Refer to Deploy application to Managed Server on 11g WebLogic Server (Part 1) if you need to catch up on the topic.

Error Code:”Parsing Failure in config.xml: java.lang.AssertionError: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.bea.wcp.sip.management.descriptor.beans.SipServerBean“

The reason why you can not start the managed server Server-1 is that the com.bea.wcp.sip.management.descriptor.beans.SipServerBean is not in classpath yet. Go to $WL_HOME/common/nodemanger and edit the file nodemanager.properties and set the variable StartScriptEnabled=true instead of the default false. Restart nodemanger and weblogic server. After that, you could successfully start the new mangerd server.

Deploy an application on to the managed server.

Click on Deployments under base_domain and then click Install under the Deployments table.

Specify the path where your deployment file would locate and then click next.

On the next page choose: Install this deployment as an application and then click next.

Now it comes to the page where we can choose our target server to deploy on. Here we choose Server-1.

I will go by defaults on the next two pages and then click Finish. You could adjust a bit according to different environments. 

After the new application is deployed, we could go back to Deployments table and check the state of the new application. If it were a successful deployment, the state should turn to be Active. Now it shows Failed meaning something is wrong during the deployment.

By looking at the log files, either nohup.out or Server-1.out,you might find similar errors like this:

Error Code:”Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is javax.persistence.PersistenceException: [PersistenceUnit: btm] Unable to build EntityManagerFactory“

This is caused by NOTenabling JPA 2.0. My newapp needs to be running on top of three extra library files:hibernate-jpa-2.0-api-1.0.0.Final.jar,antlr-2.7.6.jar,commons-lang-2.4.jar. I will firstly copy these three jar files to $WL_HOME/common/lib/.In order to include them on to my managed Server Server-1, there are two ways to do that.

 Method 1

   Set the PRE_CLASSPATH to load extra jar files

   There are two places to set the PRE_CLASSPATH, which you have to take into consideration. If you only want to enable those library files on to your managed server, in my case Server-1, then just set the PRE_CLASSPATH in commEnv.sh which is under the directory:

$WL_HOME/common/bin

Insert the following statements into your commEnv.sh.

PRE_CLASSPATH=$WL_HOME/common/lib/hibernate-jpa-2.0-api-1.0.0.Final.jar: $WL_HOME /raid/middleware/wlserver_10.3/common/lib/antlr-2.7.6.jar: $WL_HOME /raid/middleware/wlserver_10.3/common/lib/commons-lang-2.4.jar

Export PRE_CLASSPATH

Note: If you also want to deploy your application on to AdminServer. You also need to set the same PRE_CLASSPATH in startWebLogic.sh under:

$DOMAIN_HOME/startWebLogic.sh

   Set your managed server staging mode to be nostage

After you restert the managed server, you would see the status of the newly deployed application should automatically change to Active.

 Method 2

By setting up the PRE_CLASSPATH in commEnv.sh, that could include all the library files in it for any managed server you created. Suppose you need a more flexible and server-oriented method that for different managed server, you could include different library files. Instead of throwing all necessary library files in to PRE_CLASSPATH, you could also set the boot path. Let us talk about how to do that from frontend.

Go to the servers table and click on the managed server you just created.

It will take you to the settings for your newly created managed server, in this case “Server-1”. Go to Configuration->Server Start. Scroll down to the field of arguments. That is where you will put your path of your library files.

The arguments should look like below:

-Xbootclasspath/p:$WL_HOME/common/lib/hibernate-jpa-2.0-api-1.0.0.Final.jar: $WL_HOME /common/lib/antlr-2.7.6.jar: $WL_HOME /common/lib/commons-lang-2.4.jar

By adding bootclasspath, JVM would load these files with a bootstrap classloader, which is separate from the system class loader. In this case before JVM even looks at the user defined CLASSPATH, those jar files mentioned in the bootclasspath would have already been loaded.

This method also requires the server staging mode being specified as nostage.

Kumar has this great post below to discuss the concepts briefly and clearly enough. Take a look at this post firstly if you want to kind of understand why we would configure the way as below:

  http://onlineappsdba.com/index.php/2008/07/24/domain-administration-managed-server-cluster-in-oracle-weblogic/

Create a new Managed Server on 11g WebLogic Server.

Firstly, log on to Administration Console. And then go to Servers under base_domain->Environments. Click on New at the servers table to create a new managed server.

Since AdminServer is taking the port 7001. I now switch to 7002

Then click Finish!! So now I have built one managed Server called Server-1 and I am trying to start the server. You might run into warning messages like below:

This message literally says you should associate the newly created managed server Server-1 with a physical machine and also reminds you that you have to start your Node Manager as well. So let us start with creating a physical machine and then associate the server with it.

Create a new physical Machine on 11g WebLogic Server.

Navigate back from the left panel which is under base_domain, click Machines.

Click New to add a new physical machine.

Fill in the information according to your platform. I call it Machine-1 for an example.

Enter the Listen Address.Mine is just the localhost. And then click Finish.

Now we have a physical machine ready to use.

Since Machine-1 is created successfully. And we are going to associate this physical machine to Server-1. Go back to Servers and click on the name Server-1 under servers table.

Now you would see Machine-1 in the drop down list and click on it to apply the machine. Navigate down to the bottom and click Save.

Go back to servers table and you would see the machine applied to the newly created managed server in the table.

Now we need to start Node Manager. Go to the terminal and access the path below:

$WL_HOME/server/bin

nohup ./startNodeManager &

Once the node manger is started and we could go back to frontend and start Server-1

 To be continued with problems starting Server-1 caused by sip server errors

Usually on 10g BIP, the default location of xmlpserver respository looks like below:

 <OracleBI_Home>/xmlp/Reports

So basically for a full deployment of the example we mentioned above. We could simply copy the BIPreports folder from the above location on Server A to Server B and then restart the BIP service. After that you could be able to see the BIPreports is deployed on to the new server and you could start view/edit the reports by login to xmlpserver.

However on OBIEE 11g, BI Publisher reports are integrated into the BI answers catalog, which means if you want to see the actual catalog you have to go through BI Answers. It still maintain an xmlpserver repository with the location:

 <middleware_home>/user_projects/domains/bifoundation_domain/config/bipublisher/repository/Reports

We might think of using the same methodology to deploy the OBIEE 11g BI Publisher reports by just copying the reports to the above location. And upgrade the BIP catalog to BI Answers catalog.This would work if you upgrade the 10g reports to 11g reports and then deploy them to the folder above.

What you need to do next is to go to login to analytics.On the upper right corner, click Administration link:

Then on the next page, click Manage BI Publisher on the panel.

    Click Server Configuration on the Administration Page.

    On the next page click the button Upload to BI Presentation Catalog. And then click Apply.

   In this case you would be able to see the new folder and the reports underneath it once you login to analytics. Refer to previous blog on how to migrate 10g BIP reports to 11g   

   But this method didn’t solve the original question that if we want to get the reports from an 11g server and deploy them to another 11g server.We need to know after we upload the xmlpserver repository to BI Presentation Catalog. What happened?

    Well, it reformats the BIP repository to an BI Presentation Catalog folder entry. Say the folder BIPreports would be reformatted to folder BIPreports/ and BIPreports.atr. The reports under the original folder are also reformatted. The most obvious detection is by adding a atr file for each report and folder and sometime renaming some of the reports.The location of the BI Answers catalog is :

  <middleware_home>/instances/instance1/bifoundation/OracleBIPresentationServicesComponent/coreapplication_obips1/catalog/SampleAppLite/root/shared

   The problem is that you cound not simply copy the uploaded BIP reports folder to the same location on to another server. The presenation service would not recognize the folder as what 10g xmlpserver would do. And also once you have modified the uploaded reports from presentation service, the changes go directly to the catalog not the xmlpserver repository. And there is no way to reverse the BI Answers publisher reports back to the xmlpserver publisher reports having the changes we just made.

   In order to solve the problem, there are two ways available both with the help of presentation service. On OBIEE 11G, oracle tends to put more heavy usage on the frontend operation instead of backend manipulation.Good or bad? You tell me.

   Method 1.

   If you want to deploy a whole folder of BIP reports from OBIEE 11g Server A to B, simply login to analytics on Server A.

   Click Catalog:

   On the left panel, expand shared folders and choose the perticular report folder that you want to deploy to Server B. For example, I would do Sample2. Click on the folder and then click Archive

   Now depends on if you want to remain the permissions and timestamps. Check the boxes and click ok.

  Click Save. Then this archived file contains all the reports under Sample2 and is ready to be deployed to Server B.

  Login to analytics of Server B. And go to catalog as the step above.Choose the folder where you would like to deploy the reports. In this case, I would choose shared folder. And then click unarchive.

  At the pop-up window. Choose the Sample2.catalog and then input the neccessary parameters.Click OK

 Now Sample2 is showed under the shared folder and all reports are under it.

  Method 2.

  The second methodology for deployment of BIP reports is that you could simply download and upload a single report. This is useful when you are not deploying too many reports.

  Instead of login to analyitcs, this time you need to login to xmlpserver on Server A at:

  http://domain_name_onServerA:9704/xmlpserver

  Step 1.Click Catalog on the right corner to traverse down to the reports.

Step 2. Navigate to the report you want to move to another server. Click on More->Download

You have to download the data model correspondingly as well like below:

Now the files that we have just downloaded are looking like this:

    Balance Letter.xdoz

    Balance Letter Datamodel.xdmz

Step 3. Go to the Server B and upload the files. Login to the following link:  

http://domain_name_onServerB:9704/xmlpserver 

Go to catalog and navigate to the folder you would like to upload to.

At the left corner, click upload

Upload the two files we just downloaded to Server B and remember to associate the template with the data model.

        http://www.mozilla.org/products/download.html?product=firefox-11.0&os=win&lang=en-US

Step 2. Once you get your firefox browser, you could then download firebug within the browser.

       Open Firefox browser and go to Tools-> Options

       Go to General and then click Manage Add-ons

      Look for firebug in the search criteria. And then click Install besides the plugin.

   Step 3.  Now you have firebug installed, you could start using firebug to debug the Javascript. You could find a small icon aside on the right corner of the browser and once you click that button, the firebug is invoked . However you could only debug one Javascript a time for one session.

   Normally firebug would show up at the bottom. When you choose Script, you have to click the blue link : Enable

    Now click Reload

     Say I navigate to the Javascript for senstive area that I would assume where a problem would be. And put the breakpoints on the left like below: You now see the buttons on the upper right corner are still greyed out because you have not invoke anything on the current web page.

  And when you invoke the corresponding fields on the webpage. It dynamically breaks to the line you set the breakpointes. Now you are ready to debug the Javascript step by step by clicking on the buttons on upper right corner.

      Like most of the debug tools. You could do mouse over to a perticular variable and you could validate from there and on the right panel. You could add or remove breakpoints and  watch the values of different variables. It is super useful for Javascript coders.

     Have fun and this is end of Instructions.Yay!!

So in the templates of 10g if you have used tables. It might have something similar like this, if you look at the table properties through BI Publisher plugin.

The trick is that you have to change the ROW to G_1 in order that the 10g template would correctly show the data format for 11g dataset.

I was encountering an OPatch failure during my Oracle Application Server 10g upgrade. The reason is that our previous developers failed during the last patch installation. The failure message is displayed below:

      Interim Patch is holding the lock from xxxxxxx

It looked like during the last unsuccessful patch installation. Patch number xxxxxxx acquired the patch lock but not released it. When the new patch was trying to aquire the same lock. It would be on hold. This information is generated during the last patch run and stored in the patch_locked file under the directory:

       $ORACLE_HOME/.patch_storage

If some interruption happened during an unsuccessful installation of the patches, the locks would not be released and this file would not be removed as well. Therefore, the following patch installation would encounter the share lock issue further caused by this file.

    Delete this file and then reinstall the patch. You would be good to go!

OPatch Rollback

Sometimes when you applied the patches, there would be some incompatiabity that would arise in the system. This new upgrade needs to be rolled back to keep the original environment.

Here are two useful commands for checking the version and the list of pathes that are touched.

opatch version

opatch lsinventory

Suppose my OAS Home is under /oracle/app/10gR3mid

Suppose you put your opatch folder temporarily under /tmp and under the tmp folder there is patch folder : 10031961

Run the command below marked in red in each subfolder of 10031961, suppose we would firstly rollback 10011970

So let us look at the before and after results from running opatch lsinventory

Before we apply the patch rollback, you could see the patch number exsits in the red box. 

After we apply the rollback it is gone.

So basically when we we login to 10g xmlpserver and access the report, on the uppper right corner there shows up a link: Lind to the report

Four options are exposed for your referrence purposes. Suppose you click on No header option. You would get a link to this report like below:

http://domain_name:port/xmlpserver/report_folder/sample_report.xdo?_xpf=&_xpt=0&_xdo=%2Freport_folder%2Fsample_report.xdo&parameter1=sth&parameter2=sth&_xt=sample_reportTemplate&_xf=html&_xmode=2

Here note that _xmode=2 means you are using the no header option. So you could assume that if _xmode=3 would mean that you are chosing No Parameters option and so on.(See the table below) .

And also _xf refers to the format that how you are going to present the report. There are a few options as well in the following table.By default we are using html if we want to refer to the report through a browser. 

Now you get the link and you paste it into your browser, it would redirect you to the original report without header being showed up.

I tried to do the same thing with BIP 11g, and I figured out that it inheritantly had the same feature to get the link to the report like below.

I then generated the link through the second option: No header. It gave me the link like below:

http://domain_name:port/xmlpserver/report_folder/sample_report.xdo?_xpf=&_xpt=0&_xmode=4&_xdo=%2Freport_folder%2Fsample_report.xdo&_xpf=&_xpt=0&_xdo=%2Freport_folder%2Fsample_report.xdo&_paramsparameter1=sth&_paramsparameter2=sth&_xt=sample_reportTemplate&_xf=html&_xautorun=false

The link above is reformed a little bit from the 10g version and now I will paste it into the browser and see what happens.

It shows up the report.  But the header is still there.

Then I started trying other options except mode 2, for example, No Parameters. I got the following error.

Solutions:

This is a bug for the release Oracle Business Intelligence Product Version 11.1.1.5.0 (Build 110427.0752 64-bit)

    Oracle just released a patch for 11g 11.1.1.5.0 BIP to fix a bunch of bugs including the one we found:

        11850902 – SHARE REPORT LINK “NO PARAMETERS” AND “DOCUMENT ONLY” RENDER INCORRECTLY

     For details check out this link:

         http://prsync.com/oracle/bi-publisher-january-patch-for–402573/

     Download the patch file from:

         https://updates.oracle.com/Orion/Services/download/p13554951_11g_Generic.zip?aru=14460731&patch_file=p13554951_11g_Generic.zip

        Apply it according to the readme.txt included in the package. The bug would be solved! Good luck!

What really interested me is when you try to generate the same report from BI Answers 11g. It gave the link which looked different from the BIP version.

http://domain_name:port/analytics/saw.dll?bipublisherEntry&Action=open&itemType=.xdo&bipPath=%2Freport_folder%2Fsample_report.xdo&bipParams={“_xmode”:”2″,”_xpf”:”",”_xpt”:”0″,”_xdo”:”%2Freport_folder%2Fsample_report.xdo”,”_paramsparameter1″:”",”_paramsparameter2″:”",”_xt”:”sample_reportTemplate”,”_xf”:”html”,”_xautorun”:”true”}

And if you apply this link to the browser, even though you keep changing _xmode from 0 to 4, it didn’t make much difference.Anyone has any idea for this issue?

Blog link: http://bipconsulting.blogspot.com/2011/07/10g-users-lets-upgrade-to-bi-publisher.html

Kan explains the process in detailed steps and I followed his steps to perform the upgrade. The upgrade was successful as he showed in the last picture of publisher reports upgrade section. I have seen my old 10g publisher reports folder showing up. But when I went under my report folders, I tried to open my reports xdo file, it gave me an error below:

The report cannot be rended because of an error,please contact the administrator.

It looked like my report xdo file is not associated with the correct data model file.So then I tried to edit my vat_report report and I saw that after automatic upgrade, my vat_report report was set with the default data model : vat_report.xdm which doesn’t exsit on my data model list. In the presentation layer, the actual data model is called vat_report. Match the correct model by clicking  button.

Click View Report to check if you still have the error above and click save to enable the change.

Good luck!

Note: There are file structure changes for BI Publisher upgrade. The original .xdo now is split into two components – .xdm and .xdo as illustrated:(The following picture is borrowed from my other favorite blog:  http://howtobi.wordpress.com/2011/01/14/upgrading-obiee-10g-content-to-11g/)

After that, I tired to install obiee 11g from the installation wizard again and when it came to the RCU configuration page.I encountered the following error:

INST-08020: One or more entries are found in HSS_COMPONENT table.
– A new schema must be used in order to install successfully.

Reason: When you conducted the simple install, you also had to point to the BIPLATFORM and MDS schemas. These schema tables get populated with the first installation attempt and succeeded. If you want to reinstall the software to enterprise install. You have to drop the BIPLATFORM and MDS Schemas created by the RCU install. Those schemas can only contain one OBI installation at a time unless you changed the prefix (ie: DEV_,QA_,PROD_,etc.) of the schemas if you had the RCU a second time against that same database.

Solutions: If you want to use the same database, then drop the schema firstly using the wizard and then manually delete the corresponding tablespaces. (ie: DEV_BIPLATFORM.dbf, DEV_MDS.dbf,etc)

Appendix: The regular uninstall procedure (Condition: Last install should be successfully completed)

1. Run the deinstall script and select the Deinstall instances managed by a WebLogic domain option.
* open terminal, go to /Oracle_BI1/oui/bin
* run deinstallation script:

$ ./runInstaller.sh -deinstall

1. Welcome
* next
2. Select Deinstallation Type
* select Deinstall ASInstances…
3. Specify Weblogic Domain Detail
* domain host:
* domain port: 7001
* username: weblogic
* password: weblogic1
4. Select Managed Instance
* select instance1, all become checked.
5. Deinstallation Summary
* save deinstallation configuration to: (You could save this information for debugging purpose)
* Deinstall
6. Deinstallation Progress
* no errors
7. Deinstallation Complete
* Success, click finish

* verify success of script by going to the instances folder and making sure it doesn’t contain the instances that were deleted

2. Stop all Oracle Business Intelligence processes and servers, including all OPMN-controlled components and JEE components.
* Go to http://:7001/em then click core application under the business intelligence folder. Stop the components.
* Components already stopped
3. Drop the Metadata Services (MDS) and Business Intelligence Platform (BIPLATFORM) schemas using RCU.
* on my desktop load the rcu: C:\ofm_rcu_win_11.1.1.5.0_disk1_1of1\rcuHome\BIN\rcu.bat
note: make sure all components are stopped otherwise errors will occur. opmnctl stopall
1. Welcome
2. Drop Repository
3. Database Connection Details
* database type: oracle database
* host name:
* port: 1521
* service name:
* username: sys
* password: *******
* role: sysdba
4. Select Components
* select DEV (note: it might be a different name according to your installation)from the drop down menu
* four check marks automatically on:
1. AS Common Schemas
2. Metadata Services
3. Oracle Business Intelligence
4. Business Intelligence Platform
* ok, ok
5. Summary
* drop
6. Completion Summary
* sucess, close
4. Run the deinstall script and select the Deinstall Oracle Home option.

$ cd /Oracle_BI1/oui/bin
$ ./runInstaller.sh -deinstall

1. Welcome
* next
2. Select Deinstallation Type
* select Deinstall Oracle Home…
3. Deinstall Oracle Home
* save response file to:(save to somewhere for further use, it is optional)
* deinstall
4. Deinstallation Progress
* yes, delete directory after deinstall
5. Deinstallation Complete
* finish

5. Deinstall the Oracle Common home manually or by running the deinstall script that it contains.

* If you installed Oracle Business Intelligence using the Simple or Enterprise Install type,
you can fulfill this requirement by specifying the JDK directory that was created by
Oracle Business Intelligence 11g Installer in the Middleware home.

$ cd /oracle_common/oui/bin
$ ./runInstaller.sh -deinstall -jreLoc /usr/java

1. Welcome
2. Deinstall Oracle Home
* save response file: (save to somewhere for further use, it is optional)
* deinstall
3. Deinstallation Progress
* yes to delete the directory after deinstall
4. Deinstallation Complete
* finish

6. Use the Oracle WebLogic Server uninstaller to uninstall WebLogic Server.

$ cd /wlserver_10.3/uninstall
run the shell script : /utils/uninstall/uninstall.sh

7. Remove the Middleware home (if necessary). If you have done enterprise install, then remove the foundation domain home as well.

* Delete all remainding files/directories

8 End of the instruction.

Step 2. Click “Administrative Tools“, and then click “Data Sources (ODBC)” .

Step 3. Click “System DSN” and then click “Add” to add a new one.

Step 4. Choose “Oracle BI Server” as the driver.Note: Once you install the 10g OBIEE package which by default would include the driver installation.Step 5. Fill in the Server name (this one would show up when you use admin tool to remotely connect to the online rpd) and IP address where your remote rpd locates on. Then click “Next“.Step 6. On this page, type the Login ID as your rpd Admin login id. By default it should be “Administrator“. And the Password should be remote rpd login password. I would check the last box marked in red to make a trial connection to the remote rpd and make sure this connection is valid. Then click “Next“.

Step 7. If you could see this page  with the remote subject areas showing up , in this case (Sample 1 and Sample 2 are the two subject areas on my remote rpd). Then this DSN is valid. Then click “Finish“.Step 8. Go to your admin tool and then click the blue folder button for opening online rpd. Then on the pop-up window, it lists all the DSNs available. Choose the one you just created and type the rpd password. Then you could be able to login to your remote rpd.