Weblogic 12c | Admin Server startup error(s)

Hello guys

Two days back I’ve seen a tweet from Michael Ferrante asking the “Forms Enthusiasts” to hold their breathe, as Oracle is going to announce something “Exciting” for Oracle forms. Are you EXCITED as much I am? Well, I am pretty sure, it is going to be a push for AuraPlayer, as he has mentioned them in the tweet.

Regardless, I’ve a local instance of Weblogic Server 12.2.1.3, installed and a classic domain created. I stopped using it as my firm decided to drop the idea to migrate our 20+ years old Developer 6i developed ERP to Weblogic due to the complexity of Oracle licensing, followed by the uncertainty of Oracle support for Oracle forms beyond 2025 (Which is just 6 years away).

Hell with it, I wanted to see how far I have configured the domain and ended up setting up the forms server, publishing the half baked legacy application. As I have made more than dozen Weblogic installations in last 2-3 years time, I had almost everything backed up from different installations like configuration files, environment and registry files. All I needed was to copy and replace them at most of the places to bring the legacy application online within couple of hours time.

However, I have noticed that while starting the Weblogic Admin Server (from the command prompt, using supplied .cmd files), I was getting a number of java errors & all of them were related to FADS (Forms Application Development Services) & some text were like below (Sorry for the wrapping issues)

weblogic.application.library.LibraryDeploymentException: [J2EE:160141]
Could not initialize the library Extension-Name: fads-dbtools-library.
Ensure that the deployment unit is a valid library type (WAR, EJB, EAR, plain JAR).
D:\Weblogic\Middleware\Oracle_Home\forms..\sqldeveloper\sqldeveloper\lib\oracle.dbtools-common.jar
(The system cannot find the file specified) with :
D:\Weblogic\Middleware\Oracle_Home\forms..\sqldeveloper\sqldeveloper\lib\oracle.dbtools-common.jar
at weblogic.application.internal.library.LibraryDeploymentFactory.getLibData(LibraryDeploymentFactory.java:98)
at weblogic.application.internal.library.LibraryDeploymentFactory.createDeployment(LibraryDeploymentFactory.java:50)
at weblogic.application.internal.DeploymentManagerImpl.createDeployment(DeploymentManagerImpl.java:195)
at weblogic.application.internal.DeploymentManagerImpl.access$800(DeploymentManagerImpl.java:61)
at weblogic.application.internal.DeploymentManagerImpl$DeploymentCreatorImpl.createDeployment(DeploymentManagerImpl.java:628)
Truncated. see log file for complete stacktrace

weblogic.application.internal.DeploymentStateChecker$DeploymentAssertionError: Unexpected transition: current state for application fads#1.0 : STATE_NEW attempt to transition to STATE_ADMIN
Dumping 2 callbacks
———————- BEGIN CALLBACK DUMP ——-
java.lang.Exception: prepare
at weblogic.application.internal.DeploymentStateChecker.save(DeploymentStateChecker.java:152)
at weblogic.application.internal.DeploymentStateChecker.prepare(DeploymentStateChecker.java:157)
at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.AppContainerInvoker.prepare(AppContainerInvoker.java:65)
at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.AppDeployment.prepare(AppDeployment.java:166)
at weblogic.management.deploy.internal.DeploymentAdapter$1.doPrepare(DeploymentAdapter.java:41)
at weblogic.management.deploy.internal.DeploymentAdapter.prepare(DeploymentAdapter.java:193)
at weblogic.management.deploy.internal.AppTransition$1.transitionApp(AppTransition.java:31)
at weblogic.management.deploy.internal.ConfiguredDeployments$2.doItem(ConfiguredDeployments.java:741)
at weblogic.management.deploy.internal.parallel.BucketInvoker$2.run(BucketInvoker.java:95)
at weblogic.work.ContextWrap.run(ContextWrap.java:46)
at weblogic.work.SelfTuningWorkManagerImpl$WorkAdapterImpl.run(SelfTuningWorkManagerImpl.java:670)
at weblogic.invocation.ComponentInvocationContextManager._runAs(ComponentInvocationContextManager.java:352)
at weblogic.invocation.ComponentInvocationContextManager.runAs(ComponentInvocationContextManager.java:337)
at weblogic.work.LivePartitionUtility.doRunWorkUnderContext(LivePartitionUtility.java:57)
at weblogic.work.PartitionUtility.runWorkUnderContext(PartitionUtility.java:41)
at weblogic.work.SelfTuningWorkManagerImpl.runWorkUnderContext(SelfTuningWorkManagerImpl.java:644)
at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.execute(ExecuteThread.java:415)
at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.run(ExecuteThread.java:355)
java.lang.Exception: activate
at weblogic.application.internal.DeploymentStateChecker.save(DeploymentStateChecker.java:152)
at weblogic.application.internal.DeploymentStateChecker.activate(DeploymentStateChecker.java:164)
at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.AppContainerInvoker.activate(AppContainerInvoker.java:90)
at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.BasicDeployment.activate(BasicDeployment.java:274)
at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.BasicDeployment.activateFromServerLifecycle(BasicDeployment.java:507)
at weblogic.management.deploy.internal.DeploymentAdapter$1.doActivate(DeploymentAdapter.java:53)
at weblogic.management.deploy.internal.DeploymentAdapter.activate(DeploymentAdapter.java:202)
at weblogic.management.deploy.internal.AppTransition$2.transitionApp(AppTransition.java:52)
at weblogic.management.deploy.internal.ConfiguredDeployments$2.doItem(ConfiguredDeployments.java:741)
at weblogic.management.deploy.internal.parallel.BucketInvoker$2.run(BucketInvoker.java:95)
at weblogic.work.ContextWrap.run(ContextWrap.java:46)
at weblogic.work.SelfTuningWorkManagerImpl$WorkAdapterImpl.run(SelfTuningWorkManagerImpl.java:670)
at weblogic.invocation.ComponentInvocationContextManager._runAs(ComponentInvocationContextManager.java:352)
at weblogic.invocation.ComponentInvocationContextManager.runAs(ComponentInvocationContextManager.java:337)
at weblogic.work.LivePartitionUtility.doRunWorkUnderContext(LivePartitionUtility.java:57)
at weblogic.work.PartitionUtility.runWorkUnderContext(PartitionUtility.java:41)
at weblogic.work.SelfTuningWorkManagerImpl.runWorkUnderContext(SelfTuningWorkManagerImpl.java:644)
at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.execute(ExecuteThread.java:415)
at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.run(ExecuteThread.java:355)
———————- END CALLBACK DUMP ——-
at weblogic.application.internal.DeploymentStateChecker.throwAssertion(DeploymentStateChecker.java:88) at weblogic.application.internal.DeploymentStateChecker.illegal(DeploymentStateChecker.java:107) at weblogic.application.internal.DeploymentStateChecker.up(DeploymentStateChecker.java:122) at weblogic.application.internal.DeploymentStateChecker.activate(DeploymentStateChecker.java:166) at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.AppContainerInvoker.activate(AppContainerInvoker.java:90) Truncated. see log file for complete stacktrace

Basically, these errors NEVER truly interrupt anything with deploying a forms based application, unless you want to do more with FADS. FADS deployment looks for some specific libraries and missing them were generating the above errors. As I mentioned, for a classic domain, addressing this error may not be truly necessary (for testing). I just love NO errors under usual scenarios, hence decided to fix it.

I referred the below documents to find a proper solution

The 1st document insists that we must delete/rename the pre-installed SQLDEVELOPER (3.x) under ORACLE_HOME (eg: D:\Weblogic\Middleware\Oracle_Home) & install a version that is minimum 4.2, however doesn’t mention anything about the highest version supported.

After checking the fads configuration py file, I realized that the files FADS deployment trying to locate during the startup were NOT available with SQLDEVELOPER 18.x:

‘/sqldeveloper/sqldeveloper/lib/oracle.dbtools-common.jar’
‘/sqldeveloper/sqldeveloper/lib/oracle.sqldeveloper.sqlcl.jar’

The 2nd document I referred explained about configuring FADS & the blogger used SQLDEVELOPER 17.2 for his exercise. Hence I downloaded the specific version 17.2, extracted and copied the folder “sqldeveloper” to ORACLE_HOME & followed the instructions as provided within the Oracle document.

Error while using SQLDEVELOPER 18.x

D:\Weblogic\Middleware\Oracle_Home\oracle_common\common\bin>wlst.cmd D:\Weblogic\Middleware\Oracle_Home\forms\fads\fads_config.py
Picked up JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS: -Djava.vendor=”Sun Microsystems Inc.”
Initializing WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST) …
Welcome to WebLogic Server Administration Scripting Shell
Type help() for help on available commands

fads configuration script
Admin Server will be shutdown by running this script.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] :Y
You need to install Oracle SQL Developer 4.2 or higher under ORACLE_HOME. Did you install SQL Developer 4.2? [Y/n] :Y
error:
SQL Developer 4.2 is not installed under D:\Weblogic\Middleware\Oracle_Home
Install it and run this script again.
Download Oracle Sql Developer from http://www.oracle.com.
exiting…
Problem invoking WLST – Traceback (innermost last):
File “D:\Weblogic\Middleware\Oracle_Home\forms\fads\fads_config.py”, line 341, in ?
File “D:\Weblogic\Middleware\Oracle_Home\forms\fads\fads_config.py”, line 207, in fullConfig
NameError: system

Successful configuration using SQLDEVELOPER 17.x

D:\Weblogic\Middleware\Oracle_Home\oracle_common\common\bin>wlst.cmd D:\Weblogic\Middleware\Oracle_Home\forms\fads\fads_config.py
Picked up JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS: -Djava.vendor=”Sun Microsystems Inc.”
Initializing WebLogic Scripting Tool (WLST) …
Welcome to WebLogic Server Administration Scripting Shell
Type help() for help on available commands

fads configuration script
Admin Server will be shutdown by running this script.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] :Y
You need to install Oracle SQL Developer 4.2 or higher under ORACLE_HOME. Did you install SQL Developer 4.2? [Y/n] :Y
SQL Developer 4.2 is installed under D:\Weblogic\Middleware\Oracle_Home
connecting to WebLogic:
Please enter your username :weblogic
Please enter your password :
Please enter your server URL [t3://localhost:7001] :
Connecting to t3://localhost:7001 with userid weblogic …
Successfully connected to Admin Server “AdminServer” that belongs to domain “base_domain”.
Warning: An insecure protocol was used to connect to the server.
To ensure on-the-wire security, the SSL port or Admin port should be used instead.
obtaining Admin Server host/port information
Location changed to domainRuntime tree. This is a read-only tree
with DomainMBean as the root MBean.
For more help, use help(‘domainRuntime’)
fadsui.ear:-> D:\Weblogic\Middleware\Oracle_Home\user_projects\applications\base_domain\forms\fads\fads-ui.ear
webservices – http://localhost:7001/fads/apis (updated to http://192.168.125.1:7001/fads/apis)
Saving…
Totals {connections=1, rest=1, updated=1}
updating FADS OWSM policy
creating fads keystore
Already in Domain Runtime Tree
Keystore created
Already in Domain Runtime Tree
Key pair generated
Context is missing, therefore using current context “/WLS/base_domain”.
Successfully configured property “keystore.type”.
Successfully configured property “location”.
Successfully configured property “keystore.sig.csf.key”.
Successfully configured property “keystore.enc.csf.key”.
creating fads WSM policy set
Session started for modification.
Description defaulted to “Global policy attachments for RESTful Resource resources.”
The policy set was created successfully in the session.
Policy reference “oracle/multi_token_rest_service_policy” added.
The configuration override property “propagate.identity.context” having value “true” has been added to the reference to policy with URI “oracle/multi_token_rest_service_policy”.
The policy set restPolicySet is valid.
Creating policy set restPolicySet in repository.
Session committed successfully.
importing fads authorization policy
import fadsWSpolicy passed D:\Weblogic\Middleware\Oracle_Home\forms\fads\policy\fadsWSMPolicy.zip
Importing “META-INF/policies/oracle/binding_authorization_template_fads”
Successfully imported “1” documents
Location changed to edit custom tree. This is a writable tree with No root.
For more help, use help(‘editCustom’)
Starting an edit session …
Started edit session, be sure to save and activate your changes once you are done.
Saving all your changes …
Saved all your changes successfully.
Activating all your changes, this may take a while …
The edit lock associated with this edit session is released once the activation is completed.
Activation completed
shutting down the Admin Server
Shutting down the server AdminServer with force=false while connected to AdminServer …
Disconnected from weblogic server: AdminServer
shutting down the Admin Server
…….done with fads post configuration…………
please start the Admin Server

Exiting WebLogic Scripting Tool.

Once the configurations are successfully completed, the configuration process shuts down the Admin Server. Start the Admin Server & there should not be errors towards missing FADS libraries.

regards,

rajesh

Windows 10 1903 | Oracle VirtualBox virtual machines will not start/open

Hello guys

This is a quick post towards one of the issues I faced once after enabling Windows Sandbox feature that was made available with Windows 10 1903. As Sandbox feature utilizes Hyper-V (regardless whether you have enabled it or not).

Once Sandbox feature enabled, Oracle VirtualBox 6.0.x fails to launch the Virtual Machines.

Although VirtualBox 6.0.x are supposed to support Hyper-V for acceleration, my attempts were futile, forcing me to disable the Sandbox feature, enter BIOS and browse through the virtualization settings.

I can’t say what has resolved the issues. I disabled Sandbox, restarted the box, was unable to launch the Virtual Machines.

Restarted the laptop, entered BIOS and insured that the virtualization was turned on & tried to launch the Virtual Machines and they opened.

So give it a try, if you are stuck with the following error while trying to open a Virtual Machine!

Call to WHvSetupPartition failed: ERROR_SUCCESS (Last=0xc000000d/87) (VERR_NEM_VM_CREATE_FAILED).

regards,

rajesh

Wireless Keyboard/Mouse lags, stutter or hang when USB 3.0 external HDD connected

Hello myself

Recently I replaced my faulty Microsoft Keyboard+Mouse combo with a Logitech K270 & must say, Logitech have some quality.

However, very soon my daughter told me that she cannot use the keyboard & it prints a letter few seconds later after she taps the keyboard. I came to the desk and confirmed that she was right.

I was really upset, I couldn’t believe that a brand like Logitech could make such lousy product which started malfunctioning within couple of hours since the 1st use!

I was copying a huge tar ball from the external USB 3.0 HDD, connected to the port adjacent to wireless receiver was connected. Somehow I managed to close the copying & removed the wireless receiver to check whether it was broken/visibly faulty. Everything looked rock solid. I plugged the receiver back and the keyboard and mouse were working fine once again.

I plugged the USB 3.0 HDD back to the same port near the wireless receiver as I wanted to copy the tar ball. The moment I plugged the external drive, the keyboard and mouse almost stopped functioning!

Yes, after the long story, the solution is, don’t plug the USB 3.0 external drives to the same USB hub where you connect your wireless keyboard+mouse receiver.

That’s a worth note ;) & I hope you are not reading my personal notes!

rajesh

Windows Subsystem for Linux | Backup & restore

Hello guys

WSL 2 is almost here! and if you are here, reading this post. Please consider reading about WSL 2

During one of the recent chit-chats, few of my contacts were asking me about the “real” business sense behind Linux on Windows. It is simple. Microsoft is:

Going to integrate LINUX so deep within Windows that, in the very near future, one don’t have to run a separate LINUX Server. Simple like that.

After experimenting with KALI Linux WSL, I managed to install Xfce & XRDP on Ubuntu 18.04 WSL & the only few things I couldn’t do with the WSL was starting services automatically when the subsystem starts. There are hacks, well, I don’t think they really worth a try soon as Microsoft will BE bringing it on to WSL pretty soon.

Now, let us get back to the topic. I’ve installed Ubuntu 18.04 WSL nothing less than half dozen times. Every time something goes wrong & I am forced to uninstall and re-install the WSL to continue with additional experiments. My last attempt was to install Kubuntu desktop, that screwed my Xfce & after 2 days of continuous efforts to “fix” few “unknown” things, I had to uninstall one Ubuntu WSL that had a fully functional WordPress instance :(

So, I decided to learn how to backup a functional WSL, so that if something goes wrong, I can restore & continue

I’ve ready at few places that Windows 10 version 1903 comes with WSL backup functionality out of the box. Until you decide to upgrade your box to 1903, you may use the below for backing up your dear WSL instance.

I came across a pretty decent thread here & a user Jaime’s answer is the apt ONE, missing only few details like /tmp folder.

Make a tar ball as mentioned by Jaime

# cd /
# sudo tar vzcpf /mnt/c/tmp/ubuntu_`date +%Y%m%d_%H`.tar.gz --exclude=/proc --exclude=/dev --exclude=/mnt --exclude=/media --exclude=/lost+found  --exclude=/tmp --exclude=/sys  --exclude=/run / > /mnt/c/tmp/ubuntu_`date +%Y%m%d_%H`.log 2> /mnt/c/tmp/ubuntu_`date +%Y%m%d_%H`.error

Where /mnt/c is C:\> drive of your Windows Machine. You may change /mnt/c/ to /mnt/d/ or /mnt/e/, based on how your partitions are laid. Closely watch the excluded directories. You MUST exclude them.

My tar ball was around 1.5GB in size & I moved the tar ball to another machine which didn’t have WSL activated.

First you have to enable Window Subsystem for linux from Turn Windows Features on or off (If you are not restoring the backup to same Windows Machine). This will ask you to restart your Windows Machine.

Copy the tar ball to a folder, say, D:\wsl

Download launcher.exe from https://github.com/yuk7/wsldl

Copy launcher.exe to D:\wsl

If you are going to restore a Ubuntu 18.04 WSL rename launcher.exe to Ubuntu1804.exe & rename your tar ball to rootfs.tar.gz

Open an elevated command prompt & switch to D:\wsl

and just execute, for example “Ubuntu1804.exe”

It will take a while for the installation to complete. As the superuser thread states, it installs and opens the WSL for you. From next time, all you need to do is to start Ubuntu1804.exe & your WSL instance is up and running!

However, I had an issue with the restored instance. It was related to missing /tmp folder. I found a solution for it with nixcraft article.

https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/mysqld-innodb-error-unable-to-create-temporary-file/

Prior trying to start any sevices, those you were using with your backed up instance, make sure you create the /tmp folder like below

$sudo chown root:root /tmp
$sudo chmod 1777 /tmp

Now, try to start your services, start xrdp & enjoy!

regards,

rajesh

Windows Subsystem for Linux | WSL | Ubuntu 18.04 with Xfce & Xrdp

Hello guys

As many of us know, starting from Windows 10 1803, Microsoft has made Windows subsystem for Linux running in the background even after the console windows are closed.

Definitely this is a gain for those developers who want to have a Linux environment available always, regardless whether the console windows open or not. My requirements towards the same is pretty limited, as I have live Linux systems for almost all my experiments. However, was never less motivated to explore the WSL environments.

Last time I posted a thread about installing and configuring Ubuntu 18.04 WSL and setting up apache, MySQL.

This time we will see how you could enhance your Ubuntu 18.04 WSL with a proper GUI (Desktop environment). I am sure, majority of the Windows users will appreciate a GUI to interact with Linux against the Linux geeks who prefer command line interactions. In addition, few editors like geany or gedit ONLY could be used in a GUI environment.

We will be using Xfce (light weight desktop manager) & XRDP to achieve the GUI requirements on Ubuntu 18.04 WSL

Fire up your Ubuntu 18.04, and update the instance to the latest

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade

This could take a while to complete depending upon your internet connection speed

Once the update & upgrade finished, we will install both Xfce & Xrdp in a single session

sudo apt install xfce4 xrdp

The installation should be pretty smooth and within few minutes everything should complete. Not a single attempt from my end failed to install both Xfce or Xrdp

Once the installation is over, we MUST make sure that the XRDP doesn’t use port 3389 which is used by Microsoft RDP (in case if your Windows 10 is already configured for RDP). Hence we will edit the XRDP configuration file with a different port, in our case 3390

sudo vi /etc/xrdp/xrdp.ini

Change the port from 3389 to 3390 & save the file.

Now we will try start the XRDP service

rajesh@rt04:~$ sudo service xrdp start
* Starting Remote Desktop Protocol server [20190509-12:13:49] [DEBUG] Testing if xrdp can listen on 0.0.0.0 port 3390.
[20190509-12:13:49] [DEBUG] Closed socket 6 (AF_INET6 :: port 3390)
[ OK ]
rajesh@rt04:~$

That’s it

Open Remote Desktop Connection from your Windows Machine & log on!

Supply your WSL username and password. You can use ONE of the existing WSL usernames, in case if your WSL have more than one user.

One of the main issues I found using Xfce4 was few goodies like print screen should be installed by the user prior screenshot capturing could be made (I took screenshots from the remote session & copied them to Windows for this post). This will include adding new keyboard shortcut keys.

We’ll quickly see how to resolve the above said

First install missing “xfce4-screenshooter”

sudo apt install xfce4-screenshooter -y

Once the package installation finished, we will define a new keyboard shortcut that binds “Print Screen” physical button on the keyboard to Xfce4 screenshot shooter package.

Launch Applications -> Settings -> Keyboard

and using the “Add” button, Create a new shortcut. Xfce4 supports different switches to be used with screenshooter package. I’m using the “-f”, for full screen captures.

Be careful when you define the keyboard shortcuts. There is a space between the command and switches, for example

xfce4-screenshooter -f

There is a space between xfce4-screenshooter & the switch “-f”. Once after entering the command and pressing OK will ask you to tap the physical keyboard button that you want to bind with the command. Tap “PrtScr” or other button of your choice & that’s all. Your screen capture should work now.

So why one would even need a GUI over WSL. Well, my answer is short. I always dealt with systems those came with GUI. Many business applications could only be installed over a GUI equipped system. Plus, I am not a geek & after hundreds of attempts I cannot deal with a console based editor like VIM. I feel comfortable with geany/gedit than feeling geeky at mind.

Cheers guys, now your WSL have a GUI. Start think about what YOU can’t do with WSL!

Happy developing!

regards,

rajesh

Oracle Application R12 | The Function Is Not Available Under The Responsibility

Hello guys

It looks like I am getting something new everyday to blog…the latest is from Oracle Application R12 once after I added a new responsibilities to few users.

The Functions those are listed under new responsibility from the HTML page will not launch, instead a popup window appears with the statement “The Xyz Function Is Not Available Under The abcd Responsibility”

I recently had a nightmare with a custom form, that was revamped almost after 6 years of usage. Although the compiling on Production instance doesn’t have any issues, only portions of the form would load & the only few elements displayed were totally misaligned and the cells looked like just a plain straight line…

After many failed attempts, I tried to clear the cache, which we didn’t from a long time. The culprit was the cache. After releasing the cache, I recompiled the form & everything was fine.

With the above issue also, our issue was with the cache. After releasing the cache, the users were able to launch the form from the HTML page itself. If, this didn’t resolve your issues, have a look here

https://knoworacle.wordpress.com/2012/11/03/the-function-is-not-available-under-the-responsibility/

regards,

rajesh

Oracle E-Business Suite | Should you clone on your desktop using Virtual Machine?

Hello guys

A long thread name? Well the topic is vast, hence the long name. I’ve been dealing with Oracle EBS or applications R12 from last 9 years. Initially I was ONLY developing for the new infrastructure, that gradually changed to taking care of the whole instance.

Painfully, however definitely I did familiarize myself with Linux (RHEL) & the database, exposing myself to building systems with copies of EBS running for development & testing.

Our instance is approximately 650GB as on date, including both application stack and database & a cold backup is hardly 125GB in tar balls. I have attempted & succeeded to build the cloned instances on my home desktop machine many times, however the performance was a huge issue, forcing me to discard the setups quite often.

This time, I decided NOT to discard as my new desktop at home is a beast compared to my previous machine, that was neither less a best ;) & to figure out “something” that will address the “performance” bottleneck.

I created a new VM using Oracle VirtualBox with following specs

6 processors, 20GB memory & 2 fixed size VDI files (120GB, 600GB) respectively for application and database repositories. I was aware of a limitation already, I was setting up the VDI files on a Western Digital Green series 2TB drive! which spins at 5400RPM!

Well, everything went smooth & and I had the instance up and running in couple of hours time & this time, the response of the instance was awesome. I even boasted about finally winning over the “biatch” to my team & sat back feeling “too proud” for the moment.

Next day (Month End 30th April 2019)

I am all excited after figuring out a way to flush GNOME desktop environment & replace it with Xfce & new tricks…

Started the VM at home, started the EBS instance and tried to access the instance from the same machine. I couldn’t even get the login page…something was gravely wrong. I decided to check the performance monitor and found the following:

Slowly I was forced to recognize the terror! The Standard Concurrent manager was configured to process 25 requests at the same time with a cache of 5 & 30 seconds sleep between the requests. Our month end has a number of scheduled jobs + Gather schema statistics in the queue. My VM was breaking up with the I/O. My 2TB storage oriented disk was NOT spinning fast enough to provide the data for the processes & I was left with the BIGGEST question of the hour “Now what?”

I stopped the Concurrent manager, adjusted the processes to 5 for Standard manager & restarted the instance. Left the instance running whole night and 1st May morning, the instance was back to normal performance as whole the scheduled jobs were finished during the night.

Next day I added one 1TB SSD & moved the application & database VDI files over to it. I was able to get the login screen within 2-3 seconds once after the application started from the VM. I submitted number of create accounting and other resource hungry jobs, which were completed in few seconds time…

Now, my setup is ONLY for the sake of it. It doesn’t have many users, it is idle most of the time & almost every day I shutdown the desktop machine after a day’s usage. This might not be the scenario at a real TEST environment. You may need to implement archive logging & RMAN, those all requiring more space & faster access to storage. A Desktop has less resources & the ONLY positive element you are going to live with is the pleasure of building it & knowledge gained while fixing few new issues.

So, can you build a performance oriented R12 using Desktop environment, the short answer is yes. Does it worth the efforts? Well, definitely YOU are the ONE who have to answer it.

Follow the space & soon I will post a thread explaining the entire exercises. If you are in a hurry, you may refer this

The above article loosely explains how to clone R12 instance on Linux 7. However the same could be followed for Linux 6 as well (both RHEL & OEL)

regards,

rajesh

 

Gmail | How to always open “English” interface

I’m always using FireFox browser with no history saved. This potentially helps me from the browser “Remembering” my “hostile” activities.

As I live in Kuwait, this has a downside. Google decided to launch the local language page (Arabic) as soon as I try any of the Google applications like search or email.

I don’t pretty much care about the search part, as soon as the results are loaded, I am given an option to switch the language to English.

However, the email thing is NOT that easy. I have scroll few kilometers down, do a guess work with the language drop down and again on the login page, have to select English as language.

Recently I did some minor adjustments with the URL & figured out a short link that will definitely load the English Gmail logon screen ;)

https://accounts.google.com/signin/v2/identifier?service=mail&hl=en

This link is effective as on today (2nd May 2019). Please don’t visit this page after few years & complain about it is not working.

regards,

Oracle Application R12 | Error: Missing ormi[s] host port

Hello guys

One of the most awkward things that keeps on happening in my life is, I land on my posts/comments those were posted years back, which were definite solutions to few perplexing situations like “Error: Missing ormi[s]://<host>:<port>”

Year 2015, I posted a comment with the below thread

https://aboutsoa.wordpress.com/2009/06/22/error-missing-ormishostport/

explaining a possible solution to the error in attention…but I missed it.

Few days back I was setting up a VM with Oracle Applcations R12 to test SSD based storage device & landed on the same error! I didn’t have a clue…last four days I was going through each every other notes those I made, was scavenging through tones of blog posts and Oracle support documents, trying out suggestions to overcome the error below:

Executing service control script:
…../admin/scripts/adoacorectl.sh stop
Timeout specified in context file: 100 second(s) 

script returned:
****************************************************
ERROR : Timed out( 100000 ): Interrupted Exception

You are running adoacorectl.sh version 120.13

We had our Oracle Application R12 implemented on RHEL 5 & later cloned the same instance on Oracle Linux 6 for TESTs. One of the major differences between RHEL 5 & 6 was the native support for IPV6 with Linux 6. Not just R12, many Oracle products WERE/ARE not yet completely compatible with IPV6 & the first thing geeks ask you to do is to disable IPV6 (Even today!)

I did, trust me I did it on the interface, I did it in the sysctl.conf & wherever possible & still had the same ormi error, whenever I tried to shutdown the application services. The temporary solution was to re-run the stop all script & finally the script completes with “0” error.

I was NOT happy & I wanted my instance to shutdown gracefully, over a single attempt. I “knew” that Oracle was very sensitive to Network stack, a screwed up hostfile, DNS, firewall…anything that is related to network could cause these kind of issues. So I decided to go through each one of them. So, first was the hosts file.

The default /etc/hosts file from Linux 6 has the entries like below

127.0.0.1 localhost localhost.localdomain localhost4 localhost4.localdomain4

::1 localhost localhost.localdomain localhost6 localhost6.localdomain6

When Linux 5 have | Glad that I had a machine to cross check

127.0.0.1 localhost.localdomain localhost

::1 localhost6.localdomain6 localhost6

Immediately I decided to give it a try, I chopped the unnecessary strings from the hosts file & started the application tier & tried to shutdown!

That was it, no more
“Error: Missing ormi[s]://<host>:<port>”

No hacking of the Context files or disabling the IPV6 protocol is required, which could complicate SSH tunnel etc (as per Linux guys, I am not a Linux guy yet ;) in those means)

So, now you have a working solution, you have your IPV4 & IPV6 both enabled & an instance shuts down as you expect. Well, party time guys!

regards,

rajesh