16
Oracle Reports

This chapter describes issues with Oracle Reports. It includes the following topics:

• Section 16.1, "General Issues and Workarounds"

• Section 16.2, "Configuration Issues and Workarounds"

• Section 16.3, "Administration Issues and Workarounds"

• Section 16.4, "Documentation Errata"

  Note: Refer to Oracle Reports's documentation page on OTN, (http://otn.oracle.com/documentation/reports.html) to download the latest version of the Reports Builder online help.

16.1 General Issues and Workarounds

This section describes general issues and their workarounds for Oracle Reports.

• Section 16.1.1, "FTP and WebDaV Destinations Not Supported from Reports Builder"

• Section 16.1.2, "Oracle JDeveloper Integration"

• Section 16.1.3, "OracleAS Reports Services Demos Will Not Work if JServ is Configured"

16.1.1 FTP and WebDaV Destinations Not Supported from Reports Builder

Currently there is no support for FTP and WebDaV destinations from the Reports Builder environment. However, they are supported from the Reports Runtime and the Reports Server environments.

16.1.2 Oracle JDeveloper Integration

This section describes issues with Oracle JDeveloper integration. It includes the following topics:

• Section 16.1.2.1, "Deadlock When Debugging JSP Reports in Oracle JDeveloper"

• Section 16.1.2.2, "Graph Not Appearing in Oracle JDeveloper"

• Section 16.1.2.3, "Reports In-process Server"

16.1.2.1 Deadlock When Debugging JSP Reports in Oracle JDeveloper

When debugging an OracleAS Reports Services JSP in Oracle JDeveloper, you must disable any breakpoints that are not of source type. If you do not disable these breakpoints, a deadlock is detected. You can disable breakpoints that are not of source type in the Breakpoints window.

16.1.2.2 Graph Not Appearing in Oracle JDeveloper

When running a JSP report with the rw:graph tag in Oracle JDeveloper, the image is not visible in the browser. To fix this problem, set the IMAGEURL in the rwservlet.properties file in ORACLE_HOME/reports/conf:

IMAGEURL=http://host:port/Workspace-Project-context-root/servlet/

oracle.reports.rwclient.RWClient

16.1.2.3 Reports In-process Server

If the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) is set to ojvm, minimal, or vanilla in Oracle JDeveloper's Virtual Machine settings (Project Settings > Runner > Virtual Machine), the rwservlet's in-process server is not killed when JDeveloper's embedded OC4J server is terminated. As a result, a port conflict occurs the next time OC4J is started. To avoid this problem, do one of the following:

• Set the JVM to Java Virtual Machine to hotspot.

• Disable the in-process server in ORACLE_HOME/reports/conf/rwservlet.properties by setting:

  server_in_process=no
  
  

• Use the standalone Reports Server instead.

16.1.3 OracleAS Reports Services Demos Will Not Work if JServ is Configured

If you configure JServ and OracleAS Reports Services in the same application server instance, you will not be able to run OracleAS Reports Services demos.

16.2 Configuration Issues and Workarounds

This section describes configuration issues and their workarounds for Oracle Reports. It includes the following topics:

• Section 16.2.1, "Implementing Removal of DISPLAY and Printer Dependencies"

• Section 16.2.2, "Repairing Fonts Not Appearing Correctly in Web Source View"

• Section 16.2.3, "Optimizing the Deployment of Reports"

• Section 16.2.4, "Improving Image Resolution of Graphs Output to a PDF File or a Printer"

• Section 16.2.5, "Specifying the Values for Oracle Reports' Java Virtual Machine"

• Section 16.2.6, "Resolving Reports-Portal Integration Error When Attempting OID Create Resource"

• Section 16.2.7, "Running to Web Layout on Reports Builder"

16.2.1 Implementing Removal of DISPLAY and Printer Dependencies

With Oracle Reports 10g (9.0.4), it is no longer necessary to have the DISPLAY environment variable or a valid printer defined at runtime.

The REPORTS_DEFAULT_DISPLAY environment variable specifies whether to implement the following includes introduced with Oracle Reports 10g (9.0.4):

• the elimination of the dependency on the DISPLAY environment variable, which was required in prior releases to define the windowing system display surface for creating images and getting pixel resolution

• the elimination of the dependency on having a valid printer defined for font information (PRINTER and TK_PRINTER environment variables set to a valid printer, or a valid entry in uiprint.txt)

• using screenprinter.ppd for surface resolution for images and font information

• enhanced imaging support

  Note: For existing customers upgrading to Oracle Reports 10g (9.0.4), the default setting of REPORTS_DEFAULT_DISPLAY (YES) may impact the appearance, number of pages, output file size, or performance of existing reports. Even when the DISPLAY environment variable is set, it will not be used unless REPORTS_DEFAULT_DISPLAY is set to NO.

  See Also: Oracle Application Server Reports Services Publishing Reports to the Web and the Reports Builder Online Help for more information on the REPORTS_DEFAULT_DISPLAY environment variable and screenprinter.ppd. Section "Fonts in Report Output" in the chapter "Managing Fonts in Oracle Reports" in Oracle Application Server Reports Services Publishing Reports to the Web.

16.2.2 Repairing Fonts Not Appearing Correctly in Web Source View

Text in the user interface of Reports Builder, such as the window title, uses fonts taken from the system resource files for the current language. These system resource files are supplied with the Oracle Reports installation. In Oracle Reports, you can map these fonts in the [RWBUILDER] section of uifont.ali. If found, the mapped font is used instead of the original font; if not, Oracle Reports uses the original font.

Note: The mapped font needs to be a fixed-width font.

In the Web Source view of the Report Editor, the following languages may appear garbled: Arabic, Central European languages, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Thai, and Turkish. To work around this issue, you can set the font names for Reports Builder in uifont.ali as follows:

[rwbuilder]
.....AR8MSWIN1256="Courier New"
.....CL8MSWIN1251="Courier New"
.....EE8MSWIN1250="Courier New"
.....EL8MSWIN1253="Courier New"
.....IW8MSWIN1255="Courier New"
.....JA16SJIS="MS Gothic"
.....TH8TISASCII="Andale Duospace WT"
.....TR8MSWIN1254="Courier New"

You can download a copy of the Andale Duospace WT (fixed-width) font from Metalink, (http://metalink.oracle.com). The ARU number is 2638552.

16.2.3 Optimizing the Deployment of Reports

Before you deploy a report on a machine that is either slow or is running on a load, you may want to configure the following:

• Ping timeout (OPMN-side): Ping timeout is the measure that OPMN uses to determine the time that it must wait for a callback from an in-process Reports Server (in OC4J_BI_FORMS), before considering it as a timeout.

  The default timeout period is 150.  This period is calculated from: ping timeout, ping interval, and number of retries. The default values for these are:

  ping timeout = 30 seconds

  ping interval = 20 seconds

  number of retries - 3

  Note: The number of retries is applicable only when OPMN successfully connects to OC4J and receives regular ONS notifications from the process.

  Based on these values, there will be three ping attempts with a timeout of 30 seconds each at 20 second intervals. The first ping is done after the specified ping interval. Thus, from the time the OC4J is started by OPMN, approximately 150 (20 + 3*30 + 2*20) seconds will elapse before the process is considered unresponsive and restarted. However, if after OPMN connects to OC4J but OC4J is too slow in sending regular ONS notifications then the 30 second timeout is applicable.

  See Also: Oracle Application Server Reports Services Publishing Reports to the Web for more information on the opmn.xml file.

• Callback timeout (Reports Server-side): Callback timeout is the measure that Reports Server uses to determine the time that it must wait for a response from the engine before timing out. You can specify this value in the Reports Server configuration file, server_name.conf. This time out period is in milliseconds.

  For example:

  <engine id="rwEng" class="oracle.reports.engine.EngineImpl" initEngine="1" 
  maxEngine="1" minEngine="0" engLife="50" maxIdle="30" 
  callbackTimeOut="80000">
  

Note: Increase the timeout when the machine is very slow.

16.2.4 Improving Image Resolution of Graphs Output to a PDF File or a Printer

The REPORTS_GRAPH_IMAGE_DPI environment variable specifies a dots per inch (DPI) value for graphs output to a a PDF file or a printer. The default value for this environment variable is set at 72 DPI to minimize the time taken to generate the report as well as to reduce the report file size.

If you specify a value higher than 72 DPI, you will see an improvement in the image resolution for graphs sent to a PDF file or a printer. However, this affects the time taken to generate the report output as well as the file size.

Note: With the value of 250: The time taken to generate a report with an Oracle Reports graph increases 5 to 6 times when compared to the time taken to generate the same report with the value set to 72dpi. The PDF file size also increases 5 to 6 times.

Valid Values

72 through 300

Default

72

Usage Notes

• On Unix, set the environment variable in reports.sh.

• When you set a DPI value greater than 250 and your chart is bigger than 5"x5" (approximately), you may also need to change the JVM heap size value via REPORTS_JVM_OPTIONS to avoid the Out Of Memory error for the JVM.

  See Also: Oracle Application Server Reports Services Publishing Reports to the Web for more information on setting the JVM options.

• This variable is currently not supported in Oracle Reports distribution functionality as this is specific to PDF and printer outputs only.

16.2.5 Specifying the Values for Oracle Reports' Java Virtual Machine

You may want to set the JVM options explicitly to get certain, specific behaviors from the JVM that aren't enabled, by default. To do so, use the command line keyword JVMOPTIONS to set options for either Reports Runtime, Reports Builder, or Reports Converter's Java Virtual Machine (JVM).

For example, you could use the following command line to start Reports Builder with a 512Mb heap space:

rwbuilder jvmoptions=-Xmx512M

Multiple options can be passed, in which case the options must be enclosed in quotes:

rwbuilder jvmoptions="-Xmx256M -Xms=128M"

Syntax

JVMOPTIONS={options in reports runtime, reports builder, reports 
converter JVM}

Default

-Xmx256M

Note: The value set using the jvmoptions keyword will override the value in the REPORTS_JVM_OPTIONS environment variable, if set.

16.2.6 Resolving Reports-Portal Integration Error When Attempting OID Create Resource

In OracleAS Portal, when configuring Oracle Reports Security settings for Reports Definition File Access, you may encounter an error when editing a reports definition file, when you click Run or Run as Portlet.

500 Internal Server Error 
Unexpected Error. Please contact Administrator

This error occurs when all of the following conditions are true:

• Running in an Interop deployment (which allows for a mixed 9.0.2/9.0.4 environment), with 9.0.4 MT (mid-tier), 9.0.4 IM (Identity Management), and 9.0.2 MR (metadata repository) configured to run together.

• Running Oracle Reports within OracleAS Portal, using the SSOCONN parameter.

• The connection resource specified in the SSOCONN parameter has not been created in the Oracle Internet Directory server.

To implement the workaround, perform the following steps:

1. In the 9.0.4 IM ORACLE_HOME, open the following file in a text editor:

   ORACLE_HOME/Apache/Apache/conf/mod_osso.conf 
   
   

2. Add the following flag:

   OssoRedirectByForm on
   
   

   For example:

   <IfModule mod_osso.c> 
   
   OssoIpCheck off 
   
   OssoIdleTimeout off 
   
   OssoConfigFile 
   
   /private1/iasinst/install_set1/904infra/Apache/Apache/conf/osso/osso.conf 
   
   OssoRedirectByForm on 
   
   </IfModule>
   

16.2.7 Running to Web Layout on Reports Builder

It is possible to preview a report from Reports Builder by using the Run to Web Layout functionality. You do not need to have the Reports Server configured in order to use this functionality as Reports Builder includes an embedded OC4J (Oracle Application Server Containers for J2EE) server.

After upgrading to Oracle Reports 10g (9.0.4) from 9.0.2, you must ensure that the location in the environment variables CLASSPATH or REPORTS_CLASSPATH, refer only to the oc4j.jar file in the 10g (9.0.4) ORACLE_HOME and not to the 9.0.2 ORACLE_HOME. You must remove the oc4j.jar file path to the 9.0.2 ORACLE_HOME, if it exists in either REPORTS_CLASSPATH or CLASSPATH.

Note: Including the 9.0.2. oc4j.jar file path in either CLASSPATH or REPORTS_CLASSPATH will cause Run to Web Layout functionality to fail with the following error: The major.minor version '48.0' is too recent for this tool to understand

16.3 Administration Issues and Workarounds

This section describes administration issues and their workarounds for Oracle Reports.

• Section 16.3.1, "Authenticating EM Access to Reports Server information"

• Section 16.3.2, "Running Reports on OracleAS Portal as an Item Link"

16.3.1 Authenticating EM Access to Reports Server information

The identifier element in server_name.conf contains a new value, SERVERACCESSKEY. This value is used to ensure that the Reports Server information in Enterprise Manager is secure.

The following authentication is implemented:

• The value of the identifier element in the server_name.conf file is encrypted and is of the form %SERVERACCESSKEY_USER%/%SERVERACCESSKEY_PASSWORD%. For example:

  <identifier confidential="yes" encrypted="no">
  
  %SERVERACCESSKEY_USER%/%SERVERACCESSKEY_PASSWORD%</identifier>
  

• The corresponding entries in the targets.xml file are:

  <Property NAME="UserName" VALUE="%SERVERACCESSKEY_USER%" ENCRYPTED="FALSE"/>
  <Property NAME="Password" VALUE="%SERVERACCESSKEY_PASSWORD%" 
  ENCRYPTED="FALSE"/>
  

The default installation ensures that the install time values of %SERVERACCESSKEY_USER% and %SERVERACCESSKEY_PASSWORD% match those in targets.xml.

Note: %SERVERACCESSKEY_USER% and %SERVERACCESSKEY_PASSWORD% in server_name.conf and targets.xml must match for the Reports Server pages in EM to display data correctly.

To change the user name and password:

1. Edit the ORACLE_HOME/reports/conf/server_name.conf file, as follows:

   <identifier confidential="yes" encrypted="no">new_username/new_password</identifier>

2. Edit the ORACLE_HOME/sysman/emd/targets.xml file, as follows:

   <Property NAME="UserName" VALUE="new_username" ENCRYPTED="FALSE"/>
   <Property NAME="Password" VALUE="new_password" ENCRYPTED="FALSE"/>
   
   

3. Restart EM and Reports Server. The user name and password in server_name.conf and targets.xml will be encrypted after the restart.

   Note: Beginning with Oracle Reports 10g (9.0.4), Enterprise Manager (EM) will not use OID authentication to access Reports Server information. It will use the SERVERACCESSKEY value to implement the authentication.

16.3.2 Running Reports on OracleAS Portal as an Item Link

When you install OracleAS Portal with a non-default language setting, some entries required to publish a report as an item link on a portal page are not installed automatically. You must install the language of your choice by using the rwlang.sql script.

Thus, you must run the script rwlang.sql (ORACLE_HOME/portal/admin/plsql/wwd/) if:

• You have selected at least one language in addition to the default ("US") at the time of installing OracleAS Portal.

  AND

• You want to publish a report as an item link in OracleAS Portal.

  Note: This is a one time post-installation task and will ensure that you can publish a report as an item link on OracleAS Portal.

To run the script:

1. Change the directory to ORACLE_HOME/portal/admin/plsql/wwd/.

2. Run sqlplus.

3. Log on to OracleAS Portal using the portal schema.

   Note: This is the portal schema used to install OracleAS Portal PL/ SQL packages.

4. Run the rwlang.sql script with the following parameters:

   @rwlang.sql language_list
   
   

   where

   language_list is the list of languages separated by commas.

   For example, to install French and Japanese:

   @rwlang.sql f,ja
   

Usage Notes

• There should be no space before or after the comma (,) because sqlplus treats the language list as two parameters, instead of one parameter separated by a comma (,).

• The header of the rwlang.sql script contains the complete list of all language abbreviations. Edit the script file using any text editor to find out the various abbreviations.

16.4 Documentation Errata

This section describes known errors in the documentation.

• Chapter 8, sections 8.1.2 through 8.2, of the Oracle Application Server Reports Services Publishing Reports to the Web manual specifies the reports.sh file as containing the REPORTS_CLASSPATH variable on Solaris. The REPORTS_CLASSPATH variable is located in the reports.sh file for all UNIX platforms.

• Chapter 19, "Managing and Monitoring OracleAS Reports Services", of the Oracle Application Server Reports Services Publishing Reports to the Web manual may show screenshots that do not reflect the latest updates to the Oracle Enterprise Manager user interface.

• Due to improvements on OTN, the URL that directly accesses the Oracle Reports Documentation page is incorrect in the documentation. Instead of http://otn.oracle.com/docs/products/reports/content.html, the revised URL is http://otn.oracle.com/documentation/reports.html.