OBIEE Blog

A few useful things I found about 11G.

1.

Goal

In OBIEE 11g there is no link on the homepage for “Oracle Answers” like there was in the 10g version. Where is it or how to get it to appear?

Solution

BIEE 11g has been re-engineered in 11g, especially with the inclusion of WebLogic in the mid tier. A new look and feel is displayed from the 10g version. Now when connecting in 11g BIEE, you basically see Answers.

On the main 11g page, some of the latest Dashboards and Reports that have been created are displayed, plus there are still links to create a new report or open another dashboard.

So it is more a look and feel (cosmetic) change than anything else as the same functionality exists in both versions.

2.

Symptoms
In OBIEE Presentation Server log, you may see the following warning messages:

11g xml data incompatibility: object [some object type] at [the object path] requires upgrade. Admin needs to rerun upgrade, or remove the object, or fix the object’s xml manually. If problem persists, please contact technical support
Cause
========
Reason
========

Customers did not run catalog upgrade from the previous 11g version to the current version. Therefore, we have to upgrade it at run time in memory without saving it (if the catalog is upgraded through upgrade process, it will be upgraded and saved permanently in the catalog.) We give this warning message to warn customers that it is recommended to perform the catalog upgrade otherwise the application will need to perform the upgrade in memory.

Solution
The resolution for the issue has been documented. It is suggested to use the following:

Please refer to section: 3.8.10.2 Updating Oracle Business Intelligence Catalogs in
Oracle® Fusion Middleware Patching Guide 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.5.0). Here is the link to the documentation.

Oracle® Fusion Middleware Patching Guide 11g Release 1 (11.1.1.5.0)

The following bug has been logged to address the issue

Bug 12911878 – ERROR “11G XML DATA INCOMPATIBILITY” WHEN MOVING FROM 11.1.1.3 TO 11.1.1.5

Applies to:
Business Intelligence Server Enterprise Edition – Version: 10.1.3.4.1 [1900] to 11.1.1.5.0 [1308] – Release: 10g to 11g

3.

Symptoms
You are upgrading OBIEE 10g to OBIEE 11g using the Upgrade Assistant.  You have upgraded the repository successfully, but when you upgrade the web catalog, you get the following error:

[2011-03-09T13:38:25.565-05:00] [BIEE] [ERROR] [] [upgrade.BIEE] [tid: 13] [ecid: 0000IuRtnAxFw000jzwkno1DTwWL000004,0] javax.management.RuntimeMBeanException: Cannot refresh – Currently locked[[
at oracle.as.jmx.framework.standardmbeans.spi.OracleStandardEmitterMBean.doInvoke(OracleStandardEmitterMBean.java:897)

Cause
There is a lock on the web catalog in Enterprise Manager.

Solution
1. Search through Enterprise Manager and release any locks.
2. Stop and re-start Weblogic and the managed servers.
3. Start Upgrade Assistant and try upgrading the web catalog again.

Symptoms
The OBIEE 10.1.3.4.2 components (Presentation Server) do not work properly after a new installation.

The sawlog contained ODBC errors and it was found the Analytics Web System DSN did not exist. It is not possible to manually create this either.

Type: Information
Severity: 30
Time: Wed Sep 07 08:45:52 2011
File: project/sawserver/sawserver.cpp Line: 386
Properties: ThreadID-3392
Location:
saw.sawserver
saw.sawserver.initializesawserver
saw.sawserver

Oracle BI Presentation Services 10.1.3.4.2 (Build 110727.2045) are starting up.
—————————————
Type: Error
Severity: 20
Time: Wed Sep 07 08:45:52 2011
File: project/webodbcaccess/odbcenvironment.cpp Line: 98
Properties: ThreadID-3392
Location:
saw.webextensionbase.staticinit
saw.sawserver
saw.sawserver.initializesawserver
saw.sawserver

ODBC driver preload failed. ODBC library name: ‘nqsodbc.dll’
—————————————
Type: Error
Severity: 20
Time: Wed Sep 07 08:45:52 2011
File: project/webodbcaccess/odbcenvironment.cpp Line: 100
Properties: ThreadID-3392
Location:
saw.webextensionbase.staticinit
saw.sawserver
saw.sawserver.initializesawserver
saw.sawserver

Type: Error
Severity: 20
Time: Wed Sep 07 08:45:52 2011
File: project/sawserver/winmain.cpp Line: 74
Properties: ThreadID-3392
Location:
saw.sawserver.initializesawserver
saw.sawserver

Allocation of SQLEnvironment failed (SQLError: -1). Please ensure that the odbc driver is in your environment path.

oc4j started but JavaHosts did not as Java JDK was the 64-bit version.
Cause
Microsoft Windows x64 (64-bit) 2008 R2 is supported and R2 appears to be only available in 64-bit.

A downgrade of Java to 32-bit (JDK 1.6.0.20) took place as OBIEE 10.1.3.4.2 is a 32-bit native application.

Once this took place oc4j, Javahost and BI Server Services started correctly.

However, the BI Presentation Services still failed.

Windows Service Dialog

Windows could not start the Oracle BI Presentation server on Local Computer.

For more information, review the System Event Log. If this is a non-Microsoft service, contact the service vendor and refer to service-specific error code -1.

Event Viewer
The Oracle BI Presentation Server service terminated with service-specific error %%-1

There is also no ‘Analytics Web’ installed under the System DSN.

Solution
This was confirmed to be a Bug with Development and the following Bug was logged.

Bug 13072296 – AFTER INSTALL THE PRESENTATION SERVER FAILS TO START ON WINDOWS 2008 R2 X64

The workaround to install the Visual C++ libraries from the installation software and this is as follows:

Run the ‘Oracle_Business_Intelligence_Open_Intelligence_Interface\VC80\vcredist_x86.exe’ executable from the downloaded client installer.

This can be performed before or after the installation process.

References
BUG:13072296 – AFTER INSTALL THE PRESENTATION SERVER FAILS TO START ON WINDOWS 2008 R2 X64
NOTE:1061233.1 – OBIEE STARTUP ISSUE.

Applies to:
Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition – Version: 10.1.3.4.2 [2405] and later   [Release: 10g and later ]
Information in this document applies to any platform.

Symptoms

The server OS is Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition x86 32 bit and it has Microsoft IIS 7 on it.
The installation guide states that on selecting the Basic installation type, the installer should present an option to select either Oracle Containers for J2EE (OC4J) version 10.1.3.1 or Microsoft IIS, if IIS is installed on the server.
However, when you run the installer, you are not presented with this option.
Install guide says:

To deploy Oracle BI Presentation Services and Plug-in with Microsoft IIS 1 Choose Advanced or Basic installation type.
2 After you select the components to install, and if Presentation Services or Presentation Services
Plug-in are selected, you are prompted to select the application server.

Select Microsoft IIS.
The ISAPI plug-in is installed in IIS.
3 When the Basic installation type is selected, the installer installs a stand-alone version of OC4J and deploys Oracle BI Systems Management and Oracle BI Publisher in this container.

However the screen does not appear in order to select IIS.

Cause

IIS 7 not properly installed
Solution

You need to check that IIS7 is properly installed in that the following services are present and enabled:
WAS
W3SVC
IISADMIN
WMSVC
The installer checks that IIS is installed by checking that IISADMIN and W3SVC services are present and enabled.
IISADMIN service is only available if you have IIS 6 Management Compatibility options installed.
So install IIS6 Management Compatibility options for IIS7 and try again.

References

BUG:13599500

Applies to:

Business Intelligence Server Enterprise Edition – Version: 10.1.3.4.2 [2405] and later   [Release: 10g and later ]
Information in this document applies to any platform.

Symptoms
When running an Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) Dashboard with multi-select prompts that contain many values, the values in the list are not consistently alpha-numerically sorted.

The initial retrieval in the multi-select dialog box shows the values alpha-numerically sorted.  When the next set of values are retrieved, the values lose their sort order and are no longer alpha-numerically sorted.
Cause
This issue is described in the following known bugs:

Bug 8995183 – SORTING IN MULTISELECT PROMPT NOT WORKING AS EXPECTED
Bug 9787610, MULTISELECT PROMPT NOT SORTING PROPERLY WHEN CONTAINS MORE THAN 256 ITEMS
Solution
This issue is fixed in OBIEE 10.1.3.4.2.
If you are encountering this issue, you are urged to upgrade to version 10.1.3.4.2 to obtain the fix
for this bug and many other bugs.
For information on upgrading to this version, please see Note 1357872.1 How To Upgrade to
Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) 10.1.3.4.2

If you are currently unable to upgrade to OBIEE 10.1.3.4.2, and require the fix in OBIEE 10.1.3.4.1, please do the following:
1.    Open a Service Request (SR) with Oracle Support and request the password for
Patch 9787610.

2.    Follow instructions for installing the patch as described in patch readme.txt file.
Oracle Support recommends that you first test this patch on a development or test server.
Once you are satisfied that the patch corrects the issue, you may promote the patch to
your production environment.

NOTE: If you are using any web server other than IIS, you will need to recreate and redeploy the
Analytics.war file after installing the patch.

For detailed instructions on how to do this in an OC4J environment, please see:

Note 1075754.1 Create and Deploy A New BIEE 10.1.3.4/10.1.3.4.1 ANALYTICS.WAR File.

References
BUG:8995183 – SORTING IN MULTISELECT PROMPT NOT WORKING AS EXPECTED
BUG:9787610 – MULTISELECT PROMPT NOT SORTING PROPERLY WHEN CONTAINS MORE THAN 256 ITEMS
NOTE:1075754.1 – How To Create And Deploy A New OBIEE 10.1.3.4.X ‘analytics.war’ File (for OC4J)
PATCH:9787610 – MULTISELECT PROMPT NOT SORTING PROPERLY WHEN CONTAINS MORE THAN 256 ITEMS

Applies to:
Business Intelligence Suite Enterprise Edition – Version: 10.1.3.4.1 [1900] to 10.1.3.4.1 [1900] – Release: to 10g
Business Intelligence Server Enterprise Edition – Version: 10.1.3.4.1 [1900] to 10.1.3.4.1 [1900]   [Release: 10g to 10g]
Business Intelligence Answers Option – Version: 10.1.3.4.1 [1900] to 10.1.3.4.1 [1900]   [Release: 10g to 10g]
Information in this document applies to any platform.
This knowledge document is a replacement for 952833.1 which has been deleted.

You have an OBIEE 10.1.3.4.1. instance and a lot of folders and requests for the Administrator user.
You upgrade to 11.1.1.3.0, using the ua.bat tool. It finishes as complete and there are no errors in the the Upgrade Assistant (ua) log files:

 $OBIEE_HOME/upgrade/logs

For example
 C:\OBIEE_11g\Oracle_BI1\upgrade\logs

In OBIEE 11.1.1.3.0, when you log in as Administrator and go to the Catalog option, you are not able to see any folder or request.

Cause

The upgrade process, ua.bat, is not transferring the folders and request for the Administrator user.

This is due to the bug below

What were you trying to do?
---------------------------
Upgrade both repository and web catalog from 10.1.3.4.1 to 11.1.1.3.0.

What should have happened?
--------------------------
You should be able to see all folders and request you had in 10.1.3.4.1 after
upgrading to 11.1.1.3.0.

What actually did happen?
-------------------------
For the Administrator account, after running the ua.bat for upgrading and
finishing without error, when you log in with this account, it does not
display  any folder or document for the Administrator user in 11.1.1.3.0,
there are a lot of folders and request in 10.1.3.4.1.

What are the symptoms of the problem?
-------------------------------------
You have a web catalog in 10.1.3.4.1. When you log in as Administrator in
this version you see a lot of folders and request for that user.

  You upgrade to 11.1.1.3.0 using the ua.bat utility. It finishes fine,
completed without error. In the upgrade log file you can find some warnings
that I am not sure they are related to this issue. You log in as
Administrator in 11.1.3.0 and you cannot see any folder or request.

What changes have been made to the technical environment recently?
------------------------------------------------------------------
None.
-------------

Suggested workaround is the following:
In 10.1.3.4.1.
 ===============

 1) In Administration Tool, create a new user, 'new_account', under Manage-Security (if you are using other Security option, add the new user there).

 2) Using Catalog Manager, copy the content of the Administrator user into the new one.
 For instance:

 /-users-administrator
 into

  /-users-new_account

 3) Upgrade the Web Catalog using the ua.bat:

In 11.1.1.3.0.
 ==============

 4) Using Catalog Manager, copy the content of the 'new_account' user into the Administrator one.
 For instance:

 /-users-new_account

 into

 /-users-administrator

 5) Connect to OBIEE as Administrator and check you are able to see all folders and requests.