Catalog Manager does not launch / open in version 11.1.1.7.1 (and 11.1.1.7.0)

Issue:

I was unable to launch catalog manager for 11.1.1.7.0 / 11.1.1.7.1 version of OBIEE. I installed Catalog Manager using client tools installation for 64bit machine.

 

The full path where OBIEE 64bit client tools were installed was:

C:\Program Files\Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Plus Client Tools\

 

The AdminTool works fine but catalog manager does not open. When I launch CatalogManager from programs menu, nothing happens.

I went to the following path using windows explorer:

C:\Program Files\Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition Plus Client Tools\oraclebi\orahome\bifoundation\web\catalogmanager

and manually executed  - runcat.cmd 

And got error

Solution:

Then I edited the  runcat.cmd file and specified the actual path for variable $USER_INSTALL_DIR$. Note since the path has space in it, we have to provide path in quotes. This appears to be known bug for 11.1.1.7.x version of OBIEE.

The above should resolve the issue for most. If you still face issue, the easiest thing to do would be to uninstall the client tools and reinstall it under C:\obiee folder instead of c:\program files OR with any folder which doesn’t have a space in its path.

OBIEE 10g Error from Dashboard layout

We had a requirement where we had hidden two tabs on a dashboard in development. When we requested to migrate dashboard layout to testing environment, we were getting error as below:

Dashboard Display Error
	Assertion failure: pRoot at line 107 of /net/sdchs20n529/vol1/users/anabuild/views/nightly/Tue/101341/RH_Linux/vobs/090414.1900/analytics_web/main/project/webxml/xmldocument.cpp   Error Details (javascript:void(null)) Error Codes: OQ78YWIW

Turns out, we are hitting a OBIEE known bug. When administrator logged in, the error went away, but the dashbaord were not hidden like we had expected. There are two work arounds for this:

1. Hide the tabs manually in Integration/UAT instead of moving the dashboard layout.
2. When moving the layout, try to modify the permissions of dashboard layout object, not sure it will work though.

Catalog Manager Does not open in offline mode

I don't know when exactly the issue was started, but we had recently upgraded our platform from 10.1.3.3.1 to 10.1.3.4.1. We also installed a patch for date format issue that started coming after upgrade. We installed patch p8599681_101341_WINNT.zip for bug# 8599681.

When I was trying to migrate catalog to new version of BI Apps, I had to use Catalog Manager in offline mode and it did not open, online was working although. I checked the log file for errors:

D:\OracleBI\web\catalogmanager\workspace\.metadata\.log

Following error were logged every time I tried to open webcat in offline mode:

!ENTRY org.eclipse.ui 4 0 2009-12-22 15:11:46.694
!MESSAGE no perfapi in java.library.path
!STACK 0
java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: no perfapi in java.library.path
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary(ClassLoader.java:1682)
at java.lang.Runtime.loadLibrary0(Runtime.java:823)
at java.lang.System.loadLibrary(System.java:1030)
at com.siebel.analytics.web.catalogmanager.JNIConnection.init(JNIConnection.java:62)
at com.siebel.analytics.web.catalogmanager.JNIConnection.<init>(JNIConnection.java:22)
at com.siebel.analytics.web.catalogmanager.OfflineConnectionManager.<init>(OfflineConnectionManager.java:17)
at com.siebel.analytics.web.catalogmanager.CatalogmanagerPlugin.setOnline(CatalogmanagerPlugin.java:105)
at com.siebel.analytics.web.catalogmanager.dialogs.OpenCatalogDialog.okPressed(OpenCatalogDialog.java:195)
at org.eclipse.jface.dialogs.Dialog.buttonPressed(Dialog.java:409)
at org.eclipse.jface.dialogs.Dialog$2.widgetSelected(Dialog.java:556)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.TypedListener.handleEvent(TypedListener.java:90)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.EventTable.sendEvent(EventTable.java:66)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendEvent(Widget.java:843)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.runDeferredEvents(Display.java:3080)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.readAndDispatch(Display.java:2713)
at org.eclipse.jface.window.Window.runEventLoop(Window.java:809)
at org.eclipse.jface.window.Window.open(Window.java:787)
at com.siebel.analytics.web.catalogmanager.actions.OpenCatalogAction.doRun(OpenCatalogAction.java:43)
at com.siebel.analytics.web.catalogmanager.actions.CMAction.run(CMAction.java:92)
at org.eclipse.jface.action.Action.runWithEvent(Action.java:996)
at org.eclipse.jface.action.ActionContributionItem.handleWidgetSelection(ActionContributionItem.java:538)
at org.eclipse.jface.action.ActionContributionItem.access$2(ActionContributionItem.java:488)
at org.eclipse.jface.action.ActionContributionItem$5.handleEvent(ActionContributionItem.java:400)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.EventTable.sendEvent(EventTable.java:66)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Widget.sendEvent(Widget.java:843)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.runDeferredEvents(Display.java:3080)
at org.eclipse.swt.widgets.Display.readAndDispatch(Display.java:2713)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.runEventLoop(Workbench.java:1699)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.runUI(Workbench.java:1663)
at org.eclipse.ui.internal.Workbench.createAndRunWorkbench(Workbench.java:367)
at org.eclipse.ui.PlatformUI.createAndRunWorkbench(PlatformUI.java:143)
at com.siebel.analytics.web.catalogmanager.CatalogManager.run(CatalogManager.java:170)
at org.eclipse.core.internal.runtime.PlatformActivator$1.run(PlatformActivator.java:226)
at org.eclipse.core.runtime.adaptor.EclipseStarter.run(EclipseStarter.java:376)
at org.eclipse.core.runtime.adaptor.EclipseStarter.run(EclipseStarter.java:163)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
at org.eclipse.core.launcher.Main.invokeFramework(Main.java:334)
at org.eclipse.core.launcher.Main.basicRun(Main.java:278)
at org.eclipse.core.launcher.Main.run(Main.java:973)
at org.eclipse.core.launcher.Main.main(Main.java:948)


Next, I tried to uninstall the patch for bug fix. To my surprise catalog manager was working. Another example of shabby bug fix by Oracle. This bug fix has two brand new bugs. First messing the catalog manager offline function, and second, dashboard date default by repository variable throws error in underlying reports (session variable work fine).

Upgrade BUG - Default Date in prompt gives error

After upgrading from 10.1.3.3.1 to 10.1.3.4.1 we got a bug in BI where if a report is defaulted to date using any variables in prompt, the report will error out with error:


View Display Error

A date value was expected (received "2009-12-20 00:00:00.000").
Error Details
Error Codes: QABPH2PO

Oracle did acknowledge this as a bug (BUG 8599681 - DATE FORMAT ISSUE ON THE DASHBOARD PROMPT) and we had them create a patch for this, however even the patch had a bug. After patch installation the dashbaord will work if reposiroty variable is used in prompts to default a date prompt. However if we use session variable to default a prompt, the report throws same error.

Cache Purge Bug

If you want to purge cache for specific tables during the day, oracle has a utility SAPURGECACHEBYTABLE. However apparently it does not work with many versions of OBIEE. Refer to the bug:

The Bug 6906535 - SAPURGECACHEBYDATABASE AND SAPURGECACHEBYTABLE NOT WORKING IN 10.1.3.4.0 [ID 956345.1]