19-b04 Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM
User home directory = C:\Documents and Settings\MyUser
----------------------------------------------------
c: clear console window
f: finalize objects on finalization queue
g: garbage collect
h: display this help message
l: dump classloader list
m: print memory usage
o: trigger logging
q: hide console
r: reload policy configuration
s: dump system and deployment properties
t: dump thread list
v: dump thread stack
x: clear classloader cache
0-5: set trace level to
----------------------------------------------------

java.security.cert.CertificateException: sun.security.pkcs.ParsingException: ObjectIdentifier() -- data isn't an object ID (tag = 48)
at sun.security.provider.X509Factory.engineGenerateCertificates(Unknown Source)
at java.security.cert.CertificateFactory.generateCertificates(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.security.WIExplorerCertStore.generateCertificate(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.security.WIExplorerCertStore.loadCertificates(Native Method)
at com.sun.deploy.security.WIExplorerCertStore.load(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.security.WIExplorerCertStore.load(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.security.TrustDecider.isAllPermissionGranted(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.isTrustedByTrustDecider(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.getTrustedCodeSources(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.security.CPCallbackHandler$ParentCallback.strategy(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.security.CPCallbackHandler$ParentCallback.openClassPathElement(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.security.DeployURLClassPath$JarLoader.getJarFile(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.security.DeployURLClassPath$JarLoader.access$700(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.security.DeployURLClassPath$JarLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at com.sun.deploy.security.DeployURLClassPath$JarLoader.ensureOpen(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.security.DeployURLClassPath$JarLoader.(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.security.DeployURLClassPath$3.run(Unknown Source)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at com.sun.deploy.security.DeployURLClassPath.getLoader(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.security.DeployURLClassPath.getLoader(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.security.DeployURLClassPath.getResource(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader$2.run(Unknown Source)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.findClassHelper(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Applet2ClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.loadCode(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2Manager.createApplet(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2Manager$AppletExecutionRunnable.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Caused by: sun.security.pkcs.ParsingException: ObjectIdentifier() -- data isn't an object ID (tag = 48)
at sun.security.pkcs.PKCS7.parse(Unknown Source)
at sun.security.pkcs.PKCS7.(Unknown Source)
at sun.security.provider.X509Factory.parseX509orPKCS7Cert(Unknown Source)
... 33 more
Caused by: java.io.IOException: ObjectIdentifier() -- data isn't an object ID (tag = 48)
at sun.security.util.ObjectIdentifier.(Unknown Source)
at sun.security.util.DerInputStream.getOID(Unknown Source)
at sun.security.pkcs.ContentInfo.(Unknown Source)
at sun.security.pkcs.PKCS7.parse(Unknown Source)
... 36 more
java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
at com.sun.deploy.util.DeployAWTUtil.invokeAndWait(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2Manager.runOnEDT(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2Manager.createApplet(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2Manager$AppletExecutionRunnable.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
Caused by: java.lang.SecurityException: trusted loader attempted to load sandboxed resource from http://ovoupmom.admin.net.ge.com:8180/OVPM/client/tsc.jar
at com.sun.deploy.security.CPCallbackHandler$ParentCallback.check(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.security.CPCallbackHandler$ParentCallback.access$1400(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.security.CPCallbackHandler$ChildElement.checkResource(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.security.DeployURLClassPath$JarLoader.checkResource(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.security.DeployURLClassPath$JarLoader.getResource(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.security.DeployURLClassPath.getResource(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader$2.run(Unknown Source)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.findClassHelper(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Applet2ClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClassCond(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(Unknown Source)
at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(Unknown Source)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(Unknown Source)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(Unknown Source)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.defineClassHelper(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.access$100(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader$2.run(Unknown Source)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2ClassLoader.findClassHelper(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Applet2ClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Class.getDeclaredConstructors0(Native Method)
at java.lang.Class.privateGetDeclaredConstructors(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Class.getConstructor0(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Class.newInstance0(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Class.newInstance(Unknown Source)
at sun.plugin2.applet.Plugin2Manager$12.run(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.event.InvocationEvent.dispatch(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForFilters(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForFilter(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(Unknown Source)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(Unknown Source)
Exception: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException

Today I finally nailed it. At first we thought it was due to IE8. So we reinstalled IE8. The error remained. Then I saw that Sameer had Sun JRE 1.6.0_19. We already know of issues of E-Business Suite with versions 18, 19 and 20. So I got that uninstalled. We kept the version 1.6.0_15. The error did not appear again and the applications using Sun JRE started working again.

What really happens when you enable maintenance mode before applying patches

2010-04-21T18:55:00.001-07:00

Maintenance Mode was introduced in AD.I patchset. Here's what the readme of AD.I (Article ID: 233044.1):

Maintenance mode provides a clear separation between normal runtime operation of Oracle Applications and system downtime for maintenance. Enabling the maintenance mode feature shuts down the Workflow Business Events System and sets up function security so that no Oracle Applications functions are available to users. Used only during AutoPatch sessions, maintenance mode ensures optimal performance and reduces downtime when applying a patch. For more information, refer to Preparing your System for Patching in Oracle Applications Maintenance Utilities.

You may also refer to Article ID 291901.1, which has more information about Maintenance Mode.

Interestingly R12 has some additional steps to enable maintenance mode. Plese refer to Article ID 558274.1: Instructions for configuring maintenance mode for R12.

Replacement for ftp to updates.oracle.com

2010-04-07T07:06:00.000-07:00

Ever since Metalink was decommissioned, Oracle also decommissioned the ftp site updates.oracle.com. Since then many DBAs have asked me how to download patches directly on the server.

Oracle has mentioned in Article ID 468460.1:

It is possible to download Oracle software directly to the local machine.

----->It is possible only by using a web browser (like Firefox or Internet Explorer).

----->It is not possible to use FTP, because Oracle does not provide software via FTP.

----->It is not possible to use wget, because downloading software requires a browser that accepts cookies.

In summary, downloading Oracle software directly to the local machine is possible only through a web browser.

I had devised a way to use wget which used to work fine with old metalink but doesn’t work properly with the new My Oracle Support.

You can use Firefox or Opera installed on your Unix server to download patches. Here are the steps to use Opera to download patches.

Set DISPLAY to your vnc port

opera &

Click on Tools > Preferences > Advanced > Network > Proxy Servers button

Enter the values for your proxy server.

I have found that Opera is unable to launch flash on Solaris 10, even after installing flash player on unix. So here's how you do it without flash:

Go to site: http://supporthtml.oracle.com

Login with your “My Oracle Support” username and password.

Once you login, type this in the address bar:

https://updates.oracle.com/Orion/SimpleSearch/get_form?email=vikramdas@justanexample.com&userid=O-vikramdas@justanexample.com&

Replace vikramdas@justanexample.com with your email/My Oracle Support userid

You’ll get the patch search page from where you can search and download patches.

JSP Error Exception: java.sql.SQLException: Closed Connection

2010-03-18T16:29:00.000-07:00

Manoj called me today about this issue. After clone, when application username (SYSADMIN) and password was keyed in by him and he reached the URL

http://justanexample.com/OA_HTML/fndvald.jsp

The following error was shown:

JSP Error

Exception:

java.sql.SQLException: Closed Connection

jserv.log showed:

java.sql.SQLException: Closed Connection
at oracle.jdbc.dbaccess.DBError.throwSqlException(DBError.java:134)
at oracle.jdbc.dbaccess.DBError.throwSqlException(DBError.java:179)
at oracle.jdbc.dbaccess.DBError.throwSqlException(DBError.java:269)
at oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleConnection.rollback(OracleConnection.java:1459)
at _oa__html._fndvald._jspService(_fndvald.java:121)
at oracle.jsp.runtime.HttpJsp.service(HttpJsp.java:119)
at oracle.jsp.app.JspApplication.dispatchRequest(JspApplication.java:417)
at oracle.jsp.JspServlet.doDispatch(JspServlet.java:267)
at oracle.jsp.JspServlet.internalService(JspServlet.java:186)
at oracle.jsp.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:156)
at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:588)
at org.apache.jserv.JServConnection.processRequest(JServConnection.java:456)
at org.apache.jserv.JServConnection.run(JServConnection.java:294)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)

I checked the Database alert log and found that everytime we tried to log in the following error was logged in the DB alert log:

Errors in file /justanexample/dbdata/admin/udump/justanexample_ora_27477.trc:
ORA-07445: exception encountered: core dump [00000001025F3090] [SIGSEGV] [Address not mapped to object] [0x100C100010000] [] []

The trace file showed more details:

ksedmp: internal or fatal error
ORA-07445: exception encountered: core dump [00000001025F3090] [SIGSEGV] [Address not mapped to object] [0x100C100010000] [] []
Current SQL statement for this session:
alter session set max_dump_file_size=unlimited
----- PL/SQL Call Stack -----
object line object
handle number name
441590590 428 package body APPS.FND_TRACE
441e4f050 350 package body APPS.FND_AOLJ_UTIL
441e4f050 236 package body APPS.FND_AOLJ_UTIL
43e89dd08 1 anonymous block

Manoj bounced the database once and these errors stopped coming in alert log. We were able to login to the applications without issues.

'Io exception: NL Exception was generated' running IRCA

2010-03-04T08:28:00.001-08:00

Shahed pinged me about this during SOA installation:

$ sh irca.sh
Integration Repository Creation Assistant (IRCA) 10.1.3.1.0
(c) Copyright 2006 Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.

Enter database "host port serviceName" [localhost 1521 orcl]: justanexample 1521 soa11g
Enter sys password:
Running IRCA for all product(s):
connection="justanexample 1521 soa11g", , orabpelUser=ORABPEL, esbUser=ORAESB, orawsmUser=ORAWSM

ERROR: Failed to establish database connection due to the following error:
ORA-01017: invalid username/password; logon denied

Please check your connection parameters and try again.

I tried it and got different result:

$ sh irca.sh
Integration Repository Creation Assistant (IRCA) 10.1.3.1.0
(c) Copyright 2006 Oracle Corporation. All rights reserved.

Enter database "host port serviceName" [localhost 1521 orcl]: "justanexample 1521 soa11g"
Enter sys password:
Running IRCA for all product(s):
connection=""justanexample 1521 soa11g"", , orabpelUser=ORABPEL, esbUser=ORAESB, orawsmUser=ORAWSM

ERROR: Failed to establish database connection due to the following error:
Io exception: NL Exception was generated
Please check your connection parameters and try again.

A search on My Oracle Support showed up Article [ID 580448.1]

Cause

A valid connection 'as sysdba' could not be established to the Oracle RDBMS instance.

Testing a connection from a JDeveloper client to the target RDBMS shows that a SYSTEM schema can
create a connection, but SYS is also unable to create a regular rdbms connection. Therefore
JDeveloper is having the same problem making a 'SYS as sysdba' connection over jdbc thin.

Solution

Create a password file and ensure that your RDBMS allows remote connections as sysdba.

Issue was resolved after creating passwordfile by running orapwd :
Usage: orapwd file= password= entries= force= ignorecase= nosysdba=

Mystery of the incorrect password

2010-01-28T12:26:00.000-08:00

Recently I reset the password of a site on an old laptop. The password was man@best. At a friend's place I tried logging on to the site with the password man@best. However the password wouldn't work. My gut feeling said that the password would work on the old laptop. However I could not exactly say why. Once I got back home, sure enough the password worked when entered through the old laptop. I then realized that the left shift key of the old laptop had ceased to function. I use my left thumb to press left shift key and index finger to press the @ key. However on the old laptop since the left shift key was not functional, the password was actually man2best. Pressing the left shift key had no effect and instead of typing @ it was typing the letter 2. Since the password field shows stars or dots, I couldn't tell. I was glad to uncover this mystery.

11gR2 requires 4 additional patches on Solaris 10

2010-01-23T05:52:00.000-08:00

Recently Sundeep contacted me when he was trying to install 11gR2 and the runInstaller gave failed message for 4 OS patches.

I went through 11gR2 install guide for Solaris SPARC (64-bit) available on http://download.oracle.com/docs/cd/E11882_01/install.112/e10863/toc.htm#i1011296.

In our environment, we are on correct Solaris patchset. However, these 4 patches are required in addition to being on the current patchset:

4.1 Operating System Requirements
The following are the operating system requirements for Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2):
Solaris 10 U6 (5.10-2008.10)
To determine the distribution and version of Solaris installed, enter the following command:
# uname -r
5.10
In this example, the version shown is Solaris 10 (5.10). If necessary, refer to your operating system documentation for information about upgrading the operating system.
To determine the update level of Solaris installed, enter the following command:
$ cat /etc/release

Solaris 10 10/08 s10s_u6wos_07b SPARC
Copyright 2008 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Use is subject to license terms.
Assembled 27 October 2008
4.2 Package Requirements
The following packages (or later versions) are required for Oracle Database 11g Release 2 (11.2):
SUNWarc
SUNWbtool
SUNWhea
SUNWlibC
SUNWlibm
SUNWlibms
SUNWsprot
SUNWtoo
SUNWi1of
SUNWi1cs
SUNWi15cs
SUNWxwfnt
SUNWcsl
119963-14 or later (SunOS 5.10: Shared library patch for C++)
120753-06 or later (SunOS 5.10: Microtasking libraries (libmtsk) patch)
139574-03 or later (SunOS 5.10)
The following patch is optional and may be required depending on your needs:
124861-15 or later (SunOS 5.10 Compiler Common patch for Sun C C++)
You may also require additional font packages for Java, depending on your locale. Refer to the following Web site for more information:
http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/font-requirements.html
To determine whether the required packages are installed, enter commands similar to the following:
$ pkginfo -i SUNWarc SUNWbtool SUNWhea SUNWlibc SUNWlibms SUNWsprot \
SUNWtoo SUNWi1of SUNWi1cs SUNWi15cs SUNWxwfnt

system SUNWarc Lint Libraries (usr)
system SUNWbtool CCS tools bundled with SunOS
system SUNWhea SunOS Header Files
system SUNWi15cs X11 ISO8859-15 Codeset Support
system SUNWi1cs X11 ISO8859-1 Codeset Support
system SUNWi1of ISO-8859-1 (Latin-1) Optional Fonts
system SUNWlibms Math & Microtasking Libraries (Usr)
system SUNWsprot Solaris Bundled tools
system SUNWtoo Programming Tools
system SUNWxwfnt X Window System platform required fonts
ERROR: information for "SUNWlibc" was not found
If a package is not installed, then install it. Refer to your operating system or software documentation for information about installing packages.

4.3 Compiler Requirements
Sun One Studio 12 (C and C++ 5.9) is supported with Pro*C/C++, Oracle Call Interface, Oracle C++ Call Interface, and Oracle XML Developer's Kit (XDK) for Oracle Database 11g Release 2.

Make sure that the above are installed on your Solaris 10 box before installing 11gR2.

Applications System appears as Production SID after clone

2009-12-28T14:56:00.000-08:00

Sandeep Nagpal called today. He told me that after a clone, in OAM Workflow manager screen it showed Applications System name and Workflow System name as Production SID.

I asked him to run these queries and check the values:

select applications_system_name from apps.fnd_product_groups;

select name from apps.wf_systems;

These two had production sid instead of the cloned sid.

I told Sandeep to:

1. Update the two tables with correct values

2. Stop Apache

3. rm $COMMON_TOP/_pages

4. Restart Apache.

Once he did the above 4 steps, OAM started showing the cloned system SID.

ERROR: Invalid java version found

2009-12-22T13:20:00.000-08:00

Lalitha reported this issue today :

AutoConfig is configuring the Applications environment...

AutoConfig will consider the custom templates if present.

Using APPL_TOP location : $APPL_TOP

ERROR: Invalid java version found:

Error occurred during initialization of VM

Could not reserve enough space for object heap

ERROR: Invalid java version found:

Error occurred during initialization of VM

Could not reserve enough space for object heap

Classpath :

Version Conflicts among development maintained and customized templates encountered; aborting AutoConfig run.

The logfile for this session is located at: $APPL_TOP/admin/$CONTEXT_NAME/log/12221350/adconfig.log

It looks like a resource constraint on the server. Unix team is working on it. Will update, when I learn more.

How to boot DOS with network support

2009-12-01T16:28:00.000-08:00

Recently I got hold of a box which didn't have a CD drive. We wanted to install Windows Server 2003 on that box for some R&D work. The only way to boot was through a floppy disk. It had been ages since I used a floppy. Fortunately I found some blank floppy disks. Googling on the net, I found the Universal TCP/IP network disk on www.netbootdisk.com. It allowed me to create a bootable floppy disk with TCP/IP network support. The bootable floppy asked me for username, password and Domain/Workgroup, which I entered dutifully. I was able to map the CD in my laptop's CD drive thorugh this command:

net use x: \\laptop\cd

The boot floppy did not have format.com, fdisk.exe and smartdrv.exe. fdisk and format were needed to format the hard disk and smartdrv.exe was required by Windows 2003 setup. I downloaded these from www.allbootdisks.com.

I was able to install Windows Server 2003 on this box without a CD drive with this approach.

See Legacy SR# in new Metalink

2009-11-17T13:15:00.000-08:00

I found this from Migration FAQ of Classic Metalink available on
http://www.oracle.com/us/support/040368

How do I view the old Service Request number on my Service Request?
As part of Oracle's move to a single system for tracking SRs, SR numbers were changed.

You can view the Classic MetaLink SR number in the Legacy SR Number field in the SR views on My Oracle Support. To add the Legacy SR Number field to the Service Request list region click the table icon in the upper left hand corner of the list view. Select Columns > Legacy SR. You may sort on this field by clicking the column header.

Notes from the field: Issues after going live with Sun JRE plugin

2009-11-16T14:54:00.000-08:00

We went live with Sun JRE plugin on our first instance in the weekend. As expected, we got lot of calls for issues. Here's a list:

1. Proxy issues: All our ERPs are configured with load balancers. However, whenever a JVM like Jinitiator / Sun JRE is used, the connection is always between the forms server port and the user's PC directly. This is blocked by proxies. Being an internal site, we have configured IE to exclude the internal site's name in exclusion list. We also configured Java Control Panel applet to connect directly instead of using Browser Settings.

2. Popup windows don't popup but appear minimized: Described in Metalink Note 864861.1:

Cause

This issue is caused by a new 'feature' in Java 1.6.0_10 and above

More details of the feature can be found at:

http://www.java.com/en/download/help/new_plugin.xml?jre=6.0

Solution

To implement the solution, please execute the following steps:

Note - this is a client machine specific solution:

1. Click Start.

2. Click Control Panel.

3. Double click on Java Control Panel.

4. Click Advance tab in Java Control Panel.

5. Scroll to Java Plug-in entry.

6. Uncheck the check box for Enable next-generation Java Plug-in

3. JRE refuses to install : This was a weird one as nothing happened when we clicked on the Sun JRE executable downloaded to local disk. It turns out that the user's PC had issues and many other executables could not be installed as well. I have suggested to install this after booting Windows in Safe Mode.

Will update as I learn more.

Are there any standards / templates for development forms that are pure jsp within Oracle ERP?

2009-11-16T13:48:00.000-08:00

Steve asked me this question today. Many months back Srinivas Reddy had asked me a similar question and I had found out about the existance of Oracle Applications Framework Developer's Guide. So I searched My Oracle Support for this and landed up with two metalink notes:

Note 269138.1 Oracle Applications Framework Developer's Guide 11.5.10 RUP5

Note 858398.1 Oracle Applications Framework Developer's Guide 11.5.10 RUP7

Unfortunately, I was unable to locate a version for RUP6.

How to start trace of an existing session in 10g

2009-11-12T08:32:00.000-08:00

10g has a new package called DBMS_MONITOR

EXECUTE DBMS_MONITOR.SESSION_TRACE_ENABLE(&sid,&serial,waits=>true, binds=>false);

To disable

EXECUTE DBMS_MONITOR.SESSION_TRACE_DISABLE(&sid,&serial)

My old article on tracing

http://oracleappstechnology.blogspot.com/2007/07/activate-extended-sql-trace-for-given.html

Account setup is still in progress. Please come back later.

2009-11-10T10:11:00.000-08:00

We were informed by Oracle that Classic Metalink will retire this weekend and everyone has to start using the new metalink or My Oracle Support. They sneaked in Oracle SSO (OTN user id) integration sometime back. I set up the relationship between my metalink id and existing Oracle SSO (OTN id). During the weekend, we had some issues and I was not able to login with my Oracle SSO (OTN id). It gave this message:

Account setup is still in progress. Please come back later.

I tested with different browsers:

IE6 gives this error:

My Oracle Support Serivces Error

A server connection error occurred.

IO Error Error #2032

Please Try again later.

Firefox, Chrome and Opera give this error:
Account setup is still in progress. Please come back later.

After googling for sometime I found that the new site has an html interface which can be accessed through

http://supporthtml.oracle.com

I tried logging in through this and was successful.

I called Oracle Support and they have logged in an SR on my behalf for this issue. They told me that it is a known issue and a lot of users are facing this. They will inform me via email, when this gets resolved.

How to install lsof version 4.8

2009-11-08T21:16:00.000-08:00

In Solaris 10, lsof version 4.7 and lower gives incorrect results. To get correct results from lsof you must install lsof version 4.8 or higher.

First download lsof version 4.8 from sunfreeware
ftp://ftp.sunfreeware.com/pub/freeware/sparc/10/lsof_1106-4.80-sol10-sparc-local.gz

Login as root

Remove the existing lsof version which is lower than 4.8

# pkgrm SMClsof

# pkgadd -d lsof_1106-4.80-sol10-sparc-local

The following packages are available:
1 SMClsof lsof
(sparc) 4.80

Select package(s) you wish to process (or 'all' to process
all packages). (default: all) [?,??,q]: all

Processing package instance from

lsof(sparc) 4.80
Vic Abell
Using as the package base directory.
## Processing package information.
## Processing system information.
3 package pathnames are already properly installed.
## Verifying disk space requirements.
## Checking for conflicts with packages already installed.

The following files are already installed on the system and are being
used by another package:
/usr/local/doc
/usr/local/man
/usr/local/man/man8

Do you want to install these conflicting files [y,n,?,q] y
## Checking for setuid/setgid programs.

The following files are being installed with setuid and/or setgid
permissions:
/usr/local/bin/lsof
/usr/local/bin/sparcv7/lsof
/usr/local/bin/sparcv9/lsof

Do you want to install these as setuid/setgid files [y,n,?,q] y

Installing lsof as

## Installing part 1 of 1.
/usr/local/bin/lsof
/usr/local/bin/sparcv7/lsof
/usr/local/bin/sparcv9/lsof
/usr/local/doc/lsof/00.README.FIRST
/usr/local/doc/lsof/00CREDITS
/usr/local/doc/lsof/00DCACHE
/usr/local/doc/lsof/00DIALECTS
/usr/local/doc/lsof/00DIST
/usr/local/doc/lsof/00FAQ
/usr/local/doc/lsof/00LSOF-L
/usr/local/doc/lsof/00MANIFEST
/usr/local/doc/lsof/00PORTING
/usr/local/doc/lsof/00QUICKSTART
/usr/local/doc/lsof/00README
/usr/local/doc/lsof/00TEST
/usr/local/doc/lsof/00XCONFIG
/usr/local/doc/lsof/lsof.man
/usr/local/man/man8/lsof.8
[ verifying class ]

Installation of was successful.
# lsof -v
lsof version information:
revision: 4.80
latest revision: ftp://lsof.itap.purdue.edu/pub/tools/unix/lsof/
latest FAQ: ftp://lsof.itap.purdue.edu/pub/tools/unix/lsof/FAQ
latest man page: ftp://lsof.itap.purdue.edu/pub/tools/unix/lsof/lsof_man
configuration info: 64 bit kernel
constructed: Thu Jul 10 20:12:17 EDT 2008
constructed by and on: steve@v480
compiler: gcc
compiler version: 3.4.3 (csl-sol210-3_4-branch+sol_rpath)
compiler flags: -Dsolaris=100000 -DHASPR_GWINDOWS -m64 -DHASIPv6 -DHASSOUXSOUA -DHAS_IPCLASSIFIER_H -DHAS_CRED_IMPL_H -DHAS_V_PATH -DHASZONES -DHAS_ZFS=1 -DHASUTMPX -DHAS_VSOCK -DHAS_STRFTIME -DLSOF_VSTR="5.10" -O
loader flags: -L./lib -llsof -lkvm -lelf -lsocket -lnsl
system info: SunOS v480 5.10 Generic_118833-33 sun4u sparc SUNW,Sun-Fire-480R Solaris
Anyone can list all files.
/dev warnings are enabled.
Kernel ID check is enabled.
WARNING: privately defined ZFS structures may be incorrect.
Device cache file read-only paths:
Named via -D: none
Named in environment variable LSOFDEVCACHE: none
Personal path format (HASPERSDC): "%h/%p.lsof_%L"
Modified personal path environment variable: LSOFPERSDCPATH
LSOFPERSDCPATH value: none
Personal path: /.lsof_server1000
Device cache file write paths:
Named via -D: none
Named in environment variable LSOFDEVCACHE: none
Personal path format (HASPERSDC): "%h/%p.lsof_%L"
Modified personal path environment variable: LSOFPERSDCPATH
LSOFPERSDCPATH value: none
Personal path: /.lsof_server1000

Configurator performance issue in Order Entry

2009-11-06T07:51:00.001-08:00

Today, Bimal pinged me about a performance issue with Configurator in Order Entry. He told me that the page CZInitialize.jsp was taking 7 minutes to appear. In a different instance on the same server it was taking 30 seconds. I asked him whether he had collected statistics for ONT. He said he had collected for ONT and APPLSYS.

I searched in Metalink with keywords Configurator performance Order Entry and came across Note 130511.1 which gives this suggestion:

The first step in troubleshooting performance problems is to ensure that the customer has recently gathered statistics and that it was done correctly. The following schemas may impact performance in the OM product suite: ONT, WSH, QP, INV, AK, MRP, HZ, CZ, APPLSYS.

I told Bimal about this and he executed the following commands:

exec fnd_stats.gather_schema_statistics('ONT') ;

exec fnd_stats.gather_schema_statistics('WSH') ;

exec fnd_stats.gather_schema_statistics('QP') ;

exec fnd_stats.gather_schema_statistics('INV') ;

exec fnd_stats.gather_schema_statistics('AK') ;

exec fnd_stats.gather_schema_statistics('MRP') ;

exec fnd_stats.gather_schema_statistics('HZ') ;

exec fnd_stats.gather_schema_statistics('CZ') ;

exec fnd_stats.gather_schema_statistics('APPLSYS') ;

The issue was resolved immediately. Always check for statistics as a cause for performance problems in a CBO world.

How to find the no. of cores in a Solaris box

2009-10-29T13:11:00.000-07:00

I have finally found how to find the no. of cores in a Solaris Box on newer T class servers. The clue was given on Steve Sistare's blog post CPU to Core Mapping. He mentioned that:

"psrinfo -pv" only prints the core information on systems running OpenSolaris or Solaris Express, because psrinfo was enhanced by this CR:

6316187 Need interface to determine core sharing by CPUs

which was never backported to a Solaris 10 update.

So I googled for psrinfo opensolaris and found this perl script.

Here's the ouptut of running this perl script on a T5220 server:

$ perl psrinfo.pl -pv

The physical processor has 4 cores and 13 virtual processors (-50)

Another command to get the number of cores is:

kstat cpu_infogrep core_idsort -uwc -l

The core has 4 virtual processors (0-3)

The core has 3 virtual processors (16-18)

The core has 3 virtual processors (32-34)

The core has 3 virtual processors (48-50)

UltraSPARC-T2 (clock 1415 MHz)

Warning: log write time

2009-10-27T08:22:00.000-07:00

After upgrading to 10.2.0.4, we started seeing messages in alert log

*** 2009-10-27 11:12:26.575
Warning: log write time 590ms, size 22KB

Metalink Note 601316.1 describes this issue. LGWR starts producing trace files with this kind of information:

Elapsed times include waiting on following events:

Event waited on Times Max. Wait Total Waited
---------------------------------------- Waited ---------- ------------
SQL*Net message to client 3 0.00 0.00
SQL*Net message from client 3 0.00 0.00
db file sequential read 7080 3.83 196.43
latch: session allocation 1 0.00 0.00
read by other session 2 0.53 0.59
latch free 1 0.00 0.00

*** 2009-10-27 11:12:26.575
Warning: log write time 590ms, size 22KB
*** 2009-10-27 11:12:28.294
Warning: log write time 610ms, size 43KB
*** 2009-10-27 11:12:30.257
Warning: log write time 570ms, size 69KB
*** 2009-10-27 11:12:47.335
Warning: log write time 700ms, size 2213KB
*** 2009-10-27 11:14:02.255
Warning: log write time 560ms, size 1372KB
*** 2009-10-27 11:14:03.104
Warning: log write time 850ms, size 2823KB
*** 2009-10-27 11:16:10.756
Warning: log write time 640ms, size 261KB
*** 2009-10-27 11:16:51.149
Warning: log write time 500ms, size 1703KB
*** 2009-10-27 11:16:51.800
Warning: log write time 650ms, size 3317KB

As per the note

These messages are very much expected in 10.2.0.4 database in case the log write is more than 500 ms.

This is a warning which means that the write process is not as fast as it intented to be. So probably you need to check if the disk is slow or not or for any potential OS causes. If everything looks fine at the hardware level or OS level then you can safely ignore these messages.

The trace file can easily be deleted or truncated.

How to download password protected patch from updates.oracle.com

2009-10-07T12:19:00.000-07:00

Akhilesh asked me this question today. A metalink search revealed note 731257.1 which has the details. In short before issuing the get command you are required to issue the command site protected .

In fact if you directly issue the get command you get the error message which says the same:

ftp> bin
g200 TYPE changed to I.
ftp> et p8995444_11i_d.zip
200 PORT command OK.
550-File or directory not found.
550-This is a password protected patch.
550-Enter the password with site command:
550-quote site protected
550 Then get the patch again.

After issuing the site protected command it worked

ftp> site protected V5pIHQqk
200 The password was received successfully.
ftp> get p8995444_11i_d.zip
200 PORT command OK.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for file p8995444_11i_d.zip.

It worked with quote site protected command also:

ftp> quote site protected V5pIHQqk
200 The password was received successfully.
ftp> get p8995444_11i_d.zip
200 PORT command OK.
150 Opening BINARY mode data connection for file p8995444_11i_d.zip.

This is of limited use now as Oracle is decomissioning their ftp service and you'll need to use wget and URL from the patch download button in new metalink.

R12.1.1 Apache won't start libopmnoraclenls.so unable to load

2009-09-29T11:58:00.001-07:00

After R12.1.1 install, Apache wouldn't start and we had these errors in the log

libopmnoraclenls.so unable to load

One of the metalink notes advised running genclntsh on IAS_ORACLE_HOME.

$ ./genclntsh -32
cat: cannot open $IAS_ORACLE_HOME/lib32/ldflags
Undefined first referenced
symbol in file
nnfhboot $IAS_ORACLE_HOME/lib32/libn10.a(nnfgt.o)
nnflboot $IAS_ORACLE_HOME/lib32/libn10.a(nnfgt.o)
nnflgapc $IAS_ORACLE_HOME/lib32/libnl10.a(nlpa.o)
nnftboot $IAS_ORACLE_HOME/lib32/libn10.a(nnfgt.o)
nnflgav $IAS_ORACLE_HOME/lib32/libnl10.a(nlol.o)
nnflfrm $IAS_ORACLE_HOME/lib32/libnl10.a(nlol.o)
nnflrne $IAS_ORACLE_HOME/lib32/libnl10.a(nlol.o)
ntusini $IAS_ORACLE_HOME/lib32/libn10.a(ntcontab.o)
ntpini $IAS_ORACLE_HOME/lib32/libn10.a(ntcontab.o)
nttini $IAS_ORACLE_HOME/lib32/libn10.a(ntcontab.o)
ntzini $IAS_ORACLE_HOME/lib32/libn10.a(ntcontab.o)
ld: fatal: Symbol referencing errors. No output written to $IAS_ORACLE_HOME/lib32/libclntsh.so.10.1

We went through release notes for 12.1.1 present in Metalink note 798258.1 again and
unzipped the Rapidwiz patch 8626041 in stage and reinstalled, but we still faced the same issue.

One of the metalink notes mentioned recreating softlinks, so I checked the soft links and found that Oracle stage had hardcoded softlinks pointing to a mount name /d4/R12/ab/apps/R1211XB9 most probably on Oracle's test servers.

$ ls -ltr |grep d4
lrwxrwxrwx 1 applmgr dba 56 Sep 29 16:58 ldflags -> /d4/R12/ab/apps /R1211XB9/apps/tech_st/10.1.3/lib/ldflags
lrwxrwxrwx 1 applmgr dba 66 Sep 29 16:59 libocci.so -> /d4/R12/ab/a pps/R1211XB9/apps/tech_st/10.1.3/lib32/libocci.so.10.1

$ ls -ltr |grep d4
lrwxrwxrwx 1 applmgr dba 63 Sep 29 16:58 hsdb_odbc.so -> /d4/R12/ab/apps/R1211XB9/apps/tech_st/10.1.3/lib32/hsdb_odbc.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 applmgr dba 63 Sep 29 16:58 hsdb_oing.so -> /d4/R12/ab/apps/R1211XB9/apps/tech_st/10.1.3/lib32/hsdb_oing.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 applmgr dba 62 Sep 29 16:58 hsdb_ora.so -> /d4/R12/ab/apps/R1211XB9/apps/tech_st/10.1.3/lib32/hsdb_ora.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 applmgr dba 62 Sep 29 16:58 hsdb_syb.so -> /d4/R12/ab/apps/R1211XB9/apps/tech_st/10.1.3/lib32/hsdb_syb.so
lrwxrwxrwx 1 applmgr dba 62 Sep 29 16:59 libnavhoa.a -> /d4/R12/ab/apps/R1211XB9/apps/tech_st/10.1.3/lib32/libnavhoa.a
applmgr@tsgsd2106 $ pwd
$IAS_ORACLE_HOME/lib

Once we removed these soft links and pointed them to the existing mounts, we were able to run relink all on 10.1.2 and 10.1.3 homes.

Apache started without issues after we did relink all on 10.1.3 IAS_ORACLE_HOME.

unable to get pty!

2009-09-21T17:56:00.000-07:00

Recently on a Solaris 8 box when I executed this command, I go the error unable to get pty

$ /usr/dt/bin/dtterm &
[1] 7507
$ grantpt: Error 0
Warning:
Name: dtTerm
Class: DtTerm
unable to get pty

A google search returned this link from docs.sun.com:

http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/806-1075/6jacsnin4?a=view

unable to get pty!

Cause
When trying to open a Terminal window (dtterm) in CDE, a pop-up window appears stating, Unable to get pty!

dtterm is not able to open /dev/pts/int (where int is an integer). The user cannot open this file because grantpt(3C) failed to change the permissions on the file. grantpt(3C) failed because the binary /usr/lib/pt_chmod is not setuid root. The permissions on /usr/lib/pt_chmod must be 4111.

Action
To restore the correct permissions to pt_chmod, use the following command (as root):

# chmod 4111 /usr/lib/pt_chmod

So I logged in as root and executed the above command.

Issue was resolved.

You are not authorized to access this site.

2009-09-14T19:46:00.000-07:00

On accessing Extranet URL from Internet, we got this message:

Access Denied

You are not authorized to access this site.

The application you are attempting to access requires additional authorization. If you feel you have received this message in error, please contact your local business Help Desk.

This error is coming because we have SSO enabled our Extranet also. If the user exists in the SSO database and doesn't exist in the FND_USER table of Oracle E-Business Suite, this error would appear.

After creating the users locally in E-Business Suite, this error should disappear.

ORA-01031: insufficient privileges

2009-09-11T17:14:00.000-07:00

Recently we implemented a third party software for Mobile users called Ventureforth Mi2k Server. After doing the install which creates a custom schema and creates packages which call Oracle API to insert, update, delete data into APPS, we got this error when they executed a test call:

ORA-01031: insufficient privileges

We had a tough time figuring out which object didn't have the grant. After a lot of trials through Toad debugging and tracing through DBMS_SYSTEM, I recalled that we could trap any error message in alert log and get more details about the error by using this command:

alter system set events '1031 trace name errorstack level 3';

Here 1031 is ORA-01031. You can put any error code in this command by removing the 0 prefix from the error code. Once you execute this command as SYS/SYSTEM, anytime ORA-1031 is issued by the database, the alert log will record this error and a trace file will be generated to give more details about the error.

Once we did this, we immediately came to know that it was failing when the API was calling UPDATE APPS.JTF_TASK_ALL_RESPONSIBILITIES which was a synonym to JTF.JTF_TASK_RESPONSIBILITIES. The custom schema had rights on JTF.JTF_TASK_RESPONSIBILITIES but not on JTF_TASK_ALL_RESPONSIBILITIES synonym. So we granted the rights:

grant all on APPS.JTF_TASK_ALL_RESPONSIBILITIES TO I2K;

After this the error disappeared.

How to get to Proxy settings dialog box from command line

2009-08-24T14:12:00.000-07:00

Internet Explorer proxy settings dialog box is usually accessed with this navigation:

Start Internet Explorer
Click on Tools Menu > Internet Options
Connections Tab
Lan Settings button

You can also access this directly from command line by this:

Start Button > Run > inetcpl.cpl

AC-00002: Error: Unable to create log file

2009-08-21T10:24:00.000-07:00

Makarand was doing a Fresh R12 install. The install was successful on the Database Node and Primary Application Node. On Primary Application node only 'Batch Processing Services' are enabled.

However while installing on the additonal application node the rapidwiz was giving errors

'AC-00002: Error: Unable to create log file - $INST_TOP/$CONTEXT_NAME/logs/08031631.log
Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.RuntimeException: AC-00002: Unable to create log file -
$INST_TOP/$CONTEXT_NAME/logs/08031631.log

Makarand had tried installing multiple times but every time it failed with the same message

The truss of the rapidwiz process showed this:

/40: open64("$INST_TOP/$CONTEXT_NAME/logs/08200953.log",
O_WRONLY|O_APPEND|O_CREAT, 0666) Err#13 EACCES

Here’s the reason for the failure:

apps11i is the app tier and you are trying to write to an NFS mount. If you access an NFS mount from a server other than its origin, the root user of the application server is treated as nobody user. I verified this by touching a file while logged in as root:

-rw-r--r-- 1 nobody nobody 0 Aug 20 10:59 abc

This happens if the NFS share is shared without root= in the NFS mount command.

An examination of the /etc/dfs/dfstab file revealed that:

share -F nfs -o rw=visionerp.justanexample.com,root=visionerp.justanexample.com /gpshpc76/custom
share -F nfs -o rw=erpr12.justanexample.com,root=erpr12.justanexample.com /erpr12/erpapp
share -F nfs -o rw=erp11i.justanexample.com,root=erp11i.justanexample.com /erp11i/erpapp

If you compare the last line with a line for other instances it clearly shows that the application server has no read write rights and no root equivalence. I corrected this by executing this command:

share -F nfs -o rw=apps11i.justanexample.com,root=apps11i.justanexample.com /arpsysd1/erpapp

I also corrected it in the /etc/dfs/dfstab.

After this we retried the rapidwiz and it worked.

File Either has No Version or Unknown error(-4)

2009-08-19T11:24:00.001-07:00

While running Update Current Snapshot during migration to shared application file system the DBAs reported this error:

“Update current view snapshot” throwing following error message.

Done processing object modules

File "INVRCVVB.pls"

Either has No Version or Unknown error(-4)

Failed in adusnapGetDetailFileInfo()

AD Administration error:

Failed store Snapshot file info

adusnapMaintainSnapshot() : Error calling adusnapUpdateCurrentView()

Error calling adusnapMaintainSnapshot

Backing up restart files, if any......Done.

You should check the file

$APPL_TOP/admin/$TWO_TASK/log/adadmin.log for errors.

The file INVRCVVB.pls in $INV_TOP/sql and $INV_TOP/patch/115/sql had a string _new in its version information:

$ adident Header INVRCVVB.pls.original

INVRCVVB.pls.original:

$Header INVRCVVB.pls 115.107.115100.85_new 2008/03/20 08:51:49 kagupta ship $

After removing the _new from the version information inside the file, the issue was resolved.

MAPI32.DLL is corrupt or the wrong version

2009-08-17T13:54:00.000-07:00

Recently, I was helping Ashok in installing Outlook 2003 on his Laptop which had Vista Home Premium running on Windows Vista.

The setup program cancelled with this message:

Cannot start Microsoft Outlook. MAPI32.DLL is
corrupt or the wrong version. This could have
been caused by installing other messaging system.
Please reinstall Outlook.

I found a technote from Microsoft which asked to run windows\system32\fixmapi.exe.

That didn't help.

I found some other posts on the net which advised doing this:

Locate the file MSMAPI32.DLL in Program Files\Common Files\System\MSMAPI\1033
Rename the file to something like MSMAPI32.XXX or MSMAPI32.OLD

This worked for us.

C program to test open file descriptors

2009-08-13T14:00:00.000-07:00

Sun has given this program to test the number of open file descriptors here.

vi fopentestcase.c

#include
#include

#define NoOfFILES 65536

int main()
{
char filename[10];
FILE *fds[NoOfFILES];
int i;

for (i = 0; i < NoOfFILES; ++i)
{
sprintf (filename, "/tmp/%d.log", i);
fds[i] = fopen(filename, "w");

if (fds[i] == NULL)
{
printf("\nNumber of open files = %d. " \
"fopen() failed with error: ", i);
perror("");
exit(1);
}
else
{
fprintf (fds[i], "some string");
}
}
return (0);
}

/usr/local/bin/gcc -o fopentestcase fopentestcase.c

$ ./fopentestcase

Number of open files = 253. fopen() failed with error: Too many open files
$

It errors out on the 254th file. This is because it is a 32 bit program.

oaj2se.exe doesn't install

2009-08-03T15:00:00.001-07:00

Michael sent me a mail with a screenshot where it was showing a dialog box with

The publisher could not be verified, Are you sure you want to install this software.

Name: oaj2se.exe

Publisher: Unknown publisher

There were two buttons Install and Don't Install.

The DBAs had recently migrated from jintiator to Sun JRE plugin on this instance. I checked by downloading JRE directly http://dev11i.justanexample.com/OA_HTML/oaj2se.exe

appesx76@tnsd2005 $ file j2se16014.exe.old

j2se16014.exe.old: executable shell script

$ head oaj2se.exe

#!/bin/sh

PATH=/usr/bin:/bin

umask 022

release_comp() {

if [ "$1" = "$2" ] ; then

echo "eq"

else

lrel=`printf "%s\n%s\n" $1 $2 | \

sort -t . -k 1,1n -k 2,2n -k 3,3n -k 4,4n -k 5,5n | \

appesx76@tnsd2005 $ head -100 j2se16014.exe.old

#!/bin/sh

PATH=/usr/bin:/bin

umask 022

release_comp() {

if [ "$1" = "$2" ] ; then

echo "eq"

else

lrel=`printf "%s\n%s\n" $1 $2 | \

sort -t . -k 1,1n -k 2,2n -k 3,3n -k 4,4n -k 5,5n | \

head -1`

if [ "$1" = "${lrel}" ]; then

echo "lt"

else

echo "gt"

}

This was strange. That file is supposed to be binary. So I downloaded Sun JRE client 1.6.0_14. Sure enough the file sizes differed. I uploaded the file and did these steps:

cp jre-6uX-windows-i586-p.exe $COMMON_TOP/util/jinitiator/j2se160x.exe

X is the latest update version, for example:

mv jre-6u14-windows-i586-p.exe $COMMON_TOP/util/jinitiator/j2se16014.exe

cp $COMMON_TOP/util/jinitiator/j2se16014.exe $OA_HTML/oaj2se.exe

I stopped Apache.

Cleared Apache Cache: rm -rf $COMMON_TOP/_pages

Restarted Apache.

The problem was resolved. I informed the DBA team about this issue so that they could avoid this in future. Most probably the DBA got mixed up between Sun JRE migration and JDK upgrade. Sun JRE migration requires JRE package on client PC, which runs on Windows. Sun JDK upgrade requires JDK which runs on server, which is Solaris SPARC 10 in our case.

What is a queue in Oracle ?

2009-07-30T12:58:00.000-07:00

As per orafaq.com, a queue is a first-in first-out data structure. Objects are added (enqueued) to the tail of the queue and taken off the head (dequeued). This is same as a real life queue for tickets or food.

Queues are used to process multiple demands for a resource such as a printer, processor or communications channel (deferred execution of work). Queues also serve as foundation technology for workflow applications.

Queue Tables can be created on an Oracle database with Oracle's Advanced Queueing feature.

Oracle Advanced Queueing (AQ) is the Oracle database's queue management feature. AQ provides a message queuing infrastructure as integral part of the Oracle server engine. It provides an API for enqueing messages to database queues. These messages can later be dequeued for asynchronous processing. Oracle AQ also provides functionality to preserve, track, document, correlate, and query messages in queues.

Oracle AQ was first introduced in Oracle 8.
As of Oracle release 9.2, AQ is bundled with Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition at no extra cost.
As of Oracle release 10.1, AQ is integrated into Oracle Streams, and is called "Oracle Streams AQ".

Metalink Note 316889.1 about 10gr2 manual upgrade recommends that streams_pool_size set to 200MB as an ideal setting.

You can check the value and current size of streams_pool_size with this query:

select component, current_size/1024/1024 "CURRENT_SIZE",
min_size/1024/1024 "MIN_SIZE",
user_specified_size/1024/1024 "USER_SPECIFIED_SIZE",
last_oper_type "TYPE"
from v$sga_dynamic_components;

In Oracle Applications world, the Workflow Notification Mailer is the heaviest user of Oracle streams. One of the recommendation for all the workflow queue's health would be to set the streams_pool_size parameter to 300M.

The Applications System names per the APPL_TOP and the database are different

2009-07-29T08:40:00.000-07:00

Sandeep reported this error after cloning:

The Applications System names per the APPL_TOP and the database are different.

Beginning database cleanup for previous session ...

Completed database cleanup for previous session.

The Applications System names per the APPL_TOP and the database are different.

Applications System name per the APPL_TOP: UAT11i

Applications System name per the database: PRD11i

If you continue, the Applications System name per the APPL_TOP will be ignored.

Do you wish to continue [No] ?

He solved it by doing this:

update FND_PRODUCT_GROUPS
set APPLICATIONS_SYSTEM_NAME ='UAT11i' ;
commit;

I am not sure why the name of the production instance remained in FND_PRODUCT_GROUPS inspite of running adcfgclone.pl and executing FND_CONC_CLONE.SETUP_CLEAN.

What is the ECCN of Oracle E-Business Suite 11i ?

2009-07-29T07:17:00.000-07:00

Sudarshan asked this question today.

Most of the Oracle Product's ECCN is given here.

The ECCN of E-Business Suite 11i is 5D002.

Oracle products classified as 5D002, qualify for shipment under ENC Guidelines. Oracle products listed on the ECCN Product Matrix are classified as Retail or Non-Retail, as applicable.

ORA-25253: listen failed, queue. is not enabled for dequeue

2009-07-28T13:38:00.000-07:00

When an invoice was submitted through a request set following error appeared:

ORA-01116: error in opening database file 54
ORA-01110: data file 54: /erp11i/datafiles1/a_txn_ind08.dbf
ORA-27041: unable to open file
SVR4 Error 24: Too many open files
Additional information: 3

I asked the DBAs to check the open file descriptor limit by issuing commnad:

ulimit -n

The result was 65536 which is the max value.

I asked them to reduce it by 2 and set it to 65534 and bounce the database.

The error changed after making this change to ulimit and bouncing the DB. Now the error is:

While compiling the flexfields, the procedure wf_event.raise failed with following parameters:

event_name=oracle.apps.fnd.flex.dff.compiled
event_key = SBX.$SRS.SBXAPPROM

The error raised is
ORA-25253: listen failed, queue. is not enabled for dequeue

I have asked the DBAs to recreate the workflow queues and see if it helps.

What does APPLCSF stand for ?

2009-07-27T08:28:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, Jim had asked this question “What does APPLCSF stand for ?”

APPLCSF stands for Applications Common Support/Script Files. In a freshly installed Oracle E-Business Suite environment, if you cd to $APPLCSF, it will take you to $COMMON_TOP/admin/ directory which has these subdirectories:

outbound
inbound
install
out
log
scripts

The Apps DBA supporting Oracle E-Business Suite goes to $APPLCSF/$APPLLOG to check the output of concurrent requests for troubleshooting.

Apache Lock and Mutex files

2009-07-23T10:00:00.000-07:00

We had issues in one of our Production Apache. The root cause is that the apache lock files are present on NFS mount:

[Sun Jan 11 03:44:37 2009] [emerg] (151)Stale NFS file handle: fcntl: F_SETLKW: Error getting accept lock, exiting! Perhaps you need to use the LockFile directive to place your lock file on a local disk!
[Sun Jan 11 03:44:38 2009] [alert] Child 26287 returned a Fatal error...
Apache is exiting!
[Sun Jan 11 03:44:39 2009] [emerg] (151)Stale NFS file handle: fcntl: F_SETLKW: Error getting accept lock, exiting! Perhaps you need to use the LockFile directive to place your lock file on a local disk!
[Sun Jan 11 03:44:44 2009] [emerg] (5)I/O error: fcntl: F_SETLKW: Error freeing accept lock, exiting! Perhaps you need to use the LockFile directive to place your lock file on a local disk!
[Sun Jan 11 03:44:44 2009] [error] OPM:hc:Bad chunk-size value in response body
[Sun Jan 11 03:44:56 2009] [emerg] (151)Stale NFS file handle: fcntl: F_SETLKW: Error getting accept lock, exiting! Perhaps you need to use the LockFile directive to place your lock file on a local disk!
[Sun Jan 11 03:44:56 2009] [emerg] (151)Stale NFS file handle: fcntl: F_SETLKW: Error getting accept lock, exiting! Perhaps you need to use the LockFile directive to place your lock file on a local disk!
[Sun Jan 11 03:44:56 2009] [emerg] (151)Stale NFS file handle: fcntl: F_SETLKW: Error getting accept lock, exiting! Perhaps you need to use the LockFile directive to place your lock file on a local disk!
[Sun Jan 11 03:44:57 2009] [emerg] (151)Stale NFS file handle: fcntl: F_SETLKW: Error getting accept lock, exiting! Perhaps you need to use the LockFile directive to place your lock file on a local disk!
[Sun Jan 11 03:45:08 2009] [emerg] (151)Stale NFS file handle: fcntl: F_SETLKW: Error getting accept lock, exiting! Perhaps you need to use the LockFile directive to place your lock file on a local disk!
[Sun Jan 11 03:45:47 2009] [emerg] (151)Stale NFS file handle: fcntl: F_SETLKW: Error getting accept lock, exiting! Perhaps you need to use the LockFile directive to place your lock file on a local disk!
[Sun Jan 11 03:45:57 2009] [emerg] (151)Stale NFS file handle: fcntl: F_SETLKW: Error getting accept lock, exiting! Perhaps you need to use the LockFile directive to place your lock file on a local disk!
[Sun Jan 11 18:20:40 2009] [warn] pid file /erp11i/erpapp/comn/conf/erp11i_app11i/iAS/Apache/Apache/logs/erp11i_erp11i
overwritten -- Unclean shutdown of previous Apache run?
[Sun Jan 11 18:20:40 2009] [notice] FastCGI: process manager initialized (pid 9972)
[Sun Jan 11 18:20:41 2009] [notice] Oracle HTTP Server Powered by Apache/1.3.19 configured -- resuming normal operations

It is Oracle and Apache’s recommendation that we put Apache Lock and Mutex files on local disk instead of NFS mount (Metalink Note 233428.1):

Apache Lock and OPM Mutex Files
Oracle HTTP Server and the Oracle Process Manager processes create temporary lock files for their internal operations. The location of these lock files are specified in httpd.conf by the LockFile and OpmMtxFile respectively. You must ensure that value of the autoconfig variable s_lock_pid_dir is set to a location on the local file system to avoid file locking issues on the network file system.

http://httpd.apache.org/docs/1.3/mod/core.html#lockfile
LockFile directive
Syntax: LockFile file-path
Default: LockFile logs/accept.lock
Context: server config
Status: core
The LockFile directive sets the path to the lockfile used when Apache is compiled with either USE_FCNTL_SERIALIZED_ACCEPT or USE_FLOCK_SERIALIZED_ACCEPT. This directive should normally be left at its default value. The main reason for changing it is if the logs directory is NFS mounted, since the lockfile must be stored on a local disk. The PID of the main server process is automatically appended to the filename.
SECURITY: It is best to avoid putting this file in a world writable directory such as /var/tmp because someone could create a denial of service attack and prevent the server from starting by creating a lockfile with the same name as the one the server will try to create.
Apache works fine on systems that mount disks via NFS. However there are some files which Apache uses which should not be stored on NFS mounts. The most important is the "lock file" which is used by Apache to efficiently let multiple processes access the same network socket. This default location for this file is the "logs" directory under the server root, unless changed by the "LockFile" (autoconfig variable lock_pid_dir) directive. If the server root or the logs directory is NFS mounted, the location of the lock file must be changed. A directory such as /tmp or /var/tmp is often a good location. This lock file should not be NFS mounted because many implementations of NFS do not lock files properly.

For achieving this, we need to do the following:
1. Make certain that the following Autoconfig variables point to a "local disk" (/export/home/applmgr). If one has multiple application servers then this must be checked and changed on each application tier.
s_lock_pid_dir
s_web_pid_file
2. Run Autoconfig after the change
3. Restart your middle tier services
References: Metalink Notes: 560853.1, 605596.1, 738612.1, 732857.1

Where is listener information stored in Database

2009-07-21T08:06:00.000-07:00

In E-Business Suite, the information about listeners is stored in the tables

APPS.FND_TNS_LISTENERS
APPS.FND_TNS_LISTENER_PORTS

SQL> SELECT A.LISTENER_NAME,B.PORT
2 FROM APPS.FND_TNS_LISTENERS A, APPS.FND_TNS_LISTENER_PORTS B
3 WHERE A.LISTENER_GUID = B.LISTENER_GUID
4 /

LISTENER_NAME
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PORT
----------
VISIONDBSERVER_VISION_DB
1521

APPS_VISIONDBSERVER_VISION_APPS
1621

APPS_VISIONAPPSERVER_VISION_APPS
1622

Use wget with proxy

2009-07-15T08:11:00.000-07:00

Rajeswari sent a mail with this query:

Can some one help us out in unzipping the files which are there on the server by using a program and put those extracted files to a particular folder on the server path.

Example: Go to the link http://www.thaifxrates.net/

Click on CSV Button, you will see a zip file.

This was my response:

Hi Rajeswari,

You can use wget utility to get the file from the server

You can use unzip utility which is present in all unix servers like this as an operating system call in your program

$ /usr/sfw/bin/wget http://www.thaifxrates.net/ER_CSV_TH.zip
--11:07:42-- http://www.thaifxrates.net/ER_CSV_TH.zip
=> `ER_CSV_TH.zip'
Resolving http-proxy.justanexample.com... 192.168.40.200
Connecting to http-proxy.justanexample.com[192.168.40.200]:80... connected.
Proxy request sent, awaiting response... 407 Proxy Authentication Required
11:07:42 ERROR 407: Proxy Authentication Required.

It errored out because I had not put in the proxy username and password. So I added that:

$ export http_proxy="http://proxyuser:password@http-proxy.justanexample.com:80"
$ echo $http_proxy
http://proxyuser:password@http-proxy.justanexample.com:80

$ /usr/sfw/bin/wget http://www.thaifxrates.net/ER_CSV_TH.zip
--11:08:57-- http://www.thaifxrates.net/ER_CSV_TH.zip
=> `ER_CSV_TH.zip'
Resolving http-proxy.justanexample.com... 192.168.40.200
Connecting to http-proxy.justanexample.com[192.168.40.200]:80... connected.
Proxy request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: 2,256 [application/zip]

100%[=====================================>] 2,256 --.--K/s

11:08:58 (21.51 MB/s) - `ER_CSV_TH.zip' saved [2256/2256]

$ unzip ER_CSV_TH.zip
Archive: ER_CSV_TH.zip
inflating: ER_CSV1_2009-07-14.csv
inflating: ER_CSV2_2009-07-14.csv
inflating: ER_CSV3_2009-07-14.csv
$

In case your download breaks due to whatever reason, you can resume the download with wget option -c (continue)

So you can execute

/usr/sfw/bin/wget -c http://www.thaifxrates.net/ER_CSV_TH.zip to resume your download

July 2009 CPU and DSTv11 patches

2009-07-14T11:58:00.001-07:00

Metalink Note 458452.1: DSV v11 patches

Metalink Note 836258.1: July 2009 CPU for E-Business Suite

Metalink Note 835649.1: July 2009 CPU for Oracle Database

Oracle Database 10.2.0.4 CPU Patch 8534387 (Apply patch 8434935 before applying the 10.2.0.4 July 09 CPU patch.)

No new Developer6i patches

Following ATG patches for apps if you are on ATG RUP6

7758943
8528340
8488738
8225016
8412015 (iStore customers only)

Monitoring Applications username in OEM

2009-07-09T08:35:00.000-07:00

Mohan pinged with a query about registering Oracle E-Business Suite Systems with Grid Control.
He said that for "Monitoring Schema Username" he had given em_monitor user password

He wanted to know the values for

Monitoring Applications Username
Monitoring Applications User Password

He tried giving the username as APPS but it failed with Io exception: The Network Adapter could not establish the connection

So I did a google search for keywords "Monitoring Applications Username". Two links turned up and the second link was the guide Oracle® Application Management Pack for Oracle
E-Business Suite User's Guide http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/oem/pdf/usergd_appl_mgmt_ebs.pdf

On searching inside the guide it said Please refer to the chapter Application Service-Level Monitoring, page 5-1 for the steps required for creating a
Monitoring Applications user. After following these steps, enter the credentials of the Applications user into these fields.

Page 5-1 had this information:

Setup Tasks Prior to recording Web Transactions
Create an Oracle Applications user for beacon monitoring and playback
In your Oracle Applications system, create an Applications user for beacon monitoring
and playback from Enterprise Manager. Ensure that this user has all the responsibilities
required to perform the Web transactions that you will be recording.
Update Fixed Key profile options
1. Set profile "FND: Fixed Key Enabled" to "Yes" for the Oracle Applications user
created above.
2. Set profile "FND: Fixed Key" to a hexadecimal String of length 64 for the Oracle
Applications user created above. Example "AAAA....A" (x64).
3. Set the profiles "FND: Fixed Key Enabled" to "Yes" and "FND: Fixed Key" to the
same value as set in item (2) above for the Guest user. The Guest user is determined
by the profile "GUEST_USER_PWD" and is typically the user "GUEST".

So in short, you need to provide a front end username like SYSADMIN

Mohan further clarified whether we can give "guest" user

I advised him not to use Guest user as it is restricted and to create a new user for monitoring.

Solaris Error 126

2009-07-08T12:46:00.000-07:00

Anand Reddy got this error while starting listener

TNS-12545: Connect failed because target host or object does not exist
TNS-12560: TNS:protocol adapter error
TNS-00515: Connect failed because target host or object does not exist
Solaris Error: 126: Cannot assign requested address

Here's a description of the Solaris OS error code 126

126 EADDRNOTAVAIL Cannot assign requested address
Results from an attempt to create a transport endpoint with an address not on the current machine.

It turned out that he was starting the listener with an incorrect hostname.

Once he corrected it, the error stopped coming.

Everything over IP

2009-07-06T11:05:00.000-07:00

I am currently reading the book "The Illustrated Network, How TCP IP works in a modern network" by Walter Goralski. Here's a passage from the foreword which I found interesting:

Things move fast in the networking industry; technologies can go from cutting edge to obsolete in a decade or less (think ATM, frame relay, token ring, and FDDI among others). It is therefore amazing that TCP/IP is 35 years old and evolved from ideas originating in the early 1960s. Yet while the protocol invented by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn in 1973 has undergone—and continues to undergo—hundreds of enhancements and one version upgrade, its core functions are essentially the same as they were in the mid 1980s. TCP/IP’s antiquity, in an industry that unceremoniously discards technologies when something better comes along, is a testament to the protocol’s elegance and flexibility.

And there is no sign that IP is coming to the end of its useful life. To the contrary, so many new IP-capable applications, devices, and services are being added to networks every day that a newer version, IPv6, has become necessary to provide sufficient IP addresses into the foreseeable future. As this foreword is written, IPv6 is in the very early stages of deployment; readers will still be learning from this book when IPv6 is the only version most people know.

The story of how TCP/IP came to dominate the networking industry is well known. Cerf, Kahn, Jon Postel, and many others who contributed to the early development of TCP/IP did so as a part of their involvement in creating ARPANET, the predecessor of the modern Internet. The protocol stack became further embedded in the infant industry when it was integrated into Unix, making it popular with developers.

But its acceptance was far from assured in those early years. Organizations such as national governments and telcos were uncomfortable with the informal “give it a try and see what works” process of the Working Groups—primarily made up of enthusiastic graduate students—that eventually became the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). Those cautious organizations wanted a networking protocol developed under a rigorous standardization process. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) was tapped to develop a “mature” networking protocol suite, which was eventually to become the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI).

The ISO’s modus operandi of establishing dense, thorough standards and releasing them only in complete, production-ready form took time. Even strong OSI advocates began using TCP/IP as a temporary but working solution while waiting for the ISO standards committees to fi nish their work. By the time OSI was ready, TCP/IP was so widely deployed, proven, and understood that few network operators could justify undertaking a migration to something different.

OSI survives today mainly in a few artifacts such as IS–IS and the ubiquitous OSI reference model. TCP/IP, in the meantime, is becoming an almost universal communications transport protocol.

- Jeff Doyle

How to check if a forms patch is applied

2009-07-01T14:07:00.000-07:00

There is no direct way to find out if a forms patch is applied. This is because forms patches are shell scripts and no history is maintained. DBAs usually create directories inside 806 ORACLE_HOME whose name is same as the patch number. However these may be deleted subsequently to reclaim space.

Metalink Note 781022.1 How To Check To See If A Forms Patch Is Applied?

If you find that it is not applied, then please apply it.

I think, since Oracle is moving to a java based future, they are not going to create the functionality of maintaining the patch history for Forms patches. This will have to be done manually by DBAs. Maybe they can create a forms_patches table with the columns patchno and description. But anything manual always requires discipline.

Error Message: OutOfMemory What does it mean ?

2009-06-30T11:56:00.000-07:00

In the SUN virtual machine there are two reasons why an OutOfMemoryError might occur, because the SUN VM uses two different memory blocks for allocating objects and for loading classes. So possible reasons are:

1. The VM cannot allocate memory for a new object because there is no space in the heap available.

2. A classloader tries to load a new class but cannot do so because
the perm space of the memory is full.

RMAN works best with RBO

2009-06-29T12:04:00.000-07:00

Eventhough Oracle forced everyone to move to Cost Based Optimizer (CBO), their own tools continue to use RBO. RMAN is a classic example. Refer to Metalink Note 375386.1 which describes performance problems selecting from V$RMAN_STATUS. The cause is given as bug 5247609 and workaround provided is:

Add the following to your rman script:

sql "alter session set optimizer_mode=RULE";

A few customers have found that using RULE does not workaround this but gathering fixed statistics does:

SQL> exec dbms_stats.gather_fixed_objects_stats()

Oracle and the Law of Attraction

2009-06-26T08:11:00.001-07:00

If you have seen the movie "The Secret", you would be well aware of Law of Attraction. One of the tenets of Law of Attraction is that you should always focus on what you want and never on what you do not want. The universe is all inclusive and doesn't exclude. So if you say you want money, you'll get money, but if you say I don't want poverty, you'll get poverty. If you say I don't want disease, you get disease. So you should say that I want wellness instead of saying I don't want disease.

During the HotSoS Oracle performance management, I learnt that Oracle's optimizer also follows similar principle.

The clauses NOT EXISTS and NOT IN take more time and do more LIOs. This is because the optimizer will grab all rows and check each row for the NOT condition and drop it. This always takes more time. For example

select name,salary from emp where salary <>50000 is going to take more time than

select name,salary from emp where salary < 50000

You should avoid these NOT clauses and try to create your query with EXISTS or IN.

Hotsos PRO training Day 3/3

2009-06-25T21:54:00.001-07:00

Today we learnt how to read raw trace files and manually calculate what HotSoS profiler does programmatically.

Metalink Note 39817.1 explains the same. In Oracle 10g we have a new package DBMS_MONITOR through which trace should be done.

We learnt to analyze trace files and did various exercises with profiler reports.

Ric said, he has stopped working with tkprof ever since he got introduced to HotSos profiler and that if he ever were to go independent, he would sell his soul for keeping the HotSos profiler in his bag of tools.

HotSoS profiler is the best. I have compared the outputs of other profilers like Oracle's trace analyzer and OraSRP. However none of the alternatives provides the depth of HotSoS profiler.

Hotsos PRO training Day 2/3

2009-06-25T21:53:00.000-07:00

Today we learnt how to collect trace data with proper instrumentation, Hotsos free package ILO for implementing instrumentation in PL/SQL code was shown. We learnt how to read trace files.

One of the students, Rob had brought a production trace file. Our instructor, Ric, generated the profiler report for that trace file. There were 3 statements:

1. UPDATE 30% time
2. INSERT 25% time
3. UPDATE 27% time

Ric said that the first statement looked optimized as it was doing 1 LIO per execution which is very good. However, it was doing this thousands of time. In HotSos World, the best way to optimize something is not to do it. Rob explained that they were updating all the rows with very same data everytime. Ric told Rob to explore MERGE command which will combine INSERT and UPDATE and avoid the unnecessary UPDATE of very same data again.

Hotsos PRO training Day 1/3

2009-06-23T18:42:00.000-07:00

I am attending the world famous 3 day training on Oracle Performance from Hotsos. Our instructor is Ric Van Dyke. We have 6 students in the class. Ric mentioned that he was our instructor and not a teacher as an instructor presents the information, but a teacher makes sure that the student learns whatever is taught. 3 days is a short period to teach.

7 years back when I was in New Delhi, India, I had read Cary Milsap's book Optimizing Oracle Performance from cover to cover. It had enlightened me about Oracle performance.

Here are some of the things we learnt today apart from the regular curriculum:

1. For each row returned you should touch 10 or fewer blocks

2. No. of Logical IOs = No. of tables in a query x No. of rows x 10

3. Nested loops work great with small data sets.

One of the students asked Ric "How do we find out what a query is doing if it is taking a dirt nap" and Rick said that he had never heard of the term "dirt nap". I also never heard it.

Apparently "dirt nap" is a colloquial term which means dead. A dirt nap is when you die, you take the big dirt bath to be buried underground. similar to death.

Oracle's v$ views

2009-06-18T08:47:00.000-07:00

Vinu asked me whether we can insert a new directory for utl_file_dir into v$parameter. I explained to him that v$views are not tables and are synonyms of v_$ dynamic performance views. These views are available even before database is in OPEN state. Although these views appear to be regular database tables, they are not. These views provide data on internal disk structures and memory structures. These views can be selected from, but never updated or altered by the user.

The file $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin/catalog.sql contains definitions of the views and public synonyms for the dynamic performance views.

Once the instance is started, the V_$ views that read from memory are accessible. Views that read data from disk require that the database be mounted.

You can find the description of the v$ synonyms here.

Classic Metalink to be retired by end of 2009

2009-06-15T14:15:00.001-07:00

Oracle has announced that classic metalink is going to be retired by end of 2009. I don't like the new metalink much as it times out regularly and is not very intuitive. However, what must be must be. Oracle has a metalink note 838708.1 which has information about what you can do to prepare in advance. Adobe Flash player 9 is a pre-requisite and needs to be installed.

I have tried using the new metalink or "My Oracle Support", however I get frustrated when I am not able to do simple tasks. I'll have to get used to it, as Oracle will retire classic metalink which I access through metalink2.oracle.com now.

Xms Xmx and PermSpace

2009-06-10T14:56:00.000-07:00

Guru asked me this question today about the Xms Xmx and Permspace parameters passed to java programs.

-Xms is the initial heap size and

-Xmx is the maximum

PermSpace is the area of the VM that is used to store data structures
and class information (not instances, but the class definitions
themselves).

From: http://forums.sun.com/thread.jspa?threadID=775925

Keep in mind that the permanent area is not a subset of the heap.
The pictures on the page http://java.sun.com/docs/hotspot/gc/index.html
erroneously show permspace as a subset of the heap defined by -Xmx
parameter. This is a bug in the documentation (state February 2004).

What is Cost ?

2009-06-10T10:07:00.001-07:00

Alok asked this question today. The cost was coming as 231 in an explain plan. The best answer is given by Jonathan Lewis in his book "Cost Based Oracle". Chapter 1 of the book is called "What is Cost ?" He has defined it as:

The cost is the time spent on single-block reads, plus the time spent on multiblock reads, plus the CPU time required, all divided by the time it takes to do a single-block read. Which means the cost is the total predicted execution time for the statement, expressed in units of the single-block read time.

You can read the addenda on that chapter which has information about cost here.

Cost is time (30th Dec 2005)
Page 3, last complete paragraph. Following my claim that ‘cost’ really is ‘estimated time to run’, I explain that Oracle 9i chooses the sreadtim as the unit of time measurement for backwards compatibility so that the cost reported by 9i will generally be close to the cost reported by 8i for small, precise OLTP activity.

Another way of thinking about this is as follows:

By the definition in the 9.2 Performance Tuning Guide:

Cost = (
#SRds * sreadtim +
#MRds * mreadtim +
#CPUCycles / cpuspeed
) / sreadtim
This says the cost is: “the time to estimated run in milliseconds, divided the sreadtim”. But in 8i, Oracle assumes that all read requests take the same time, and that CPU doesn’t count; in other words sreadtim = mreadtim, and CPUCycles = 0. So what happens if you put those assumptions into the 9i formula:

Cost = (
#SRds * sreadtim +
#MRds * sreadtim +
0
) / sreadtim = #SRds + #MRds
So the 9i formula gives the 8i result when you apply the 8i assumptions. In other words, Oracle 9i estimates the time to run, then divides by the sreadtim so that a query that doesn’t involved multi-block reads will show (nearly) the same cost in 8i and 9i.

As a final thought, the execution plan that you get from dbms_xplan.display() in 10g includes a time column. Here’s the execution plan for a simple query to count the rows in a table. Note that the execution plan is a full tablescan, doing multi-block reads only, but that I’ve modified the single-block read time before generating the execution plan:

/* execute dbms_stats.set_system_stats('SREADTIM',10) */
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 1 | | 329 (1)| 00:00:04 |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | | | |
| 2 | TABLE ACCESS FULL| T2 | 48000 | | 329 (1)| 00:00:04 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
And here is it again, just moments later:

/* execute dbms_stats.set_system_stats('SREADTIM',2) */
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| Id | Operation | Name | Rows | Bytes | Cost (%CPU)| Time |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 0 | SELECT STATEMENT | | 1 | | 1641 (1)| 00:00:04 |
| 1 | SORT AGGREGATE | | 1 | | | |
| 2 | TABLE ACCESS FULL| T2 | 48000 | | 1641 (1)| 00:00:04 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
What’s the difference between these two runs that could cause such a change in the cost ? The fact that I changed the optimizer’s assumption about the time it would take for a single block read to complete. (By scaling the single block read down by a factor of five, I effectively scaled the multiblock read time up by a factor of five – so this query, which did nothing but multiblock reads increased in cost by a factor of five).

Notice that even though the cost of the query has changed dramatically the time for the query to complete has not changed. So how has the optimizer calculated the time? It’s simply taken the 9i formula and multiplied the sreadtim back in to get back to the original time. Go back to my settings for the sreadtim statistic.

In the first case (10 milliseconds): ceiling (329 * 10/1000) = 4, hence the four second time.

In the second case (2 milliseconds): ceiling(1641 * 2/1000) = 4, hence the same four second time.

Cost is Time – but the units are a bit funny.

- Jonathan Lewis

Aliases or directories which can be accessed from 11i URL

2009-06-09T13:40:00.000-07:00

Anand asked me the direct link to jinitiator for an instance. I launched a forms session and the window which launches the JVM had this text:

In order to access this application, you must install the Oracle JInitiator Plugin version 1.3.1.29. To install this plugin, click here to download the oajinit.exe executable. Once the download is complete, double-click the oajinit.exe file to install the plugin. You will be prompted to restart your browser when the installation is complete.

The click here was a hyperlink pointing to http://www.justanexample.com/jinitiator/oajinit.exe

To find out which directory on the server was pointing to /jinitiator I did this:

cd $IAS_CONFIG_HOME/Apache/Apache/conf
grep jinitiator *.conf

apps.conf:Alias /jinitiator/ "/gpscd140/erpapp/comn/html/"
apps.conf:Location /jinitiator/
apps.conf:Location ~ /(OA_HTML|html|jinitiator)/env.txt*
apps.conf:Location ~ "/(OA_HTML|html|jinitiator)/oam/"
apps.conf:Location ~ "/(OA_HTML|html|jinitiator)/oam/helpdoc/"
apps.conf:Location ~ "/(OA_HTML|html|jinitiator)/oam/images/"
apps.conf:Location ~ "/(OA_HTML|html|jinitiator)/oam/nonUix/launchMode/"
trusted.conf:# To add /html & /jinitiator as directories accessed by trusted nodes and remove /xsql/admin/xml.properties bug # 3851839
trusted.conf: Location ~ "/(OA_HTML|html|jinitiator)/bin/appsweb*"
url_fw.conf:#RewriteRule ^/jinitiator/oajinit\.exe$ - [L]

So then I opened apps.conf and found all the aliases:

Alias /OA_JAVA/ "$COMMON_TOP/java/"
Location /OA_JAVA/
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
/Location

Alias /OA_HTML/ "$COMMON_TOP/html/"
Location /OA_HTML/
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
/Location

Alias /OA_SECURE/ "$COMMON_TOP/secure/"
Location /OA_SECURE/
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
/Location

Alias /media/ "$COMMON_TOP/java/oracle/apps/media/"
Location /media/
ExpiresActive on
ExpiresDefault "now plus 1 day"
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
/Location

Alias /html/ "$COMMON_TOP/html/"
Location /html/
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
/Location

Alias /OA_MEDIA/ "$COMMON_TOP/java/oracle/apps/media/"
Location /OA_MEDIA/
ExpiresActive on
ExpiresDefault "now plus 1 day"
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
/Location

Alias /OA_TEMP/ "$COMMON_TOP/temp/"
Location /OA_TEMP/
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
/Location

Alias /jinitiator/ "$COMMON_TOP/html/"
Location /jinitiator/
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
/Location

Alias /dev60html/ "$ORACLE_HOME/tools/web60/html/"
Location /dev60html/
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
/Location

Alias /forms60java/ "$ORACLE_HOME/forms60/java/"
Location /forms60java/
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
/Location

Alias /dev60temp/ "$ORACLE_HOME/tools/web60/temp/"
Location /dev60temp/
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
/Location

Query to check characterset of your DB

2009-06-08T09:50:00.000-07:00

A character set is the mapping of specific set of characters to binary values. In 8-bit character sets like ASCII, the values range from 0-255 and one character will be mapped to each (or most of) these values. This means that if your terminal is set to support a particular character set, every time you press a certain key, that key will send its value eg: 65, to the terminal, which will interpret that value as the letter A. It can also be known as an encoding scheme. Microsoft and IBM have traditionally called it a code page.

The query to check the characterset of your Oracle database is:

select value from NLS_DATABASE_PARAMETERS where parameter='NLS_CHARACTERSET';

To enable your E-Business Suite instance for multiple languages, the characterset should be set to UTF8 or higher.

ERP Concurrent User Estimator

2009-06-05T09:32:00.000-07:00

I found a very interesting spreadsheet called ERP Software Concurrent User Estimator from TGI on this link.

The formula used by them is:

No. of Concurrent Users = (0.3 x Low Activity Users) + (0.6 x Medium Activity Users) + High Activity Users

This is a good estimator which can be used to come up with number of concurrent users, which is needed for sizing an environment.

Disabling core dump generation in Oracle Database 10g

2009-06-04T14:48:00.001-07:00

In a recent SR with Oracle, the support analyst told us to disable core dumps as all the information captured in core dumps is also present in ORA-7445 trace files.

Metalink Note 397404.1 gives these two methods for disabling core dumps.

Method #1 - Set database parameter SHADOW_CORE_DUMP to NONE.

SHADOW_CORE_DUMP is a static parameter so the database must be restarted in order for the parameter value to be enabled. Setting SHADOW_CORE_DUMP to NONE will block the generation of core dumps from user (client) processes attached to the SGA. Setting this parameter has no impact on core dumps being generated by background processes. It is not possible to set BACKGROUND_CORE_DUMP to NONE. So this method will prevent core dumps from being generated by user processes but will not prevent the generation of core dumps by background processes.

Method #2 - modify the OS ULIMIT
ulimit -c 0

doing this will block core dumps from being generated by all processes executed by this user, which should include all user and background processes on the server. The database will have to be restarted in order for the new ulimit settings to take effect.

R12 Logo customization

2009-06-04T10:46:00.001-07:00

Mohan queried me about logo personalization in R12. He had copied custom ORACLE_HR.jpg and FNDSSCORP.gif to $OA_MEDIA and bounced Apache. However custom logo is not displaying on R12 pages
He wanted to know whether he needed to call these two files in any of the file
He had already cleared cache on desktop and server.

The profile option "Corporate Branding Image for Oracle Applications" controls the
corporate branding image "ORACLE" displayed at the top of all OA Framework pages.
If no value is set for this profile, OA Framework renders the corporate branding image by using the $OA_MEDIA/FNDSSCORP.gif file.

If you change the value of this profile with the name of your custom image you will see your logo in all pages except in the login page because the "FNDSSCORP.gif " is hard coded in MainLoginPG.xml.

Metalink Note 741459.1 has some details about logo customization. Hence if you want to change the corporate branding image with your own logo and thus in all pages including the login page the simplest solution is to:

- rename the FNDSSCORP.gif file for backup
- edit the FNDSSCORP.gif with your preferred graphic software
- log out and log into the Applications
- you should see the new logo at the top of all the page (including the login page)

Mohan said that it is null. I asked him whether he replaced the file with his own gif or did he copy it. I mean modified the existing FNDSSCORP.gif after taking backup

In case you want a different logo for the login page then the only (non supported) solution consists in editing the $FND_TOP/mds/sso/login/webui/MainLoginPG.xml file,

Erroring with Product 'Company' is not a currently-installed product

Still working on this one.

Forms not launching from self service after migration to new app tier

2009-06-03T14:39:00.001-07:00

Raju reported the issue of forms not launching from self service after migration to new desktop. Sure enough it was happening for me too.

192.168.10.188 - - [03/Jun/2009:23:21:22 -0400] "GET /dev60cgi/f60cgi?&appletmode=nonforms&HTMLpageTitle=&HTMLpreApplet=&code=oracle/apps/fnd/formsClient/FormsLauncher.class&width=400&height=100&archive=/OA_JAVA/oracle/apps/fnd/jar/fndforms.jar,/OA_JAVA/oracle/apps/fnd/jar/fndformsi18n.jar,/OA_JAVA/oracle/apps/fnd/jar/fndewt.jar,/OA_JAVA/oracle/apps/fnd/jar/fndswing.jar,/OA_JAVA/oracle/apps/fnd/jar/fndbalishare.jar,/OA_JAVA/oracle/apps/fnd/jar/fndaol.jar,/OA_JAVA/oracle/apps/fnd/jar/fndctx.jar,/OA_JAVA/oracle/apps/fnd/jar/fndlist.jar&gp14=jinit_appletcache&gv14=offjinit_appletcache=off&gp2=resp_app&gv2=SYSADMIN&gp3=resp&gv3=SYSTEM_ADMINISTRATOR&gp4=sec_group&gv4=STANDARD&gp5=function&gv5=FND_FNDCPQCR_SYS&gp6=other_params&gv6=&gp7=forms_url&gv7=http%3A%2F%2Fapppgrd2.energy.ge.com%3A8029%2Fpls%2Ferppgrd2%2Ffnd_icx_launch.runforms%3FICX_TICKET%3D%26resp_app%3DSYSADMIN%26resp_key%3DSYSTEM_ADMINISTRATOR%26secgrp_key%3DSTANDARD%26start_func%3DFND_FNDCPQCR_SYS%26other_params%3D&encoding=UTF-8&gp8=error_url&gv8=http%3A%2F%2Fdev56.justanexample.com%3A8029%2FOA_HTML%2Fjsp%2Ffnd%2Ffnderror.jsp&gp12=port&gv12=6945&gp13=dbc&gv13=dev56&gp15=icx_ticket&gv15=qT_sKHY-DtwzZo6CWStyqg.. HTTP/1.1" 200 42954 0

Do you wish to force regeneration of all jar files? [No] ? Yes

Forcing generation of all product jar files.
Creating and signing every jar file can take about thirty
minutes depending on the hardware being used.
You can watch the file $APPL_TOP/admin/$TWO_TASK/log/adadmin.log to see the progress of jar file generation.

Signing product JAR files in JAVA_TOP -
$OA_JAVA
using entity DEV21_ERPDEV21 and certificate 1.

Successfully created javaVersionFile.

Generating product JAR files in JAVA_TOP -
$OA_JAVA with command:

adjava -mx512m -nojit oracle.apps.ad.jri.adjmx @$APPL_TOP/admin/$TWO_TASK/out/genjars.cmd

After regenerating jar files and logging in as administrator on my laptop, it worked fine. It did not work for Raju as he did not have administrator rights on his laptop.

Concurrent Managers require physical hostname

2009-06-03T09:08:00.000-07:00

In our environment we have DB and Concurrent Manager on one box. This box is clustered with Veritas 5.1. We use virtual cluster name for connecting to DB. However we manually add the physical hostnames of all the servers in the cluster.

This is because the Concurrent Managers require the physical hostname to be registered and enabled for Concurrent Processing.

Please refer to Metalink Note 568115.1 for more details.