|Oracle® Application Server Release Notes
10g Release 2 (10.1.2) for Solaris Operating System (SPARC)
This chapter describes issues associated with Oracle Business Intelligence. It includes the following topics:
This section describes general issues and workarounds for Oracle Business Intelligence products. It contains the following topics:
For the latest certification information, which supersedes that in the Oracle Business Intelligence documentation, refer to OracleMetalink at the following location:
Previous versions of Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer shipped with the files
Memo.doc, which were used to demonstrate "drill out" functionality. To reduce disk space requirements and installation time, these files and instructions for their use will be made available from Oracle Technology Network:
In addition to performing the steps that are described in the installation guide, you must install patch set 4628714 to resolve a Globally Unique ID (GUID) generation issue with the Discoverer Catalog. Patch set 4628714 is available from OracleMetalink at the following location:
When using Oracle Database 10g Release 1 (10.1.x) for the Metadata Repository or after upgrading the Metadata Repository to Oracle Database 10g Release 1, you might see the following error on the OracleBI Discoverer Plus Connection pages, the OracleBI Discoverer Viewer Connection pages, and the Public Connection definition page in Application Server Control:
The connection list is currently unavailable. ORA-06510: PL/SQL: unhandled user-defined exception ORA-06512: at "ORASSO.WWSSO_API_PRIVATE," line 258 ORA-06510: PL/SQL: unhandled user-defined exception ORA-06512: at "ORASSO.WWSSO_UTL" line 728 ORA-28231: no data passed to obfuscation toolkit ORA-06512: at line 1 Unable to retrieve connection list
You will see the same problem with external applications on the server that hosts Oracle Application Server Single Sign-On.
To resolve this issue, make the following changes in the Metadata Repository database:
Edit the init%ORACLE_SID%.ora file in the following location:
Add the following line to this file:
event="10946 trace name context forever, level 36"
If an spfile%ORACLE_SID%.ora exists in either the dbs folder or the database folder, rename the file to spfile%ORACLE_SID%.bak. Changes to init%ORACLE_SID%.ora are not loaded if the database server finds an spfile.
Log in as a sysadmin.
At the SQL prompt, shut down then start up the database server.
Restart the OracleBI Discoverer server using the command opmnctl restartall.
Oracle Business Intelligence documentation (e.g. Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Plus User's Guide) has the version number 10.1.2.1, which covers the following installations:
Oracle Application Server 10g Release 2 (10.1.2.0.2) Business Intelligence and Forms install type.
Oracle Business Intelligence 10g Release 2 (10.1.2.0.2).
Oracle Business Intelligence version 10.1.2.0.2 ships with Oracle Application Server version 10.1.2.0.2. The Oracle Business Intelligence components (e.g. OracleBI Discoverer Plus) and their documentation (e.g. Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Plus User's Guide) that are part of Oracle Business Intelligence 10.1.2.0.2 have a version number of 10.1.2.1 to indicate that they are changed from 10.1.2.0.0.
After upgrading an Oracle database to version 10.2 you may encounter the following issues when using Discoverer:
some existing worksheets may fail to open, and Plus or Viewer stops working
you may see the error ORA-03113: end-of-file on communication channel
you may see the error ORA-00600 when trying to create a new worksheet, especially when creating analytic calculations
you may not be able to change page items when using Discoverer Viewer
you may see the error: Failed to Connect to Database, when changing page items in Plus, and Plus closes without warning
To use Oracle BI Discoverer version 10.1.2.0.2 against an Oracle database version 10.2 on any platform, you must apply the one-off patch number 4551356 to your Database installation. You can obtain this patch by contacting Oracle Support.
Note: This issue has been fixed in the 10.2.0.2 Database patch set.
There will be a security issue if HTTP is used by web service clients to access the Discoverer Web Services, because the trusted username and password can be intercepted on the Internet. Therefore, it is strongly recommended to enable HTTPS on the middle tier hosting the Discoverer Web Services.
For more information, see the Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Configuration Guide.
The Oracle Database and other Oracle database client software (e.g. SQL*Plus, the database export utility) use Oracle Required Support Files (RSF).
Oracle Business Intelligence also uses Oracle Required Support Files (RSF), specifically RSF version 10.1.0.4. This version of the Oracle Required Support Files is installed during Oracle Business Intelligence installation.
Note that the Required Support Files version 10.1.0.4 is incompatible with earlier versions of Oracle Database 10g. So if the machine on which you install Oracle Business Intelligence already has a version of Oracle Database 10g or database client software that is earlier than 10.1.0.4, there will be compatibility issues. For example, if you install Oracle Business Intelligence and attempt to run a version of SQL*Plus earlier than 10.1.0.4, then the following error is displayed:
ORA-12557 TNS: protocol adapter not loadable
To avoid the compatibility issues, upgrade Oracle Database 10g or database client software on the machine to the same version (i.e. 10.1.0.4) as the version of the Required Support Files that were installed with Oracle Business Intelligence.
This issue does not exist for Oracle9i Database Server.
When you use OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational or Plus OLAP with Mozilla and Firefox browsers (version 1.5 and later) and you resize the browser window, the browser can freeze and might crash the applet intermittently. This issue is caused by the following bugs in the Sun Java Runtime Engine: 4836462 and 5076485.
To work around this issue, do not resize the applet window (especially on Linux platforms) or use a different browser, such as Internet Explorer.
You might notice unsightly font issues when using a non-English locale such as Czech. For example, when a worksheet uses a serif font, text in that worksheet might be displayed incorrectly on the screen and in printouts.
To work around this issue, update the file that maps the serif fonts. The name of this file differs depending on the locale in use. When you use OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational or Plus OLAP in English, the file is named
file.properties. If you use Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Plus in a non-English locale, then the file name includes the code for the locale, such as
file.properties.cs for Czech.
Update the mapping file with the following information:
serif.0=Times New Roman,EASTEUROPE_CHARSET serif.1=WingDings,SYMBOL_CHARSET,NEED_CONVERTED serif.2=Symbol,SYMBOL_CHARSET,NEED_CONVERTED
Consult the following Sun Web site for additional information about fonts:
If you are running OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational or Plus OLAP on a Macintosh or Linux client machine, you must add the appropriate font files to your client machine to allow exported PDF files to display non-ASCII data correctly.
These font files include Albany fonts with names such as ALBANWTJ.TTF and ALBANWTK.TTF. The files are stored in the
/utilities/fonts directory on the CD-ROM or DVD for the Oracle Application Server Metadata Repository Upgrade Assistant.
To install the additional required fonts:
Navigate to the
/utilities/fonts directory on the CD-ROM or DVD for the OracleAS Metadata Repository Upgrade Assistant.
Copy the appropriate Albany TTF file from the
/utilities/fonts directory to the plug-in directory in the
/jre/lib/fonts directory on the Macintosh or Linux client machine.
When using Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer with a relational data source, you can predict the time that is required to retrieve information by setting the value of the QPPEnable preference to 1. However, in some circumstances, the majority of the time taken to retrieve information will be consumed by the prediction activity itself.
To work around this issue, set the value of the QPPObtainCostMethod preference to 0 (use the EXPLAIN PLAN statement to predict query times), rather than to 1 (use dynamic views to predict query times).
For more information about setting preferences, refer to the Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Configuration Guide.
In OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational and OracleBI Discoverer Viewer when displaying a relational worksheet, you might encounter a known issue when drilling to detail on a page item that has been set to <ALL>. In this case, no data is retrieved.
Due to a known bug, OracleBI Discoverer displays a date value incorrectly in a worksheet if the URL parameter NLS_DATE_FORMAT= is used to display that worksheet.
For example, the database might contain a sale_date value of 01-NOV-2005 03:53:12. You create a worksheet in OracleBI Discoverer Plus with a date column for the sale_date item, which is displayed correctly. If you then display that worksheet using the NLS_DATE_FORMAT= parameter set to a value such as the following one:
then OracleBI Discoverer displays the incorrect value 2005-11-01 00:00:00, instead of the correct value 2005-11-01 03:53:12.
This issue will be addressed in an upcoming Oracle Business Intelligence patch release.
To use word wrap settings correctly, you must understand how they are designed for Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer:
For OracleBI Discoverer Plus: Word wrap settings that you make in OracleBI Discoverer Plus are saved in the worksheet and affect the display of worksheets in OracleBI Discoverer Plus and when printing to PDF.
For OracleBI Discoverer Viewer: Word wrap settings that you see in the Print Settings dialog work as follows:
The word wrap settings do not affect the display of worksheets in OracleBI Discoverer Viewer.
For relational data:
The word wrap settings do affect the printing of worksheets to PDF.
If the Always wrap text when size exceeds column width box is checked, then the print settings in OracleBI Discoverer Viewer do override the settings made in a worksheet in OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational for printing to PDF.
If the Always wrap text when size exceeds column width box is not checked, then the print settings in OracleBI Discoverer Viewer do not override the settings made in a worksheet in OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational for printing to PDF.
For OLAP data:
The word wrap settings do not affect the printing of worksheets to PDF.
Regardless of whether the Always wrap text when size exceeds column width box is checked or unchecked, the print settings in OracleBI Discoverer Viewer never override the settings made in a worksheet in OracleBI Discoverer Plus OLAP for printing to PDF.
When you use Microsoft Internet Explorer, the OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational or Plus OLAP applet initialization and download dialog appears behind the browser window from which it was launched. After the applet is downloaded and initialized, it will appear in front of the browser window from which it was launched.
To work around this issue:
Use a browser other than Internet Explorer, such as Netscape Navigator or Mozilla Firefox.
Use the OracleBI Discoverer Plus URL parameter _plus_popup=false that is documented in the Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Configuration Guide.
The following list describes issues when you use the Safari browser on Mac OS X with the OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational or Plus OLAP applet:
Bug 4314806 and 4375091 (Dev bug - modified for Phase 2, BI rev -06)
If you resize the browser window in the applet, then some parts of the content might be clipped. To work around this problem, always maximize the browser window for the applet when working with Mac OS X
Keyboard combinations (also known as mnemonics) do not work in OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational and Plus OLAP. For example, you cannot press Alt+F to access the File menu.
In the Share Workbooks dialog of OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational, the leading characters of the "Shared:" list are clipped. In other words, the left edge of the list is truncated. For example, if you shared a workbook with "DISCODEV", then you will only see "SCODEV" in the list. The title for the list is also truncated such that you see only the vertical line of the "d" in "Shared" and the colon (e.g. "l:").
The dialog continues to work as expected, but you might have difficulty reading the names in the "Shared:" list. This issue has no workaround
The Welcome page is not displayed in the correct locale as specified in the browser. You will see the Welcome page displayed in English regardless of the language setting in the browser.
To work around this issue:
Navigate to the
Apache/Apache/htdocs directory on the Oracle Business Intelligence middle tier machine.
index.html.html file to
index.html file to
In the Web browser, clear the browser cache and refresh the Welcome page.
Because of Sun JRE 1.4 bug 4688797, you might encounter issues when connecting to a database schema while your computer has Turkish regional settings. You will encounter the issue when you attempt to connect to a database schema with a user name that contains certain letters, such as the letter 'I' or 'i', for example, in "bibdemo". See the Sun JRE bug for information on the letters that are affected.
To work around this issue, either do not use Turkish regional settings or use a user name that does not contain the affected letters.
Section 4.7.1 of the Oracle Business Intelligence Installation Guide describes how to install translated Help files for OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational or Plus OLAP after installation. That section explains that the Help files are available as JAR files in the
/extras directory on the CD-ROM and DVD for Oracle Business Intelligence.
/extras directory does not exist on the CD-ROM or DVD for this release. You can locate a ZIP file that contains all translated JAR files from the following location on Oracle Technology Network:
Once you obtain the JAR files from Oracle Technology Network, you can use the instructions in the Oracle Business Intelligence Installation Guide for installing the translated Help.
New user preferences have been included, as described in the following table. These preferences should appear in Section 10.6, "List of Discoverer preferences" in the Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Configuration Guide.
Table 20-1 New User Preferences
|Name||Category||Description||Default Value||Valid Values|
Specifies whether OracleBI Discoverer Plus includes carriage return characters (i.e. /r) at the end of lines when a worksheet is exported to CSV format.
When this preference is set to 0, OracleBI Discoverer Plus includes only a line feed (LF) character. When this preference is set to 1, OracleBI Discoverer Plus includes a carriage return (CR) character followed by a line feed (LF) character.
0 = Include only a LF code.
1 = Include a CR code followed by a LF code.
Specifies whether OracleBI Discoverer compares the execution cost of using plain SQL and summary SQL, and automatically uses the most efficient SQL type. For example, you might turn off RewriteCostComparison (i.e. set it to 0) if you want users to always query against summary data (e.g. created yesterday) even though this might be slower than querying the latest data.
0 = Always use summary SQL.
1 = Use the most efficient SQL type.
Specifies whether OracleBI Discoverer uses optimized SQL for complex folders, to improve performance. For example, you might turn on OptimizeComplexFolders (i.e. set it to 1) if you have complex folders that affect OracleBI Discoverer performance by making the Worksheet Wizard slow to use.
0 = Do not use optimized SQL for complex folders.
1 = Do use optimized SQL for complex folders.
Specifies whether OracleBI Discoverer adds the NOREWRITE hint to the SQL.
When UseNoRewriteHint is set to 1 (the default), users always query against the latest data (e.g. created today), even though this might be slower than querying the summary data (e.g. created yesterday). The NO_REWRITE hint instructs the optimizer to disable query rewrite for the query block, which overrides the setting of the parameter QUERY_REWRITE_ENABLED.
0 = Do not add the NOREWRITE hint.
1 = Do add the NOREWRITE hint.
This section provides information about corrections to the OracleBI Discoverer Connections Help. It contains the following topics:
This Help topic is incorrectly called the Create Connection: Enter Password page, when it should be called the Account Details: Enter Password page.
This Help topic is incorrectly called the Select Applications Responsibility for Discoverer connection page, when it should be called the Account Details: Select Responsibility page.
The Create Connection button should have the following additional text:
Note: The Create Connection button will be disabled if the OracleBI Discoverer manager specifies (in Application Server Control) that end users cannot create private connections.
Disregard the note and the bullet points underneath the Password field.
Disregard this Help topic.
Disregard this Help topic.
Disregard the note and the bullet points underneath the Password field.
This section provides information about corrections to the Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Configuration Guide. The following list summarizes the corrections required:
In the Preface Section "Using the JAWS screen reader with Discoverer," references to Section 11.6 "Discoverer Plus URL parameters" should be to Section 13.8 "List of URL parameters specific to Discoverer Plus."
In Section 3.9 "How to start Discoverer Plus over HTTP in Netscape Navigator for the first time on a Windows client machine," step 9 states that "Using a Windows Explorer dialog, navigate to the temporary directory that you selected in step 6." This step should be "Using a Windows Explorer dialog, navigate to the temporary directory that you selected in step 7."
Section 6.7 "URL parameters for the Discoverer Plus OLAP Servlet" contains Table 6-1. The table requires the following corrections:
password= is not a valid URL parameter. For security reasons, OracleBI Discoverer end users are always prompted for a password. A password can only be supplied in a HTTP Post method.
workbookname= should be qualified with the directory path in the Discoverer Catalog. You must prefix folder names, workbook names, and worksheet names with a forward slash character '/' (or the URL encoded forward slash character value '%2F'). For example, to specify 'Workbook A' stored in the Users/Jchan/ area in the Discoverer Catalog, enter &workbookname=Users/JChan/Workbook+A.
If you are deploying OracleBI Discoverer in a non-Single Sign-On environment, then you must specify
lm=OLAP in the URL.
Section 6.8 "URL parameters for an OLAP worksheet in Discoverer Viewer" contains Table 6-2. In that table, note that the URL parameter worksheetname= is case-sensitive and should be worksheetName=.
If you are deploying OracleBI Discoverer in a non-Single Sign-On environment, then you must specify
lm=OLAP in the URL.
In Section 6.1.2 "What is the OLAP Catalog?", references to Oracle9i OLAP User's Guide should be to Oracle OLAP Application Developer's Guide and Oracle OLAP Reference.
In Chapter 7 "Installing OracleBI Discoverer in a multiple machine environment," references to Oracle Application Server Web Cache Administration and Deployment Guide should be to Oracle Application Server Web Cache Administrator's Guide.
Section 8.4 incorrectly states that the caching rules that OracleBI Discoverer requires are automatically configured when you install Oracle Business Intelligence.
After installing Oracle Business Intelligence, you must manually specify caching rules, as described in section 8.5.1 "How to create Discoverer caching rules".
Section 8.5.1 describes how to create OracleBI Discoverer caching rules. Add the following steps after the current Step 8 in that section:
Display the Advanced Caching Instructions tab.
Add the User-Agent header to the list of selected headers.
In Section 13.7 "List of URL parameters common to Discoverer Plus and Viewer," references to Oracle9i Database Globalization Support Guide in the description of nls_sort=<sort type> should be to Oracle Database Globalization Support Guide.
Section 15.1 "About Discoverer connections and Oracle e-Business Suite", disregard the last bullet point in the notes section that begins 'If you have already connected to the database using SSO...'
Disregard the whole of Section 15.2 "About Discoverer private connections, OracleAS Single Sign-On and Oracle e-Business Suite users".
In Appendix A.1 "List of Discoverer file locations", disregard the entry for migratediscoconnection.bat/sh script.
In Appendix A.2 "List of configuration settings in configuration.xml", disregard the enableAppsSSO setting.
In Section B.7.1.2 "How to upgrade preferences from Discoverer Release 4.1 to Discoverer Version 10.1.2 on Microsoft Windows," the following sentence:
"To change preference values, use dis51pr -setpref as documented in Section 10.6 'How to set individual preferences'"
should be replaced with this text:
"To change preference values, use dis51pr -setpref as documented in Section 10.5 'How to set individual preferences for specific users.'"
Section 7.6.4 "How to disable the Preferences component on a machine" contains text in Step 3 that describes how to change the Disco_PreferenceServer entry from enabled to disabled. Append the following text to the instructions in Step 3:
<process-type id="SessionServer" module-id="Disco_SessionServer" status="enabled"> tag, include the following tags:
<process-set id="SessionServer" minprocs="0" maxprocs="50" restart-on-death="false" parallel-requests="true"> <module-data> <category id="start-parameters">
<data id="dis51ws-extra-options" value="-preferenceHost <hostname of remote preference>"/>
For example, to use the Preference Server on machine 22.214.171.124, enter the following information in the data tag:
<data id="dis51ws-extra-options" value="-preferenceHost 126.96.36.199"/>
Section D.1.9 describes an issue displaying the OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational Help when using the Sun Java Plug-in. The solution for changing the proxy settings for the Sun Java Plug-in should be written as follows:
On the client browser machine, display the dialog in which you specify proxy settings.
For example, in Microsoft Internet Explorer, from the Tools menu, choose Internet Options, Connections, LAN Settings, then Advanced to display the Proxy Settings dialog.
Ensure that the Exceptions field contains the following string:
Click OK to save the changes.
Start a new client browser session and start OracleBI Discoverer Plus.
This section provides information about corrections to Oracle Enterprise Manager 10g Application Server Control (Application Server Control) Discoverer Help. It contains the following topics:
The Discoverer Administration page Help topic should be amended as follows:
Links to Install Catalog, Uninstall Catalog, and Manage Catalog on the OracleBI Discoverer Administration page Help topic should be called Install, Uninstall, and Manage respectively.
The Discoverer Configuration page Help topic should be amended as follows:
The Viewer Delay Times area has the following two new fields:
Query Request Timeout (seconds): The time to wait before OracleBI Discoverer displays the Query Progress page.
Long Request Timeout (seconds): The time to wait before OracleBI Discoverer displays the Query Progress page for long queries.
This Help topic is incorrectly called the Discoverer Install Catalog page, when it should be called the Install Catalog page.
This Help topic is incorrectly called the Discoverer Log in to Manage Catalog page, when it should be called the Log in to Manage Catalog page.
This Help topic is incorrectly called the Discoverer Uninstall Catalog page, when it should be called the Uninstall Catalog page.
The Discoverer Plus Configuration page Help topic should be amended as follows:
The Default (Oracle Logo) radio button should be changed to say None and its description should be as follows: Use this radio button to avoid displaying a logo in OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational and OracleBI Discoverer Plus OLAP.
The Discoverer Portlet Provider Configuration page Help topic should be amended as follows:
The Discoverer Session Pool heading should be changed to Discoverer Session.
The Portlet Generic Parameters field should be changed to the Maximum Generic parameters field.
The Maximum Sessions field description should include the following text:
Note: This value must be equal to or less than the value of the maxprocs setting in opmn.xml (for more information, see the Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Configuration Guide section entitled "List of configuration settings in opmn.xml").
The Discoverer Administration Help topic should be amended as follows:
Disregard the section "Connect to SSO-enabled Oracle Applications database" that contains the Allow authenticated OracleAS Single Sign-On (SSO) users to create and use private connections to SSO-enabled Oracle Applications databases, without entering a password check box.
This section provides information about corrections and additions to Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Publishing Workbooks in OracleAS Portal.
This section contains corrections and additions to the section 'How to copy Discoverer connections from one Oracle Business Intelligence installation to another', in Chapter 2 (page 2-18 in a printed or PDF copy).
When you copy OracleBI Discoverer connections from one Oracle Business Intelligence installation to another, note the following:
OracleAS Single Sign-On user accounts that are deployed on the source installation must be re-created on the target installation. You create OracleAS Single Sign-On users in the Administration tab - User area in OracleAS Portal (for more information, see OracleAS Portal Help).
You must copy the tnsnames.ora file from the source installation to the target installation. For example, on Windows, you copy the
<ORACLE_HOME>\network\admin\tnsnames.ora file on the source installation to the
<ORACLE_HOME>\network\admin\tnsnames.ora file on the target installation.
If you need to obtain the ORASSO login password for the source installation (for example, to export the ORASSO schema using the ssomig command), run the ldapsearch command on the source installation. If you export the ORASSO schema using the ssomig command with the ORASSO login password for the target installation, then the export will fail.
If you need to obtain the ORASSO login password for the target installation (for example, to import the ORASSO schema using the ssomig command), run the ldapsearch command on the target installation. If you import the ORASSO schema using the ssomig command with the ORASSO login password for the source installation, then the import will fail.
When you use the ldapsearch command to obtain the ORASSO login password for an installation (for example, to use in the ssomig command), use the following command syntax:
ldapsearch -D cn=orcladmin -w <superuser password> -p <port number> -h <Infrastructure hostname> -b "cn=IAS,cn=Products,cn=OracleContext" -s sub -v OrclresourceName=ORASSO | grep orclpasswordattribute
<superuser password> is the password of the orcladmin user in Oracle Internet Directory (OID). By default, this is the same password as the ias_admin user password after a new Infrastructure installation.
<port number> is the OID port number.
ldapsearch -D cn=orcladmin -w manager1 -p 389 -h hostname1.nl.oracle.com -b "cn=IAS,cn=Products,cn=OracleContext" -s sub -v OrclresourceName=ORASSO | grep orclpasswordattribute
The command returns a list of OID variables and values. To obtain the ORASSO login password, look for the value of the orclpasswordattribute variable.
After you have exported the ORASSO schema (using the ssomig command), you must copy the ssomig.dmp file and the ssoconf.log file to the target installation. For example, on Windows you copy the files from the <
source installation directory name>
\inf\sso\log directory on the source installation to the <
target installation directory name>
\inf\sso\log directory in the target installation.
This section provides release notes for Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Plus Relational (OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational). It contains the following topics:
When you run OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational with Sun Java Plug-in 1.4.2_06, the Browser Look and Feel, and an Asian language (such as Japanese, Korean, or Chinese), you might notice that static text and text in buttons in the user interface appears truncated or clipped. To work around this issue, do one of the following:
Change the Look and Feel to either Plastic or System.
Use JInitiator 188.8.131.52 instead of the Sun Java Plug-in.
Install Sun Java Plug-in 1.4.2_10, when it becomes available from Sun Microsystems.
When you save a new workbook in OracleBI Discoverer Plus, any text characters beyond the standard ASCII characters are not saved correctly when all the conditions that are described in the following list are met:
You are logged in as an Oracle E-Business suite user.
The language for the computer is not English.
OracleBI Discoverer Plus is running against an Oracle E-Business database that does not have that non-English language installed.
This issue has no workaround.
If you cancel a query that is running in OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational, then you are prompted to either choose YES to undo the changes or NO to show a blank sheet. If you choose YES, then OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational hangs and you must close the window and restart. To work around this issue, choose NO to show a blank worksheet. You can then refresh the sheet and continue working.
OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational does not display non-aggregable values for scheduled workbooks. In other words, OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational processes scheduled workbooks as if you selected the "Show values that cannot be aggregated as: <Non-aggregable label>" option on the "Worksheet Properties dialog: Aggregation tab".
Non-aggregable values include those based on the following SQL functions:
A CASE SQL statement
A DECODE SQL statement
A PL/SQL function
A DISTINCT SQL statement
An analytic function
This section provides information about corrections to OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational Help. It contains the following topics:
The OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational Help topics contain a number of references to the Connect to Discoverer Plus page. Each reference to the Connect to Discoverer Plus page should instead refer to the Connect to OracleBI Discoverer page.
This OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational Help topic should be amended as follows: Disregard the notes in Step 7 and 8 and disregard Step 9 entirely.
Step 2 in this OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational Help topic should be reworded as follows:
2. Choose Tools | Sort to display the "Edit Worksheet dialog: Sort tab" or "Sort Crosstab dialog" (depending on the type of worksheet displayed).
The following important bugs were fixed in this release:
In previous releases, you could not automatically open exported files with non-ASCII file names; that is, file names that used Asian characters (for example, Japanese language characters).
In previous releases, you could not specify and save the paper size for printing in the Page Setup dialog of OracleBI Discoverer Plus.
If you use OracleBI Discoverer Plus Relational to open a worksheet that was created using OracleBI Discoverer Desktop Version 9.0.4 (or earlier), the size of the title area for that worksheet defaults to two lines in height. A title height of two lines might be a problem if a worksheet title requires more than or less than two lines. If you want to change the size of the title area, then you must manually resize the title area and save the worksheet.
To resize the title area for a worksheet, open the worksheet and drag the bar at the bottom of the title area pane up or down.
This section provides release notes for Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Plus OLAP (OracleBI Discoverer Plus OLAP). It contains the following topics:
There may be Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Plus applet download issues when caching has been enabled in the Sun Java Plug-In. Disable caching in the plug-in to avoid this issue.
When you are running Netscape 7.x or Mozilla browsers, the Netscape and Mozilla Mail clients and Web browser may become disabled when OracleBI Discoverer Plus OLAP modal dialogs are displayed. Dismissing the OracleBI Discoverer Plus OLAP dialog resumes normal operation for the Netscape and Mozilla tools.
When you use the tab key to select items in a worksheet, the menus do not always synchronize to reflect the currently selected item. This issue has no workaround.
The ESC key does not close the following dialogs: Totals, New Total, Parameter, and Manage Catalog. Instead of using the ESC key, click the Close or OK button.
The Link tool, which enables users to drill out to external URLs from a crosstab cell, may not work correctly in all locales due to URL encoding issues. This issue has no workaround.
Exporting extremely large graphs can cause memory issues, requiring a restart of the OracleBI Discoverer Plus OLAP session. This issue has no workaround.
Reinvoking the Page Setup dialog from the Print dialog may cause the Page Setup dialog to be blank. This issue has no workaround.
When printing a worksheet that contains large numbers in the data cells, the string ####### may be printed instead of the actual numbers. This issue has no workaround.
The following issues exist with titles and text areas:
Non-empty titles and text areas will be printed even if they are hidden in the worksheet. This issue has no workaround.
When you set the title or text area background to green and export the worksheet to an HTML file, the background is incorrectly set to red in the exported file. This issue has no workaround.
If you open a workbook that contains multiple sheets and you move the visible sheet within the workbook, then the newly active worksheet displays with an empty or blank sheet. If you try to refresh the sheet to solve this problem, then the newly active sheet is not displayed and you see an error message about a NullPointerException.
To work around this issue, you can display the original sheet or any other sheet, then return to the sheet that displayed as blank. Alternatively, if you open or display all sheets before starting the move operation, then you can see the target sheet right after the move operation.
When you use JAWS, you will notice errors when you attempt to format graphs and crosstabs using the Format dialogs. This issue has no workaround.
The exported file may be incomplete or corrupt when exporting a Discoverer Catalog in which the name, contents, or data in a workbook contain non-ASCII characters.
To work around this issue, perform the export operation from the command line on the middle-tier server. Set parameters to force the export to use the UTF-8 character set as shown in the following command line syntax:
java -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -classpath d4o.jar oracle.dss.d4o.administration.D4OCommand export -h <
> -po <
> -sid <
> -p <
> -f <
export xml filename
The D4OSYS password is D4OSYS by default.
This section provides information about corrections to the OracleBI Discoverer Plus OLAP Help. The following list summarizes the corrections required:
In the "Variance calculation" topic, the formula for the calculation is incorrect. The correct formula is "Base-Target".
In the "Percent variance calculation" topic, the formula for the calculation is incorrect. The correct formula is "(Base-Target)/Target".
In the "Percent markup calculation" topic, the formula for the calculation is incorrect. The correct formula is "(From - Markup)/Markup".
This section provides release notes for OracleBI Discoverer Portlet Provider. It contains the following topics:
In the Display Options of a gauge portlet, the Minimum Value and Maximum Value range labels are checked but are also disabled so that you cannot deselect the display of those values. The values for the minimum and the maximum will appear at the ends of every gauge in the set except for those gauges where the value to be gauged is out of the range of the minimum and the maximum values. For those gauges where the value to be displayed exceeds the range of the minimum and the maximum values, the gauge will automatically adjust to accommodate the value. This issue has no workaround.
If you configure OracleBI Discoverer Portlet Provider to work with OracleAS Single Sign-On and SSL, then UIX images might not display correctly in OracleBI Discoverer. For example, on the Connect to OracleBI Discoverer page, the expand icon (i.e. the blue + symbol) in the Details column of the Discoverer connections list might not display correctly.
To address this issue, you need to manually update the
oc4j-properties file on the Oracle Business Intelligence middle tier.
To manually update the
oc4j-properties file for OracleBI Discoverer:
On the Oracle Business Intelligence middle tier machine, open the
oc4j-properties file in a text editor.
For example, on a Solaris installation, open
Locate the line 'oracle.discoverer.applications.port=' and set the port number to the SSL (i.e. HTTPS) port number that you want to use. For example, change the line to 'oracle.discoverer.applications.port=4443'.
Note: If the file does not contain a 'oracle.discoverer.applications.port=' line, append this line (including the appropriate SSL (i.e. HTTPS) port number) to the end of the file.
Make sure the following line exists in the
Note: If the file does not contain a 'oracle.discoverer.applications.protocol=https' line, append this line to the end of the file.
Restart the Oracle Application Server infrastructure and middle tier services.
This section provides information about corrections to Help topics in OracleBI Discoverer Portlet Provider. It contains the following topics:
In the Refresh Options page Help topic, the description of the First Refresh Date field reads like so:
Use this field to specify the date that the data in the portlet is first updated (DD-MON-YYYY). For example, enter 25-JAN-2005 to update the data on January 25th, 2005. Click the adjacent calendar icon to select a date using a graphical calendar.
The correct text reads like so:
Use this field to specify the date that the data in the portlet is first updated (DD-MM-YY). For example, enter 25/01/05 to update the data on January 25th, 2005. Click the adjacent calendar icon to select a date using a graphical calendar.
In the Review Portlet Defaults page Help topic, the description reads like so:
When you are ready to save the portlet settings, click Apply.
The correct text reads like so:
When you are ready to save the portlet settings, click Finish. When you edit an existing portlet, you click Apply in the Review Portlet Defaults page.
In the description for the User's Connection field, append the following text:
As a user of Oracle Application Server Portal, you can only change the connection to one of the following:
(for OLAP) a connection with the same database
(for relational) a connection with the same database and End User Layer (EUL) combination
Note that changing the connection does not enable you to display a different worksheet in the portlet. However, changing the connection might result in different data being returned to the worksheet.
Replace the text in the description for the Display different data by allowing users to customize database connection radio button with the following text:
Use this radio button when you want to enable authenticated users to go to the Customize page and change the connection. The ability to change the connection enables users to use the portlet by connecting with different login details. That is, the same worksheet will be displayed, but the data that is contained in the worksheet might be different because the underlying login details are different.
This section provides release notes for Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Viewer (OracleBI Discoverer Viewer). It contains the following topics:
pref.txt file contains a setting called ShowDrillIcon, which is not functioning properly. If you set ShowDrillIcon to False, then drill icons are still displayed in OracleBI Discoverer Viewer. The issue has no workaround.
After you configure an SMTP server that has a hyphen in the name (e.g.
my-smtpserver.mycompany.com) for OracleBI Discoverer Viewer in Application Server Control, users will see the following error message when they try to send e-mail from OracleBI Discoverer Viewer:
OracleBI Discoverer was unable to read the configuration file. A value is required for the following expression my-smtpserver.mycompany.com
The application log contains the following text:
ERROR: Invalid SMTP Server
To work around this issue, use the IP address of the server instead of the server name when configuring the SMTP server. This problem will be fixed in a future patch release.
When an OracleAS Single Sign-On (SSO) user tries to view a worksheet from a List of Worksheets Portlet using the same browser window that is already being used by an SSO user to view that worksheet, the second user will see the following error message: "The page cannot be displayed".
To work around this, start a new browser session and view the worksheet.
OracleBI Discoverer Viewer no longer offers the ability to disable the display of row numbers in a tabular worksheet.
When OracleBI Discoverer Viewer is embedded in an IFRAME tag.
When the domain of the server that hosts the HTML page with the IFRAME tag is different from the domain of the OracleBI Discoverer server that is running OracleBI Discoverer Viewer.
Use one of the following workarounds for this issue:
Run the OracleBI Discoverer server and the server that hosts the HTML page with the IFRAME tag in the same domain.
Common2_2_20.js file on the OracleBI Discoverer server using the following steps:
Use Application Server Control to stop all services on the middle tier for Oracle Business Intelligence.
Make a backup copy of the
Common2_2_20.js file from the following directory:
Common2_2_20.js file and replace all occurrences of "parent._pprSomeAction" with "window._pprSomeAction".
Use Application Server Control to start all services on the middle tier for Oracle Business Intelligence.
Clear the browser cache on the client machine so that the new
Common2_2_20.js file will be used.
If you are using OracleBI Discoverer Viewer with Microsoft Internet Explorer, you might encounter an error message when you try to export to PDF a worksheet that is named with non-ASCII characters, a space, and a number. The export fails and you will see a message similar to the following one:
No %PDF- in a file header
Use one of the following methods to work around this issue:
Use a browser other than Internet Explorer, such as one from Netscape or Mozilla.
Remove the space between the non-ASCII characters and the number, or remove the number altogether.
Continue to use Internet Explorer and leave the space in the worksheet name, but follow these steps:
Start the Adobe Reader.
From the Edit menu, choose Preferences, then click Internet.
Clear the Display PDF in browser box.
You can use the Customization page of Application Server Control to change the look and feel of OracleBI Discoverer Viewer. That page contains a color chooser, or palette. If you use Application Server Control on Mac OS X with the Safari brower, then the page does not correctly enter the color code when you select a color from the palette. To work around this issue, you can either use the Firefox browser or you can directly enter a color code.
The color codes are standard HTML hexadecimal color codes. You can enter one of the 49 colors that are available in the color palette, or you can enter any valid HTML hexadecimal color code.
The following list provides examples of colors with their codes:
You might encounter issues when trying to see items in the Discoverer Catalog when using OracleBI Discoverer Viewer with OLAP data on UNIX servers. You can resolve this issue on the middle tier machine where OracleBI Discoverer runs by performing the following steps.
To check whether the time zone variable is set:
Open a shell prompt.
echo $TZ to display the time zone setting.
If no value is displayed, then the time zone has not been set.
To set the time zone variable:
Open a shell prompt.
Note: The UNIX user that sets the TZ variable must be the same UNIX user that installed Oracle Business Intelligence.
If you do not know which shell you are using, type
$echo $SHELL to display the name of the current shell.
Set the time zone as appropriate.
For example, to set the time zone variable for US/Pacific time:
For the Bourne, Bash, or Korn shell, type
For the C shell, type
setenv TZ US/Pacific
Note: Consult the shell documentation for the appropriate values.
OracleBI Discoverer can be used in conjunction with assistive technologies such as the JAWS screen reader. However, a bug in JAWS prevents drilling from working correctly in OracleBI Discoverer Viewer when querying a relational datasource, as described below.
Assume you use the keyboard to navigate to the drill icon beside an item in the worksheet header. When you press the Enter key to drill on that header item, the Drill page should be displayed (as described in the "Worksheet Display page: (Page level tools and controls)" topic in the Help system and the Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer Viewer User's Guide).
However, when JAWS is running, the Drill page is not displayed. Instead, the Drill popup menu is displayed. It is not possible to select items from this popup menu using the keyboard, and JAWS does not read the items on the popup menu. This issue has no workaround.
In OracleBI Discoverer Viewer, an asterisk that precedes a text field indicates that the user is required to enter a value into that text field. The JAWS screen reader does not read an asterisk that precedes a required text field and does not otherwise indicate that the field is required. This issue has no workaround.
This section provides information about corrections to OracleBI Discoverer Viewer Help. It contains the following topics:
The OracleBI Discoverer Viewer Help contains a number of references to the Connect to Discoverer Viewer page. Each reference to the Connect to Discoverer Viewer page should instead refer to the Connect to OracleBI Discoverer page.
The List of Worksheets page Help topic should display the following note:
Note: When using a private connection or connecting directly, if you use the Web browser controls (refresh, back, and forward) to refresh or navigate to or from the Worksheet List page, then you might be disconnected. If this happens, then OracleBI Discoverer Viewer prompts you to re-connect. Use controls within the page for navigation and refreshing.
This Help topic is incorrectly called the Printable Page Options page: Page Content tab, when it should be called the Printable Page Options page: Content tab.
The following changes should be made to this Help topic:
The Always, when available field, and its description are duplicated and one should be removed.
The When summary data is more recent than nn days field and its description should be removed.
This Discoverer Viewer Help topic should be amended as follows:
Disregard the note in Step 7.
Disregard the note in Step 8.
Disregard Step 9 entirely.
When using OracleBI Discoverer with OracleAS Web Cache, note the following:
When OracleAS Single Sign-On is enabled, OracleAS Web Cache does not cache OracleBI Discoverer Viewer pages, regardless of whether they are accessed using a public connection or a private connection.
If an OracleBI Discoverer Viewer page is accessed directly via a URL and the URL contains URL parameters that specify login details (e.g. user name, database name), then OracleAS Web Cache will not cache the page. For example, OracleAS Web Cache will not cache worksheet Sheet 1 in workbook Workbook 2 that is displayed using the following URL:
Note: In the example above, us= specifies the database user name, and db= specifies the database name.
However, OracleAS Web Cache will cache worksheet Sheet 1 in workbook Workbook 2 if a user logs in manually to OracleBI Discoverer Viewer using the same login details, and navigates to this worksheet.
You must increase the delays for OracleBI Discoverer Viewer by at least 60 seconds for OracleBI Discoverer Viewer to properly cache workbooks with OracleAS Web Cache. To set the delay time, perform the following steps:
Display the Application Server Control Discoverer Home page.
Select the Components link to display the Components area.
In the Components area, in the Name column, select the OracleBI Discoverer Viewer link.
Enter a value of 60 or greater in the Viewer Delay Times field.
Choose OK to save the changes that you have made.
This section provides release notes for Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer EUL Command Line for Java (OracleBI Discoverer EUL Command Line for Java). It contains the following topics:
When you export multibyte or Eastern European data (such as the names of items and business areas in Japanese or Russian characters) from OracleBI Discoverer EUL Command Line for Java on a platform other than Windows, the exported data is corrupted.
To work around this issue, edit the
discwb.sh file that is located in the
ORACLE_HOME/discoverer directory before exporting. Change the character set value in the NLS_LANG variable to UTF8.
For example, if the original setting of the variable is:
then change the setting to read like so:
This section describes some of the known issues with the Oracle OLAP option. These issues affect all products that access OLAP data, including OracleBI Discoverer Plus OLAP and OracleBI Discoverer Viewer.
At times, database resources are not properly released in the Oracle9i (Release 2) OLAP option. This may result in excessive memory consumption. To release the resources, close OracleBI Discoverer Plus OLAP or OracleBI Discoverer Viewer.
Potential performance issues occur when running against analytic workspaces in Oracle OLAP 10g Release 1 version 10.1.0.4. To work around these issues, always check OracleMetalink for the appropriate Oracle OLAP patches at the following location:.