The Oracle: April 2008

Friday, April 25, 2008

My first post from chemistry notes

Dear Oracle technical addicts,

Well the first post seems to be difficult, any way I decided to start a new oracle apps 11i technical blog to share real cases and technical problems.

I hope it will be helpful to you all its something I want to try and I hope I will succeed on it.

Please if you have any comments on the blogs let me know, i need your comments to able to continue posting later on so please add your comments, qustions or your technical problems and i will try to help you solve them.

Fadi

Stone Soup (Steven Chan) from chemistry notes

After reading Steven's last post on his blog Stone Soup I took a decision to start posting on my blog even if at least once a week. My next post will be on (upgrading oracle discoverer from 4i to 10g on apps) so keep monitoring this blog because I am going to need your encouragement and your comments.

Thank you steven and thanks to all other bloggers and readers
fadi hasweh

Upgrading discoverer 4i to 10g on Apps 11.5.10 from chemistry notes

Upgrading discoverer 4i to 10g on Apps 11.5.10.1

As you all know oracle has de-supported oracle discoverer 4i on apps 11i, therefore all DBA's will have at some point to upgrade their discoverer from 4i to 10g. Below are the steps I used to do that.
Kindly note that you have to refer to note 313418.1 in order to do that upgrade and not to my posts, my post will just give you a direct hint on what to do.

Steps are as follow based on note 313418.1:
-Install Oracle Business Intelligence Server 10g Release 2 (10.1.2.0.2). This installation type does not require installation and association to Oracle Application Server 10g Release 2 (10.1.2.0.2) Infrastructure. (You can choose this option if you are not planning to use features Discoverer Connection Management, Discoverer Portlet Provider, and Oracle SSO).

- Create secure directory under $Disco_ORACLE_HOME/discoverer
cd /u07/discoverer_home/discoverer
(mkdir secure)

-cp the $FND_SECURE/.dbc , $FND_SECURE/_.dbc TO your $Disco_ORACLE_HOME/discoverer/secure directory.

-Update tnsnames.ora file in $Disco_ORACLE_HOME to include connect to your Oracle E-Business database Use the same entry as exists in the tnsnames.ora file on your Oracle E-Business application tier server node.

-Migrate your existing Discoverer End User Layers to Discoverer 10.1.2.
$Disco_ORACLE_HOME/bin/eulapi -CONNECT /@ -AUTO_UPGRADE

-Set Applications Profile Options for Discoverer using AutoConfig
-open your xml file and specify variables as listed in the table below:
s_disco_standalone=true
s_disco_machine=for example: ap6162rt.us.oracle.com
s_disco_port=for example: 7778
s_disco_protocol=http https
s_disco_ver_comma=10,1,2
s_disco_eul_prefix=EUL

After that you have to run autoconfig

-Verify Applications profile options in Oracle Applications
Log into Release 11i with the System Administrator responsibility
Navigate to the Profile > System form
Query the %Discoverer% profile options.
Verify the following ICX profile options in Oracle Applications

ICX_DISCOVERER_LAUNCHER=http://:/discoverer/plus?Connect=[APPS_SECURE]
ICX_DISCOVERER_VIEWER_LAUNCHER=http://:/discoverer/viewer?Connect=[APPS_SECURE]
ICX_DISCOVERER_RELEASE=10
ICX_DISCOVERER_USE_VIEWR=Y N
ICX_DEFAULT_EUL=EUL
ICX_DISCOVERER_EUL_LANGUAGE=US
ICX_DISCOVERER_PARAMETERS=exitURL=http://:/OA_HTML/OA.jsp?OAFunc=OAHOMEPAGE

Note:
When you open the discoverer EUL using the Discoverer 10g Desktop/Admin it will ask you if you want to upgrade your EUL and you have to choose yes.

To start/stop the new discoverer do the following:
$Disco_ORACLE_HOME/opmn/bin/opmnctl stopall (to stop).
$Disco_ORACLE_HOME/opmn/bin/opmnctl startall (to start).

If you have any question please leave at comments part

Making TARs helpful from chemistry notes

How to log a professional SR?

As an Apps DBA sometimes we might need to open an SR (I hope no one will ever need to but in case you need, I know its not a good feeling when we open a Tar especially if it’s a SV1 tar) to solve a problem or to ask oracle a question to ask for an enhancement. It will be easier for us and them (Oracle Support) to send them a clear/direct info. On what we need and what we have.

Try always to keep a template of your current environment and when you open a tar just copy/paste it on the TAR.
Below is an example of what I have:

Subject
Oracle Apps 11i - Installation hanging Problem

Problem
On the Database tier installation at Step 5 of 7 (97%), when 'Converting database character set', the installation hanged. All pre-requests patches have been applied. I have also checked OS patches and every thing is applied and the server is ready for the installation.

Product
Oracle E-Business Suite 11i Release (11.5.10.2)

Platform
Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 3.0

Installation Type
Multi-node Installation

Installation Structure
[Database Server-Database]
Directory: /oracle/proddb
Instance Name: ebprod
Port: 1521

[Database Server-Application]
Directory: /oracle/prodapp
Product installed: Concurrent Node, Admin Node

[Application Server-Application]
Directory: /oracle/prodapp
Product installed: Apache Node, Forms Node

Server Spec
CPU: Intel Xeon 700MHz x 4
RAM: 2Gb
HD: SCSI 36.4 Gb x 5 (Raid 5)
Swap: 2Gb

Last Message On InstallAction Log
OracleHome = /oracle/proddb

Query Returned: 03e48df5d45face1cf9265b70d70512baa33bc8d601a13d079
Calling Action generalActions2.3.0.8.0 setenv
selectedNodes = null
name = CALMGRVALUE
value = *Protected value, not to be logged*
append = null
replace = true
Calling Query calQueries9.0.4.0.8 Obfuscate
inputString = *Protected value, not to be logged*

Of course if the problem is not in the installation try to add the following:

Has the problem always occurred? or has it recently happened ?
If recent, then what has changed? Have you applied a patch, or what changed were made recently?

All this information well be helpful for oracle support to solve your problem and it will save you time because they will try to ask you questions ( try to answer them before you open the tar).
- try to be specific as much as you can.
-Avoid as much as you can opening Severity 1 TARs.

The above was an example so please; don’t consider it a real case.

I hope that was helpful and waiting for your comments

Who is connected to my apps? from chemistry notes

Who is connected to my apps?

Sometimes the apps dba needs to know who is connecting to apps right now and what responsibly are they using, user id, client ip address and other info.

We can get that up and running in simple steps.

-set the profile option (Sign-On:Audit Level) value to form. By default it is set to none.

-run the concurrent program (OAM Applications Dashboard Collection) this concurrent will fill some tables like fnd_oam_forms_rti with important data like IP address of the client, time, …etc.

-go to Oracle applications manager (OAM) and from the drop down menu choose (forms sessions) this will give you users that are connected to your apps with their responsibilities, user id, time, and which from are they using and a lot of other info.

-To get the ip address of those users you have to click on the (rti pid) filed. This will give you other screen with the information needed.

p.s kindly note that some OS like hp-ux have bug and it will show the ip address like rubbish and it need a patch to be applied in order to get the correct ip address displied.

fadi hasweh
Oracle is not Magic, it just takes years of experience

Messed up with AutoConfig !!! from chemistry notes

Autoconfig messed up what to do?

after you changed your current xml file (context file) of courser without taking backup and then after you had run adautocfg.sh you find out that you messed every thing up, and you need to go back to the previous status but you don’t have backup of your xml file so what can you do?.

-Fist of all before editing the xml file always take backup.
-If you want to do changes on your xml file try to do it using OAM (Oracle applications manger) Site Map->System Configuration ->Autoconfig. OAM backup your xml by default. And it also allows you to see the history of your xml files and what compare between current xml and the one in history.
-Incase you don’t have backup and you messed every thing up you can do the following.

When you run adautocfg.sh it takes backup under the following directory
-$ORACLE_HOME/appsutil/log/$CONTEXT_NAME/out/MMDDhhmm for the database tire.
-$APPL_TOP/admin/$CONTEXT_NAME/out/MMDDhhmm for the applications tire.
* Where MM is the month, DD is the day, hh is the hour, and mm is the minute when adconfig.sh was executed.

All what you have to do is to go to this directories and run a script called restore.sh

Nice thing you can do before you run adautocfg.sh is to run adchkcfg.sh script. This script
generates an HTML file named cfgcheck.html that displays the differences
in the configurations. The file will be located under
-$ORACLE_HOME/appsutil/log/$CONTEXT_NAME/out/MMDDhhmm on the database tire.
-$APPL_TOP/admin/$CONTEXT_NAME/out/MMDDhhmm on the application tire.

Please leave a comment if this post was helpful or not and thank you for taking time to read my posts

And always keep in mind
Oracle is not Magic, it just takes years of experience ;-)

Not able to login to APPS after upgrading to ATG RUP 4 from chemistry notes

Not able to login to APPS after upgrading to ATG RUP 4 (patch 4676589)

After applying patch 4676589 to upgrade to ATG RUP 4 users were no longer able to login to APPS and the following error occurred

Java.lang.NullPointerException
at oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.OADialogManager.getDialogMessages(OADialogManager.java:187)
at
oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.OAPageSecurity.displayPageSecurityError(OAPageSecurity.java:1223)
at oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.OAPageSecurity.validatePageSecurity(OAPageSecurity.java:938)
at oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.OAPageBean.processRequest(OAPageBean.java:2132)
at oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.OAPageBean.preparePage(OAPageBean.java:1717)
at oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.OAPageBean.preparePage(OAPageBean.java:502)
at oracle.apps.fnd.framework.webui.OAPageBean.preparePage(OAPageBean.java:423)
at _oa__html._OA._jspService(_OA.java:86)

The cause of the problem that the ATG RUP4 had an incorrect class loader value in the file b3664848.ldt. based on (note 387061.1).

The solution is to do the following:
- Stop the Apps tire (adstpall.sh).
- Run the following command (on one line)
FNDLOAD apps/$appspass 0 Y UPLOAD $JTF_TOP/patch/115/import/jtfprefabcache.lct $FND_TOP/patch/115/import/US/b3664848.ldt CUSTOM_MODE=FORCE
- Start the Apps tire (adstrtal.sh).
- If the problem persisted bounce Apache and clear Apache cache

i hope no one will face any error in thire produciton env ;-)

and finaly
Oracle might be a magic when it comes to applying a big patch ;-)

Apps DBAs Sharing! from chemistry notes

Dear all,

I would like to share with the you a few chapters of a book I like a lot; most of you know the book (Oracle Applications DBA Field Guide), I came a cross this copy on the net on the http://www.apress.com/ site so I wanted it to share it with you all.
I am sure you will all benefit from the book.
Click to Download Book

The original copy is available on après in the following link
-Apress
-Amazon

I hope any one have good link or document and can share it with us to post it on the comments part.

Fadi

Things I faced during installing apps (11.5.10.2) on IBM AIX 5.3 from chemistry notes

Direct to the point, the issues are
Installation Type was TEST on a Single Node with multi-users.

1- On the check system utilities the error was 'cc' not found.
The Solution was to create a symbolic link from gcc to cc
ln –s /usr/bin/gcc /usr/bin/cc
2- On the system utilities the following error
VisualAge C++ V6.0 or IBM XL C/C++ Enterprise Edition V7.0 compiler must be installed.
The Solution was based on note (282036.1) is to install the compiler, with no license requirement from:
http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24009788

3- RW-50010: Error: - script has returned an error: 1
RW-50004: Error code received when running external process
And on the make.log the following error
(ld: 0706-006 Cannot find or open library file: -l m)
The solution was to install the following packages on the OS
-bos.adt.libm and bos.adt.base

4- RW-20001: Error. Unzip failed insufficient disk space
The Solution was based on note (340403.1) is to Set the soft limit for fsize to unlimited, as shown below:fsize = -1

Fadi Hsweh

Things I faced during implementing apps (11.5.10.2) on IBM AI from chemistry notesX 5.3 from chemistry notes

Things I faced during implementing apps (11.5.10.2) on IBM AIX 5.3

Direct to the point, the issue is

1- After the installation and the post installation tasks went successfully I tried to create a user from sysadmin responsibility and I faced the following error when trying to display responsibilities to that user.

ORA-01403: no data foundFRM-40502: ORACLE error: unable to read list of values.
FRM-40815: Variable GLOBAL.LLL(xx) does not exist.
This problem seems to affect several different LOVs.

According to metalink note 338469.1 the problem is related to IBM OS security patches (APAR IY68989 and APAR IY73497) and there are 2 solutions for this problem

1- Revert the patches (APAR IY68989 and APAR IY73497 ) applied in the system.
2- Permanent Solution is to apply oracle patch no. (4689213).

Fadi Hasweh

Incase you ever need it from chemistry notes

How to apply patch when adpatch is currently running?

Some times you might apply a patch and the during the process the patch failed at some workers, you search on metalink and find out that you need to apply patch in order to solve this failure, here in this case you have tow options either to cancel the current patch and apply the fixing patch then reapply the patch again or you can do the following (apply the fixing patch without the need to reapply the first patch and its very helpful when you applying a huge patch).
This is based on note (175485.1)

Steps to do that are:

1. Using the adctrl utility, shutdown the workers.
2. Backup the FND_INSTALL_PROCESSES table.
3. Backup the AD_DEFERRED_JOBS table.
4. Backup the .rf9 files located in $APPL_TOP/admin//restart directory.
5. Drop the FND_INSTALL_PROCESSES table and the AD_DEFERRED_JOBS tables.
6. Apply the new patch.
7. Restore the backed up .rf9 files.
8. Restore the FND_INSTALL_PROCESSES table.
9. Restore the AD_DEFERRED_JOBS table.
10. Re-create synonyms for APPLSYS.AD_DEFERRED_JOBS and APPLSYS.FND_INSTALL_PROCESSES.
11. Start adpatch, it will resume where it stopped previously.

and as you all know Oracle is not Magic, it just takes years of experience ;-)

My Daily Check list from chemistry notes

My daily Check list

Every day at the morning i do tow things
- Oracle applications and database check list.
- Oracle applications community check list.
In the first check list (apps and db) check list I check for the following

Check Apache server is up
Check Discoverer processes
Check Concurrent manager is up
Check forms is up
Clear tmp logs
Check disk space
Check memory usage
Look for new entries on alert log file
Verify success of database backup
Verify archive logs
Verify that all instances are up

In the second check list (apps community) check list I check the following websites and email lists

Oracle Apps Forums
Steven Chan an Oracle insider
Atul Become an Apps DBA
Sam Apps DBA Blog
Anil Apps Techno Functional Blog

I also keep monitoring the oracle-apps-l@Groups.ITtoolbox.com, oracle-db-l@Groups.ITtoolbox.com email lists.

If someone can add more resources please leave your comments

Oracle is not Magic, it just takes years of experience and doing my check lists ;-)

Apps 11i Keys shortcut from chemistry notes

below are 11i keys quick shortcut it will help to save time

F4 Exit

F5 Clear Field

F6 Clear Record

F7 Clear Block

F8 Clear Form

F11 Query Enter

F12 Count Query

Ctrl + S Save

Ctrl + L List of Values

Ctrl + F11 Query Run

Ctrl + E Edit

Ctrl + Up Delete Record

Ctrl + Down Insert Record

Ctrl + P Print
Ctrl + U Update Record
Ctrl + B Block Menu

Ctrl + K Display list of Keys

Shift + F5 Duplicate Field

Shift + F6 Duplicate Record

Shift + F8 Next Set of Records (Same as Page Down)
Shift + Page Down Next Block
Shift + Tab Previous Field

Shift + Page Up Previous Block

Shift + Ctrl + E Display Error

Page Down Scroll Down (Same as Shift + F8)

Page Up Scroll Up

Tab Next Field
Down Arrow Next Record
Up Arrow Previous Record

Return Return

Harder Passwords from chemistry notes

On apps there are a lot of profile options that are useful in making apps passwords difficult to guess, the profiles are

1-Signon password failure limit
2-Signon Password Length
3-Signon Password No Reuse
4-Signon Password Hard to Guess

For the first one it means how many time can I try to access the system using wrong password by default apps leave the open you can try wrong passwords as much as you like but the recommendation it to change this value to 3.

The second one is how much is your password length by default it is set to 5 it is recommended to make it 6 or 7.

The 3ed profile is for how long I cannot use the same password on day I have this value at my environment set to 90 days I cannot use the same password unless at least 90 days pass by default this value is set to none.

For the 4th profile option by default it is set to no making it yes will give you the following benefits 1) The password contains at least one letter and at least one number.2) The password does not contain the username.3) The password does not contain repeating characters. (By repeating characters, we mean *consecutively* repeating characters).

Of course when you creating a user at your system using sysadmin->security->users there is an option that the user must change its password every n days I have this set to 30 days so my users have to change their passwords every 30 days

Thank you all for reading and please leave your comments

Fadi

Are you looking for apps 11i book check this out from chemistry notes

I think this is the second book after the (Oracle Applications DBA Field Guide) that discuses in details about oracle applications 11i (11.5.10+). It is a new book and from the index, I can tell that it seems to be a very good book, which I will try to buy. The book is OnCallDBA and Solution Beacon's latest collaboration and it was written by (Barbara Matthews , John Stouffer , Karen Brownfield , Randy Giefer , James Morrow , Bruno Coon , Faun deHenry , Jeff Holt , Tim Sharpe).

The topics discussed in this book are
-Release 11i Concepts and Architecture.
-Installing Release 11i.
-Upgrading or Migrating to Release 11i.
-Maintaining Release 11i.
-Administering Release 11i.
-Securing Release 11i.
-Setting Up and Using the Concurrent Manager.
-Release 11i Reporting.
-Tuning and Troubleshooting.
-Oracle 10g.

The book details as follow
Printed: 559 pages, 8.50" x 11.00", perfect binding, black and white interior ink
Publisher: Barbara Matthews
Copyright: © 2007 Standard Copyright License
Language: English
Country: United States

Finally, the price is $ 69.99 I hope if any one who had the book can share what he thinks about it.

For more information, please visit http://www.lulu.com/content/581940

Monitor your apps performance from chemistry notes

I came across note 244040.1 the note name is (Recommended Performance Patches for Oracle E-Business Suite) this note states the following (This document contains a list of performance patches that E-Business Suite development recommends customers to apply)and have the following fields

Product: FORMS
Bug#: 2283443
Description: Menu toolbar icons not picked up from cached jar file.
Affected Versions: Regression in Forms Patchset 8 (Forms ver. 6.0.8.17).
Fix/Workaround: Fixed in Forms Patchset 10 ( Forms ver. 6.0.8.19.1) and higher.
Symptoms/Comments: Access log file of the web listener will show icon gif files being downloaded from the media directory for each Forms application startup.

I think apps dbas should monitor this note once in while so they can stay updated incase any patch related to apps performance needs to be applied.

Do you need info. about R12 from chemistry notes

As the day of lunching Oracle Apps R12 is getting closer I came across this document on metalink (404152.1) (Release Content Documents for E-Business Suite R12)

This document contains links to the published Release Content Documents for Oracle Applications, E-Business Suite Release 12. The RCD or Release Content Documentation communicates information about new or changed functionality in the specified release of the Oracle E-Business Suite. Existing functionality from prior point releases is not described. Use this document as a launchpad for R12 RCDs.

It includes info about all the Product Families on Oracle Application R12 so check it out.

Do you want to remap your keyboard keys with oracle apps? from chemistry notes

Sorry for the not posting lately but I am busy with a project anyway my development team asked me to disable ctlr+s for saving they don’t want the end user to you use it to save, he must click the save button, they want to make sure that he want to save and its not just an habit.

So all what I have to do is the following:
-Make a backup copy of $ORACLE_HOME/forms60/admin/resource/US/fmrweb.res
-edit the fmrweb.res file.
-search for the ctrl+s line and I deleted/commented it.
-an example below on what else you can do
Before Change
-------------
118 : 0 : "F7" : 69 : "Clear Block"
119 : 0 : "F8" : 74 : "Clear Form"
122 : 0 : "F11" : 76 : "Enter Query"
122 : 2 : "Ctrl+F11" : 77 : "Execute Query"

Modified
--------
118 : 0 : "F11" : 76 : "Clear Block"
119 : 0 : "Ctrl+F11" : 77 : "Clear Form"
122 : 0 : "F7" : 69 : "Enter Query"
122 : 2 : "F8" : 74 : "Execute Query"

The above changes will enable users to use F7 and F8 to 'Enter Query' and 'Execute Query' instead of default settings of F11 and Ctrl+F11.

For more info go to metalink and search for fmrweb.res you will find a lot of related info.
have a magicla day
fadi

Ready for Apps R12 go and download it now from chemistry notes

Congratulations apps dbas and functional people oracle e-business R12 is now available for download at http://edelivery.oracle.com/ the version available is for AIX, hp-ux itanium and Linux x86 the rest of other os will be available soon,
My friend ghassan is downloading the Linux version and after that he will download the hp-ux version for me (he has 2M ADSL connection). i will post incase i face problems during the installation (i will for sure face some:-)

Anyway people you need for the vision version around 160 GB.
(Metalink Note 394692.1) and at Check the documentation library at Oracle Applications Documentation Resources for Release 12oracle website

Enjoy
Fadi

Friday, April 18, 2008

1Z1-233 Beta Exam 11i Install Patch and Maintain Oracle Applications Ed 5.1

Two days ago I applied the 11i Install Patch and Maintain Oracle Applications Ed 5.1 beta exam, the exam had 153 questions within 3 hours time, some of the questions was an easy going and a little of them were mid/difficult but in general it was an easy going exam, I think I will pass, I will know the results after 10 weeks and I will update you, the exam cover every thing from rapiwiz, cloning, adadmin, admerg, logs, autoconfig, xml file, CM …etc every thing really. But I liked the exam I will prepare for the sysadmin production exam soon.

i think all apps dba should apply it when they have some time (when they are not appling patchs;-)

Have fun with oracle exams
Fadi

Journey of a Thousand Miles

was reading Steven's article Journey of a Thousand Miles, I liked the article and I am quoting from it the following:-

"In the blogosphere, it's not uncommon to see blogs die after a few postings. That's unsurprising. Writing meaningless blather is easy, but writing well is hard. No one's going to expend valuable time in blogging without feedback, and I'm no exception. So, your comments will be vital in keeping this blog fresh and alive. I look forward to hearing from you."

And I would like to tell you the same; I look forward to hear form you, so please leave your comments.

Finally, Oracle is not Magic, it just takes years of experience ;-)
Fadi

Cloning after Appling Patch 4676589 ATG_PF.RUP 4

If you applied the ATG_PF.RUP 4 patch you will face the following error when running the perl command
perl adpreclone.pl dbTier or appsTier

ERROR
Global symbol "$resultclone" requires explicit package name at adpreclone.pl
line 525.
syntax error at adpreclone.pl line 527, near "$resultclone !"
syntax error at adpreclone.pl line 530, near "}"
Execution of adpreclone.pl aborted due to compilation errors

There are 2 solutions to this error:
-applying one of the patches (5132155,5225940,5235401).
Or
- You can make the following changes in the file adpreclone.pl 115.49, replace the following and retest the issue.
Replace:

$resultclone = system "$syscmd";
# added for bug #4448838
if($resultclone ! = 0 )

With:

my $resultclone = system "$syscmd";
# added for bug #4448838
if($resultclone != 0 )

enjoy cloning
fadi

Apps 11i with Windows vista

(just an update, As a workaround for IE on Vista issue, Apps 11.5.10 works fine on Vista with firefox)
Our network department has a plan to go with windows vista and they asked me to open a TAR with oracle to get their official response.
Below is oracle response

QUESTION
=========
Summarize customer's question here. One question per heading.
Unable to connect from MS-Vista Client on e-Business suite 11.5.10
RESEARCH
=========
Steven's Blog
ANSWER
=======
Currently Jinitiator is not certified on MS-VistaDevelepemt is working on it but we don't have any ETA for it So, please don't upgrade to MS-Vista Sorry for that
KNOWLEDGE CONTENT
=================
Platform / Port Specific? = Not certified for the moment

Upgrade journey to R12

Well at the beginning I though it will be a difficult task but when you get in to it, you will find out that it's kind of clear task so far ;-)

My plan was to clone my production system to a new server just for the upgrade purpose so I had to do a cloning from multi-node to single node based on note 233428.1 and of course with a great help from sam's post (Multi Node to Single Node Cloning) thank you sam.

After that I started the upgrade journey to R12 I just finished the Database upgrade path acutely I am running the utlrp.sql script while I am writing this post, every thing is clear so far.
I will keep you posted in case of any issue and incase I reach the R12 successfully or not (I hope I will).

I need to major the time needed to do the upgrade and to know if there any issues, my next step will be the upgrade to R12 on my Test servers.

Fadi

R12 Vision is available now online

I received the following from solution beacon

"Solution beacon has installed R12 Vision instance which is now available on their website.
Check it out at http://www.solutionbeacon.com/tools_vision.htm

Please note that there are some steps to install the desktop plug-in differently from Release 11i. Please also note that Release 12 requires a user to enable ActiveX and download the Sun JRE instead of the JInitiator the first time the Applications are accessed."

Thank you Solution Beacon Team

Fadi

What a mess

Today when the purchasing consultant tried to enter employees through the Purchasing Setup the following error occurs
ERROR
Error message is APP-PAY-06041, you cannot enter person form because HR is fully installed.

I felt like reinstallation is coming on the way, as far as I know you cannot do unlicensed a registered products (please leave comment if you know a way to do that).
Any way after searching on metalink I found note 360552.1 and the note says that to solve this issue I have to 2 options
-we should use Human resource to enter employee not purchasing.
Or (this is the first time I like or ;-)
- using sql

update FND_PRODUCT_INSTALLATIONSset STATUS ='S' where application_id= 800;

commit;

Now every is working fine enjoy consultants
fadi

Testing Restore

I have been busy all the last week with testing our backup/restore software if its really working, we are using hp data protector and it is really a great product for backup and recovery, we were able to restore (applications and Database around 350GB) successfully, we also restored our other 4 production databases (each one around 300 GB) successfully, also our network guys were able to restore our email/file system servers successfully. The only issue we faced was the time, it needs a lot of time to restore for ex. to restore the apps and db (350GB) it took around 6-8 hours, so the management decided that we should have a disaster recovery site (just incase we needed it) and that will be our next project.

Fadi

Virtual Consulting

It's all about sharing
I received the following email and I thought that it worth sharing
"
ERPstuff Virtual Consulting
All the members of ERPstuff are just like a family and good friends. I was thinking that there should be more challenging tasks in addition to routine tasks of members and those students who are struggling for jobs but due to no experience are getting any chance. So I have developed a business plan in which all the member can work as employee with many benefits like share in the individual project profit on the basis of his/her participation. At any time the member can get an experience letter of projects he/she completed which will help him is finding attractive job.
ERPstuff Virtual Consulting Services
Oracle E-Business Suite
Implementation
- Troubleshooting (Support)
- Training
- Database Administration
- System Administration
- Quality Assurance
- Customization (Forms & Reports)

Development
- Software Development & Customization
- Data Warehousing
- Industrial Automation
- Web Development
- Embedded Device Application
- Microcontroller Programming

Others – In-house Developments
- ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning
- Hotel Management System
- Point-of-Sale
- Embedded Device Applications
- Time Attendance and Management
- Networking Solutions
- Graphic Designing

Please send the following detail at business@erpstuff.com for mentioned positions,No need to send detailed cv right now just send the following detail in the email.
- Name
- Position
- City & Country
- Mailing Address
- Contact Numbers
- Education
- Experience (years if any)

Positions
- Marketing Executives
- Analysts
- Functional Consultants
- Technical Consultants
- Quality Control Consultants
- Software Developers
- Hardware Engineers

Your suggestions will be appreciated.
Thanks
Administrator
"
Nice idea isn’t it?
I sent my details direclty

Fadi

When seniority is the problem

Day after day and when you get more experience, you start to analyze the problems you faces differently (maybe in a way you are trying to make an easy problems difficult), its kind of weird though, before 2 days I faced an issue with one of our databases the issue was that when you set a dbms job it only run once, but it never rerun the job again, to make long story short I spent around 2 house trying to figure out what the issue was, restarting the database is not an option for me (it is not windows if you get what I mean) anyway finally my colleague restarted the database and voala all the jobs are working normally the problem was that one of oracle's ora_j00 was not running.

Learned lessons
-maybe in some how oracle database is like windows after all ;-)
-the problem might seem difficult but in reality it is easier than you think.
-try to search for the easies way to solve the problem not the difficult one.

Fadi

Starting on apps field (my personal theory)

I receive this question (how can I start on apps technical filed? How can I be an apps dba?...etc)
Well I am going to give some hints from my point of view, those hint may not be the ideal therefore any reader of this post can leave any suggestions to make the steps better and easier.

-First of all you need to have instance (vision demo database) so you can test things on it, by this I mean that you should read the installation guide which will guide you on how to build the stage area and what are the pre-requisites (hardware/software) for the installation and the installation process using rapidwiz
The installation will not finish successfully form the first time unless you are so lucky, and from the installation you will get a good experience.
-after the installation you need to understand the applications file system structure.
- also you have to read oracle applications concepts guide.
Then you can start reading about applications administration and maintaining procedures, you need to understand both adpatch and adadmin.
- By now if you manage to install oracle applications and to apply patches on it then you are in the right track.
-then after that you need to read about backup and recovery.
-you need also to monitor oracle forums and oracle blogs.
-keep metalink as your friend.
-when you see an interesting issue in forum or blog try to track it and maybe try to solve it if you can this will give you an add experience.
-try to participate on oracle applications email lists like ittoolbox …etc.
-try to get oracle applications administration books like dba filed guide and others.

finaly keep in mind that (no pain no gain)

Please leave comments on what you think the best way to be an apps dba

Fadi
P.S all the guides mentioned above can be found under (for apps 11i) http://download-east.oracle.com/docs/cd/B25516_16/current/html/docs

Starting on apps field (my personal theory)

Easy tool for building ER diagrams

I was searching for an easy free tool for building ER diagram, and found this amazing tool (DBDesigner 4) below is a screenshot, you can download it from here and it also build oracle scripts for you.

To be a good oracle dba qustion

Well, I recived the following email through an oracle email list the qusiton is quoted below

" Gurus, We all hear about Oracle books and manuals that we should read. What about non Oracle things we need to know to be a DBA? For eg couple of days ago David Litchfield posted a link to an Oracle paper on log buffer internals. The paper had lots of C code in it. Do I have to learn C to become a good DBA? What is the best place to start?
"
And I was reading the answerer for that question and I had to say that one of the users on the list replied with a great answer and apply for every thing in this life, the answer is quoted below
"
Not a guru, but I think one of the most important things for a DBA to know is how to learn - quickly, and just as important for long term success is to have a natural desire or drive to learn. Databases and all the interrelated technologies change so fast that you have to be willing and able to constantly learn, and to be happy with life as a DBA, you have to enjoy that challenge. By knowing how to learn, I mean being able to quickly identify what it is you need to know, where to go to get the necessary knowledge, how to quickly sort through all the BS to zero in on the key concepts that you need, and then how to apply the knowledge to your specific situation. There certainly isn't any fixed set of topics that a DBA needs to know. The label "DBA" describes many different roles in real life and in my particular position, knowing C doesn't really do me any good because I never look at C code. Rather than knowing any specific language, it is more important to understand the concepts of coding and then you can take that skill and pick up the specifics of any language as needed. Obviously you need to be comfortable with the SQL syntax and at least familiar with the procedural code for the RDBMS you are working on. You just have to be as intimate as you can with all the pieces of whatever environment you find yourself responsible for. It is a huge plus to have as much understanding as you can of the operating system and all applications running against your databases, as well as anything else running on the same server. Even an understanding of the hardware and network you are running on can be very helpful. A good understanding of the business you are supporting is always useful too. I think you really have to be a jack of all trades and master of at least one in order to be a really good DBA.

Regarding where to start - there are many paths to enlightenment :-) so just take your pick. Some start as application admins (like me), some as sys (OS) admins, some as developers - all tend to end up with different strengths and weaknesses but I don't think one is inherently better than the others, just different. Whichever path you pick, just try to pick up as much of the others as you can along the way.

Regards,
Brandon
"
To be honest I liked his answer and it gave me a motive

Fadi

New credentials for oracle applications

Oracle has lunched a new certification programs after they have changed their apps dba OCP program then new certifications are as follow:

-Oracle 11i System Administrator Certified Expert. (1Z0-232)
Exam Number:
1Z0-232
Duration:
120 minutes
Associated Certifications:
TBD
Number of Questions:
87
Exam Price:
$195 USD
Passing Score:
60%

-Oracle 11i Workflow Certified Expert. (1Z0-231)
Exam Number:
1Z0-231
Duration:
90 minutes
Associated Certifications:
TBD
Number of Questions:
72
Exam Price:
$195 USD
Passing Score:
59%

If you pass any of the above exams you will consider an expert neither an ocp nor oca. Also both exams doesn't require any pre-requests exames.

Fadi

Small issue with workflow email notifications

Well been busy last week and couldn't update the blog, before a couple of days tow users called me complaining that they stopped receiving emails informing them that they have a new notifications that needs their approval, well to be honest I thought I have a serious issue because both users called in different time at the same day, I check the workflow email server setup and it is working fine, after a little investigation I find out that in some how both users preferences got changed, so I change it back as follow

-Once logged into Applications, go to preferences link in the Home page . - At the bottom of that page is the Header - Notifications, Email Type - Select HTML Mail (It was empty)

And every thing back to normal.

Fadi

CM priority vs. new manager

At my production environment we have a complete customized module called PoS (Point of Sale) which we use to sale our products and it is integrated with oracle apps financials and CRM modules, among of this customized module we have a lot of customized concurrent requests related to sale process and printing contracts. Those requests mainly related to customer service for ex. If the customer buys a product a concurrent request to print the contract will run when the user submit the sale. we faces an issue at the begging of each month that when the financial users run the journal import and end of month requests which they are many requests by the way. Those requests took a lot of time to run and in turn affect the customer which has to wait until his contract got processed by the CM which is busy handling other request. I hope I described the issue clearly since it is difficult to write.

Anyway to solve this issue I create a new stander manger just for the point of sales module, but I found out that when there is no point of sale requests this manager will stay ideal while the other manger that handle all the other request is busy which is not correct. So I deleted this new stander manager and changed all the PoS request priority to a higher priority, now when every a PoS request run it run first because it has higher priority than the stander request and by this I managed to solve my issue.

To do that I went to system administrator->concurrent->program->define->query the requests and change all its priority to 30.

(0 is highest priority and 100 is the lowest and the default priority value 50)

Please leave a comment if you have better way to solve the issue.

increment date paramters each run is not working

i schedualed concurrent request that take a date prameter to run daily with the option "increment date paramters each run" but it runs daily without incremeting the date what could be worng i thought the issue was on the date format so i change it but still, i opened a forum under oracle forums with the issue and my friend dgood76 gave me a metalink note with a hint on how to work around this issue. the note number is 339849.1(Unexpected Behavior Using Increment Date Parameter Each Run)

in this note the workaround suggested by oracle development is to make use of a wrapper Concurrent Program which submits the actual Concurrent Request. Any Default Parameter that needs to be reevaluate for each run needs to behandled within the wrapper script.

then note has an examble on how to do that. You basically need to have 2 concurrent programs one that take that date parameter and other concurrent program calculated the date parameter value and submit the first concurrent request with the correct value.

so thank you dgood76 for your support ;-)

fadi

Shay's 10 Commandments for the OTN forums

I was reading a funny forum it's titled is "URGENT URGENT PLZ READ B4 OTHERS VERY URGENT NO TIME WASTERS" you should read it when you have time and one of the forum users replied asking to read Shay's Shmeltzer post about the (10 Commandments for the OTN Forums Member) and below I am copying and pasting from shay's blog you can go to his blog to read the full article

"Five rules to getting a better solution
1. Have a meaningful subject line
I'm tired of seeing a subject line like "I need urgent help". Your subject should specify what the problem core is and in what area
2. Give details about versions and technologies
Are you using JDeveloper 10.1.3.1 or JDeveloper 9.0.4? Are you using ADF BC or EJB?
3. Give detailed error messages
Don't say - it throws an error - tell us what the error is and give the stack trace.
4. If possible provide steps to reproduce the problem
If something doesn't work for you - I can't know why if you don't tell me what you did. Sometime you can even post code that reproduce the problem
5. Search before you post
It's for your own good - it brings you the solution faster. Search both the forum and Google for your question - you'll be surprised how many times you'll find a solution that someone else got.

Five rules to become a better member of the community
6. Get a name
In your forums preferences you can set up a name or handle that will help us recognize you (and even a link to your blog). Do you really want to be known as user5667847? Using your real name is even better - then when someone meets you in a conference or an event - They'll already know who you are.
7. Post the solution
If your issue was solved post the solution on the thread so others that run into the same error can fix it faster. Just writing "I fixed it" doesn't count.
8. Mark solved problems with [Solved]
Once you found a solution to a problem edit the thread and add [SOLVED] to the subject line. This will help people identify solved problems.
9. Track your threads
In your forum preferences check the option that alerts/emails you when your thread has been updated. This way you'll be able to get better response time and also answer follow up questions. 10. Don't just ask question
give some answers as wellThe forum is a community - the community will only grow if you'll be an active participant. Posting question is just one side of the coin - actually answering other people questions is even more important. So go ahead and show off the knowledge you have gathered - it is the first step to take if you want to become an Oracle ACE.
"

It’s a great commandment and again I copied/pasted them from his blog so the credit goes to him.
Thank you Shay

I would like to add number 11. is to be gentle at your replies to the users even if they made mistakes since no one knows every thing and we all learn from our mistakes, so try to be gentle as much as you can when you are trying to correct someone mistake and don’t try to embarrass him.

fadi

Oracle Applications SQL scripts

Oracle Applications has useful collection of ready SQL scripts under $AD_TOP/sql. The following list shows the description of each script. For more details like if a specific script is available on a specific Apps version you need to check metalink note 108207.1 you will find the script and its description below.

adcompsc.pls
Compile objects in a given schema

adcpresp.sql
The script duplicates rows in FND_RESPONSIBILITY in the following way: Find data_group_id dg_id for the given data_group_name. For each row with data_group_id 0 in FND_RESPONSIBILITY, look for a corresponding row with data_group_id dg_id, with the same application_id, and responsibility_name that only differs in the given suffix string suffix_string. If such a row does not exist for the data_group_id dg_id, insert it.

aderrch2.sql
Reports all compilation errors for a given schema.

aderrchk.sql
Same as aderrch2.sql plus it fails if there are any errors

adtresp.sql
A fix for customers who have more than one set of books and they installed languages other than AMERICAN English. The symptom of the bug is that responsibility names are not translated properly for non-Standard data groups.

adutcobj.sql
Count objects by object type in schema

adutconf.sql
Utility script to display configuration of Applications

adutfip.sql
Utility script to display worker information

adutfpd.sql
Utility script to display product dependency information

ADXANLYZ.sql
Analyze all tables in an ORACLE ID with estimate sample 20%

ADXCKPIN.sql
Query the shared_pool area to determine space used by PL/SQL objects and whether they have been pinned.

ADXGNPIN.sql
Creates and runs a "pin" script for all packages and functions in a give schema

ADXGNPNS.sql
Creates and runs a "pin" script for all sequences in a give schema

ADXINMAI.sql
Install tables and views used by the Applications*DBA sql scripts.

adxirc.sql
AD - index - report columns

ADXLMCBC.sql
Live Monitor, Categorize Block Contention

ADXLMLSO.sql
Live Monitor, List Session Objects

ADXLMQMS.sql
Live Monitor, Query Monitor Statistics

ADXLPFLS.sql
Lock Problem, Find Lock Source

ADXLPSLU.sql
Lock Problem, Show Lock Users

adxpriv7.sql
grant privileges to a user

ADXRCSDC.sql
Report Configuration, Show Database Configuration formerly, config.sql (rollback, tablespace, data files)

ADXRCSTG.sql
Report Configuration, Select Table Grants

ADXRSEBH.sql
Estimate the effect of a bigger SGA cache on cache hit rate.

ADXRSESH.sql
Estimate the effect of a smaller SGA cache on cache hit rate.

ADXRSFIS.sql
Find the size (blocks, extents, extpct) of the given index.

ADXRSFTS.sql
Find the size (blocks, extents, extpct) of the given table.

ADXRSFUA.sql
Report the number of blocks used and the number of extents used for every table or index in every user in the database.

ADXRSLFS.sql
Report free extents in each tablespace.

ADXRSQDP.sql
Check for cache effectiveness for dc_xxxxx parameters' values.

ADXRSRTS.sql
Produce a brief database used space report.

ADXRSSIE.sql
Generate a list of tables and indexes whose next extent to be grabbed would be too large to be allocated in their corresponding tablespaces.

ADXRSSMF.sql
List tables and indexes with a number of allocated extents close to their max_extents.

ADXRSSMS.sql
Find space used for one's own segments.

ADXRSSRS.sql
Show v$rollstat statistics.

ADXRSSSU.sql
For a username, report the number of blocks used and the number of extents used for every table or index in that username.

ADXRSSTF.sql
Produce a brief report of database fragmentation by tablespace.

ADXRSSUS.sql
Report how much space each user has.

ADXUPLUP.sql
Generate a list of processes which the given user (NOT the database account's username) owns.

ADXUPSRU.sql
Show all users that have active transactions per Rollback Segment that they are writing to.

Small issue after cloning

After I cloned my production system I faced the following error when I run adadmin or adpatch

"
AD code level : [11i.AD.I.4]

The Applications System names per the APPL_TOP and the database are different.
Applications System name per the APPL_TOP: clone
Applications System name per the database: prod

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

Do you wish to continue [No] ?
"
To solve it I had to run the following update statement on my clone database
update FND_PRODUCT_GROUPSset APPLICATIONS_SYSTEM_NAME ='clone' ;commit;

Hope that helped

fadi

My 11i Apps DBA OCP

After I passed my beta exam 1Z0-233 Oracle 11i Install, Patch and Maintain Applications and in order to be an Oracle 11i Apps DBA OCP, I had to be either 10g DBA OCP or 9i DBA OCP or the new 2 exams (apps fundamentals 1 & 2), so I applied for 10g and I passed the OCP. So far I am still waiting my 11i beta scoring sheet to see my mark but I guess I did very good on that beta exam I regret that I did not apply the other 2 beta exams (workflow and sysadmin) every one took any one of them (pass or fail) got a free voucher that can be used for the 11i certification program. I did not believe when they were on the path to be an apps dba specially the workflow and then oracle changed the 11i apps dba path (which is a correct step they took). No the path for apps dbas is more clear and more technical.

Have a good day
Fadi

Workflow again

-an update on this we applied the patch and it solved our issue
Some end-users open cases with the support claiming that they don’t receive all the email notifications related to some of their purchase orders, I thought that maybe their email were spelled wrong or maybe they changed their email preference so they don’t receive an emails at oracle application level like the last time, I checked both but none of the above applies on the case so I had to check an one of there POs on the wf_notifications table, I run the following query

select * from wf_notifications where subject like '%200700001052%'

and the email_status value was ERROR so I took the notification_id and search for it in the emails that were sent by the notification mailer to the sysadmin and I found an email with the following content

"Event Error Name: -20001Event Error Message: ORA-20001: Oracle error -20001: ORA-20001: APP-FND-02500: Error occurred during product initialization for MO when executing 'begin MO_GLOBAL.INIT; end;'.SQLCODE = -20001 SQLERROR = ORA-20001: APP-FND-02902: Multi-Org profile option is required. Please set either MO: Security Profile or MO: Operating Unit profile option.has been detected in FND_GLOBAL.INITIALIZE."

I check that error on metalink and I found 5 notes saying that I must apply patch (5209533) p5209533_11i_GENERIC.zip

I will apply that patch on my test/clone instance this weekend and I will update you if the issue was resolved.

For more info you can check note (393847.1) or search for the error/patch

Hope that helped
Fadi

Concurrent request and its database SID

I had a long running Concurrent request and I needed to monitor it from the Enterprise manager but I needed its Database SID, so I search on metalink and I found this query which helped me out.

Connect as apps user

SQL> column process heading "FNDLIBR PID"
SELECT a.request_id, d.sid, d.serial# ,d.osuser,d.process , c.SPID
FROM apps.fnd_concurrent_requests a,
apps.fnd_concurrent_processes b,
v$process c,
v$session d
WHERE a.controlling_manager = b.concurrent_process_id
AND c.pid = b.oracle_process_id
AND b.session_id=d.audsid
AND a.request_id = &Request_ID
AND a.phase_code = 'R';

You need your concurrent request ID as an input.
c.SPID= is the operating system process id
d.sid= is the Oracle process id

I hope it will help you

Fadi

Special thanks to some of Oracle teams

I would like to take the opportunity to thank OCP exam teams, both teams (ocpreq and ocpexam) showed high level of support and fast response time on my inquiries regarding the 11i Apps DBA OCP, they supported me step-by-step to submit my hands-on-course.

In the same time I would like to give a special thanks to oracle Customer Knowledge Exchange team a.k.a CKE team for their support and help when I tried to submit an article to be published at metalink, they showed a high level of support. a big thanks goes to (Mary Anne,Debbie Kiaaina) from this team.

So thank you ocp team/cke team and keep up the good work
Fadi

Open Workflow notifications list is very slow

Here I am publishing a note which I already published on metlaink through the Customer Knowledge Exchange program the note id is 428573.1, they had this program a couple of months ago and I managed to publish two notes and I will be sharing them here with you.

I faced a slow performance issue which only applies on the notifications list page, opening the workflow notifications list to see a list with two notifications when the problem happened used to take a lot of time (more that 20 minutes and most of the times it used to time out) so I followed the below to solve the issue

SQL> select message_type,count(*) from WF_NOTIFICATIONS group by message_type;

MESSAGE_ COUNT(*)
-------- ----------
AZNM000 3
FERASWF 8
POAPPRV 121
POERROR 29
PORCPT 38
POSDSALE 332
REQAPPRV 131
WFERROR 1137436

8 rows selected.
SQL> select count(*) from WF_NOTIFICATIONS where status='OPEN'
and MESSAGE_TYPE='WFERROR'

998976 rows selected.

I find out that I have a lot of the WFERROR message_type and most of them with an open status so I took a backup of the table just incase any thing went wrong using the following statement

SQL> CREATE TABLE WF_NOTIFICATIONS_bck AS SELECT * from WF_NOTIFICATIONS;

Table created.

Then I run the following update statement to set the status of all open notifications of the WFERROR type

SQL> update wf_notifications
set status='CLOSED', mail_status='CANCELED', end_date=sysdate
where status='OPEN'
and MESSAGE_TYPE='WFERROR' ;

998976 rows created
SQL> commit;

After that I tried the notifications list page it did not take more than 3 seconds and every thing went back to normal, so I scheduled a database job that run every month to close all the open notifications with message_type wferror.

To avoid this problem from happing again I am make sure that all the sysadmin notifications are closed and I also have monthly task to check that the above job is running.

i hope that helped
fadi

Oracle support day in amman

Been busy lately, yesterday I went to oracle support day at Hayyat Amman. It was presented by two oracle support managers, wael sadaqa from Oracle dubi and jafar al omary from Oracle Saudi Arabia, they presented how to work effectively with support and the escalation process and they also stressed on using oracle diagnostics and configuration support manager. They mentioned a little bit about R12 upgrade process and they mentioned that people who are doing upgrade will get more attention from oracle support.
It was good and helpful, the presentations can be downloaded from here
Fadi

Support forum,

I am thinking of opening a forum here to share support cases with all users, even though I guess oracle forums a great place to post problems and to get answers quickly, I will try to open my own forum for 3 months period if it was successful I will keep it other wise I will stick with oracle forums.
Suggestion are welcomed
Fadi

Multi to Single node Cloning issue

A friend called me yesterday he was facing the following error when he tried to clone from multi node to single node cloning
"Could not create the high water mark manifest..Please re-run the program to create the manifest required for merging APPL_TOPs"

He faced this error after he run the (perl adpreclone.pl appsTier merge) and then he cancel it while running and then he run it again on the other node then he recived this error.

According to metalink notes 372819.1 and 372758.1 he should reapply the AD.I.x patch again to the node and then run Maintain snapshot and then run the perl adpreclone.pl appsTier merge again, we did so and every thing went fine.

Hope that helped and by the way this will be my last post before my Eye LASIK Surgery which is scheduled tomorrow morning at 8:30 a.m.

Fadi

Thank you apps community

Today is my first day at work after the EPI-LASIK Surgery and my sight is facing haze, glare, ghosts and halos it will need more time before it become stable, I would like to take the chance to thank all apps community who wished me luck during my eye surgery, special thanks goes to hussine sawwan (hsawwan) for his phone call from Kuwait to check on me, and big thanks goes to Steven Chan for taking time to leave comment wishing me luck during the surgery. I would like also to thank marwan shantir, moh'd abu saif and adam shaug for their concerns. During my off days the most I missed was the oracle forums and the oracle blogs, I will need time to keep up with them.

Regards
Fadi

Issues while installing oracle redhat linux

Before a couple of days me and my friend ghassan who is also a certified apps 11i dba was doing an installation at my new p.c and while installing oracle linux on the new Intel 965 motherboard the installer freezes at " PCI: Probing PCI hardware (bus 00)" stage after checking redhat forums we found out that we need to start the installation using the following command from the command line to over come this issue
linux all-generic-ide pci=nommconf
of course that solved our issue after the installation finished and the system reboot we had to do the following the grub screen

at the grub menu. Select the kernel we want to edit, and press (e) to edit. Then move the cursor down to the "kernel" line and press (e) to edit that line. And add the all-generic-ide pci=nommconf at the kernel line.
Then press ENTER to accept the changes. And then press (b) to boot.

When the server boot successfully we had to add the all-generic-ide pci=nommconf at the /boot/grub/grub.conf file.

I guess that this issue in not only related to oracle linux but general to all redhat with this Intel motherboard (from what we saw at the redhat forums), anyway after that we did the installation for vision database and the installation went successfully but with one small issue (RW-50004) at step 2 of 5
At the log it shows (ORA-01031: insufficient privileges) this error was a typo of the oracle user group the group was ordba instated of oradba so we fixed that and the installation went successfully

Hope that helped and thank you guz for your help
Fadi
P.S I got the redhat issue resolved mostly from the http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?t=479778 and some other forums

ATG Rollup 4 and my Custom schema

After Appling ATG Rollup 4 patch no. (4676589) on our HP-UX server successfully we start to receive the following error only on our customized schema but not on the standard schemas.
The error was showing when we try to run any procedure from this customized schema we keep getting the following even though it used to work fine before the patch
"
ORA-00942: table or view does not existORA-06512: at "APPS.FND_CORE_LOG", line 23ORA-06512: at "APPS.FND_CORE_LOG", line 158ORA-06512: at "APPS.FND_PROFILE", line 2468ORA-06512: at "APPS.XX_PACKAGE_PA", line 682ORA-06512: at line 4
"

After checking on metalink we got a hint from note 370000.1 the note dose not apply for the same case but it did gave us the hint and the solution was as follow

connect as APPLSYSGRANT SELECT ON FND_PROFILE_OPTIONS TO SUPPORT;GRANT SELECT ON FND_PROFILE_OPTION_VALUES TO SUPPORT;

Support is my customized schema Custom
Have an error free day ;-)

fadi

How we solved a (ORA-02049 Timeout: Distributed Transaction Waiting for Lock) on our Apps Customized module

We have a customized Point of Sale module that is integrated with our Apps standard CRM and financial modules; we faced a serious issue on this customized module that is when users are trying to sale through this module they receive an ORA-02049 Timeout: Distributed Transaction Waiting for Lock, which require them to keep trying until they make the sale. This error used to show on daily basis on the peak hours only but we could not tell what the cause of it, simple search of the error on metalink return note 1018919.102 that advices that we should increases the distributed_lock_timeout value in the INIT.ORA file the default value was 60 seconds so we increased it to 300 seconds even though we don’t have any distributed transactions on the system all the transactions were local. We restart the issue and the problem became worse because now the end users have to wait for 5 minutes (300 seconds) before they receive the error message (ORA-02049) and because of that we had to set the value back to 60 seconds.

After that we tried to trace the error using different event trace levels but with no luck we were not able to determine what is causing the error.

We thought that it’s a database bug and oracle advised us to upgrade the database from 9.2.0.5 to 9.2.0.7 we did that but still the issue is there.

After a month of investigation/tracing and snapshot of when the problem is happing we managed to find out what was causing the problem. It was a bitmap index that was built on the table we were trying to insert data on.

When an end user was trying to sale without committing his transaction for some reason and at the same time another end user tries to sale he will receive the error message and a lock on the table happened and the error pops-up.

We solved the issue by dropping the bitmap index and creating a normal b-tree index even though the column has only three distinct values.

Accessing Custom Forms after Upgrading To R12

I was checking customization upgrade subject since we faced it and I found this interesting note (451934.1)

The note is talking about how to make custom forms that where created and working fine on 11i to work the on R12.
And according to the note
"All custom forms that were build and working fine on releases 11i are designed and compiled using the Form Builder 6i, while the developer version for R12 is 10G.So you need to open the custom forms in Form Builder release 10G and compile them and save then upload them again."

I did not try the solution yet but thought of sharing it since many were asking bout this subject lately.
Also i found the (Custom forms does not work after upgrade to 12i) forum helpful

Handy script to find out eligible workflow data for purging

I have the "purge Obsolete Workflow Runtime Data" concurrent request scheduled to run on a weekly basis but I find out that this request is not purging all data that can be purged, so I searched metalink for similar cases and found more that one note talking about the same issue, anyway one of the notes (165316.1) (bde_wf_data.sql - Query Workflow Runtime Data That Is Eligible For Purging) has the bde_wf_data.sql script that can be downloaded from metalink, this script will create a bde_wf_data.lst file that looks like a script but it needs some cleansing, the script has commands like the following
Ex.

exec WF_PURGE.ITEMS('POAPPRV','10289-20146',SYSDATE,FALSE);
exec WF_PURGE.ITEMS('REQAPPRV','4941-13066',SYSDATE, FALSE);

Which will purge data eligible to be purged, also at the end of the .lst file there are statements to delete/build the tables stats for the following tables
WF_ITEM_ACTIVITY_STATUSES, WF_ITEM_ACTIVITY_STATUSES_H, WF_ITEM_ATTRIBUTE_VALUES, WF_ITEMS, WF_NOTIFICATIONS, WF_NOTIFICATION_ATTRIBUTES

Since the script do a lot of purging/delete form those tables so the stats needs to be build again

EXEC DBMS_STATS.DELETE_TABLE_STATS(ownname=>'APPLSYS',tabname=>'WF_ITEM_ACTIVITY_STATUSES');
EXEC FND_STATS.GATHER_TABLE_STATS(ownname=>'APPLSYS',tabname=>'WF_ITEM_ACTIVITY_STATUSES',percent=>10,granularity=>'DEFAULT');

And during the search I found note (144806.1) (A Detailed Approach To Purging Oracle Workflow Runtime Data) which I recommend so much for reading

have a nice free bugs day
fadi

DISPLAY, Audience, IE and page cannot be displayed

For the last 45 days my end user faced an issue accessing the following path
Audience super user responsibility ->AUDIENCE ADMINISTRATION DASHBOARD and then click link------->Audience Workbench

It will work fine if the user don’t have and lists attached to his workbench, if he created a list he will not be able to access the audience workbench, there will be no errors but after 7 minutes the user will receive the page cannot be displayed and no errors in the error_log or jserv.log.

After a long investigation and many OWCs and after creating a bug a smart engineer form oracle support (libby) and from her first update figure out that it might be a display issue since accessing the (Audience Workbench) when a list is attached the page will draw a chart for that list, so she gave me the following update to try

1.Please create a small jsp say testXServer.jsp and place it in the OA_HTML directory for the env and point your browserto it. If the DISPLAY setting is okay you will see a message stating the same, else you will see an exception.

please check the note to get the code for the test file (note 456424.1)

2. Invoke the jsp using the following url :http://.us.oracle.com:/OA_HTML/testXServer.jsp

3. If the DISPLAY is pointing to a valid xserver then the page will come up very quickly with the success message

When I tried the page it returned the page cannot be displayed error so I figured out that there is something with the display, I fixed the display issue and now every thing is working fine.

A new note has been created under metalink with the number (456424.1) for that issue.

Hope that helped
Fadi

Transition period

Dear all,

I would like to inform you that I am currently at a transition period i moved to a new country and I am trying to explore my options there and that’s why I am not able to post/reply at forums and email list, but every thing will be back to normal within a month.
Wish me luck
Fadi

Sharing is caring

It been a while since my last post, today I will post about some oracle books that can be viewed online using http://books.google.com go there and search for 11i or for “oracle e-business suite”+ altasen for workflow and sysadmin books of course not all the books are available online for free but only some parts, it will give you a good hint about the book before you buy it.

Good for google and good for us and sharing is caring

Fadi
My next post will be technical so keep visiting.

Sharing is Caring 2

Oracle mix
Is it a new product no its not, it the new site from oracle for social networking, http://mix.oracle.com to make oracle community even smaller. It’s a grate site but still has some small bugs. I encourage you to register there so you will be closer to other oracle guys around the

See you there
Fadi

Sharing is Caring 3

Oracle wiki
is the new site from oracle where members of the Oracle community (employees and non-employees) collaboratively create and share content about Oracle-related subjects they're passionate about. http://wiki.oracle.com/

See you there
Fadi

Sharing is Caring 3

Oracle EBS R12 beta exam are you ready

I received the following email from oracle certification program
“Oracle University is pleased to announce the availability of the following new Oracle E-Business Suite (R12) certification exam in beta version:
Oracle EBS R12: Install, Patch and Maintain Applications [1Z0-238]
This new exam is required as part of earning the new Oracle EBS R12 Applications Database Administrator Certified Professional certification.
By participating in this beta exam, you have the opportunity to provide the Oracle Certification program with feedback about exam content which is integral to the process of exam development. We depend on the contributions of experienced professionals and developers as we continually improve exam content and maintain the value of Oracle certifications.

Beta exam period runs:
January 03 – April 04, 2008
These beta periods are subject to change, please check the exam pages for the most up-to-date information
“

Good luck with your exams
fadi

Hail the Champions

I participate recently in a post from our famous Bolger OCP advisor, it a nice blog that help apps community with info. About Apps certification.
I am trying to be active again.
You can check his post here.

Good luck with your certification
Fadi

I have been tagged

Gareth Roberts tagged me in the current round of OraBlog tag, you can check the rules.

Below are the 8 things you might not know about me:

1- Athens, Greece, Masters: I am currently doing my masters in managing business innovation and technology thurogh a scholarship here in Athens, Greece.
2- Having to change your job is a good thing: I started my oracle career after I had to change my previous job (well my old manager claims that my work was done there and the project i was working on was over, actually it turns out to be a good thing after that I changed my career path from Microsoft to Oracle)
3- Travel: I like to travel a lot and I am welling to take any chance to visit any new country/places.
4- Documentary: I am a T.V documentary addict; I can watch any type of documentary but prefer political ones.
5- Jogging: I jog 3-4 KM every other day I like jogging a lot.
6- Single: well still I am currently single. (Marry to oracle apps I guess ;-).
7- Reading: currently I am trying to get used to reading I have this book called (the management bible by John Wiley and sons) it’s a good book I guess every manager should read it, although I am not a manager yet but be prepared always. You never now what will happen next.
8- Sky is the limit and think big: Sky is the limit is my personal message at MSN messenger, and think big will be my next personal message at MSN.

My turn in tagging, I will tag.
OCP Advisor
Syed Jaffar Hussain
Lutz hartmann
Mark Rittman
Grant Ronald
Senthil Rajendran
Vikram Das
Famy Rasheed

have a nice tagging

fadi

Questions needed answers

Dears apps dbas,
I hope thing are well with you, I received the following questions from a friend of mine and I promised him to answer them and wanted to share them with you maybe you can help me answer most of them.
Appreciate your help.

(we have some of the answers by dave (thank you) in the comments and all of them under http://www.teachmeoracle.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4102)

1. How do we know that particular instance is cloned or normal installed?
2. How can you know that how many modules are already implemented in this instance?
3. How to enable archive log without shutting down your database?
4. How can we know that whether we already applied latest AUTOCONFIG patch or not at our instance?
5. Is this possible to clone a database from hotbackup? If yes plz tell how?
6. Suppose your database size is 2000GB now you want to clone a particular one datafile or tablespace. Plz tell how co clone a datafile or tablespace?
7. You are applying a patch but suddenly it HANGS but log file didn’t showing any error what should be the reason for that HANG?
8. How to clone from multimode to single node?
9. How to apply patch on forms/reports server?

Thanks again for help
Fadi

Add new node to apps

A customer want to add new web/forms node to his current multi-node apps 11.5.10.2 production system also we have to configure a web cache load balancer.
The current system is 2 nodes (db node, apps tire node).
I am currently doing the configuration on test environment, I followed note (
How to Add a New Node to The Application Tier, and Make It a Web Server Node Only, Note: 464018.1 same as instructions of "Part 4: Adding a new node to an existing system" under "Section 4: Advanced Cloning Options" of Note 230672.1"Cloning Oracle Applications Release 11iwith Rapid Clone".

I am currently cloning the apps tire to the new server after that I will run adcfgclone.pl then adaddnode.pl in order to configure it. One important note is to disable SQL*Net Access so that the new node can access the database.
after that i will try to configure the webcache as load balancer.
I will update you once done.

Enjoy
Fadi

Sharing is Caring 4

Oracle Community
it the new site for oracle social networking, http://www.oraclecommunity.net/to make oracle community even smaller.

enjoy
Fadi

Add new node to apps 2

Please read http://oracle-magic.blogspot.com/2008/02/add-new-node-to-apps.html before reading the steps below,

After finishing configuring the clone instance by running adcfgclone.pl I had to run the adaddnode.pl script according to note 464018.1.
While running adaddnode.pl I faced the following error
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-00001: unique constraint (APPLSYS.AD_APPL_TOPS_U2) violated
ORA-06512: at line 16

I followed note 394615.1 to solve it and after I did the steps in the note I run adaddnode.pl again and I faced error related to AD_TIMESTAMPS_U1 I checked on metalink but I could not find anything then I search on google and found post by dave http://newappsdba.blogspot.com/2006/09/dont-hit-ctrl-c-while-running.html from his post I took a backup the ad_timestamps and then truncate it after that I run adaddnode.pl and it completed successfully.
Then I updated the xml file to have only the forms and web servers running on this new node following the same note 464018.1 I run autoconfig the start the service on both nodes a now able to access both nodes.

What I want to do now is to configure web cache as load balancer also I want to implement Step 2.4.1.2. Implement Forms Listener Servlet Support from note (Advanced Configurations and Topologies for Enterprise Deployments of E-Business Suite 11i) Note:217368.1 in order to have Forms Server Load Balancing, so when one form server go down in one node users will be connect to the other forms node.Because the current configuration if I am connect to webnode1 and forms on that node is down I will not be able to connect to forms and I will receive an error but if load balancing is implemented it will take me to the other working forms server node.

Fadi

Soft-skills (not oracle related post)

Dears,
As a part of my study in my masters program we have to create a blog related to e-business course and it must be evaluated and one of the evaluation criteria is the number of users accessing it and comments so if you have free time can you access it and leave comments the blog has a good and helpful information.
the blog talks about soft skills and how they are important in our life check for example (speed reading post and managing a busy schedule post and many others)
please check and leave comments if you can
Thank you
Fadi

Cloning 11i with 10g database (you may need a patch)

faced the following error while configuring database when cloning apps 11i with 10g database and it happens directly after entering the path of the third data_top (by the way the script will always assume you have 4 data_tops even if you have more/less data_tops)

StackTrace:
java.lang.NullPointerException
at oracle.apps.ad.context.CloneContext.createContextFileForDbhomes(CloneContext.java:2816)
at oracle.apps.ad.context.CloneContext.getInputFromUsers(CloneContext.java:1485)
at oracle.apps.ad.context.CloneContext.doClone(CloneContext.java:627)
at oracle.apps.ad.context.CloneContext.main(CloneContext.java:6085)

On metalink there was the solution on Note:427981.1 Subject:RC-50004 When Specifying DATA_TOPS While Cloning a 10.2 Database
And the solution is to apply a patch with a version of CloneContext.java above 115.203. the following are possibilities patches

Patch 5473292, Patch 5732291, Patch 5604818, Patch 5456078, Patch 5474116

Well I did not do that because this means that I have to apply the patch and recopy the database, which take time.
So I recreate the database manually using control file. And when try to open the database I issued
SQL>alter database open resetlogs;
It failed with the following
alter database open resetlogs
*
ERROR at line 1:
ORA-01113: file 1 needs media recovery
ORA-01110: data file 1: '/ora_dev/data/system01.dbf'
Even though the database was completely down when I copied it I faced this error the good thing is 2 days ago I was reading bas post http://basklaassen.blogspot.com/2008/01/recover-database.html
I followed the steps for recovery and provided the path to my online log files and the recovery completed successfully.
Next down time for the production database for sure I will apply one of the patches above.

Hope that helped
Fadi

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