Copyright © 2004, 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.
Oracle, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, and Siebel are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.
Release
10.1.3.3
Part No. E10410-01
July 2007
This document contains the following topics:
These release notes describe known issues and workarounds for Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher release 10.1.3.3. For installation information, consult the Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher Install Guide, which is available on the Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher install media and on the Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher Web site:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/xml-publisher/index.html
These release notes are organized into the following sections:
Documentation Accessibility
These release notes are updated periodically as new information becomes available. To ensure that you are reading the latest version of the release notes, check the Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher Web site:
http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/xml-publisher/index.html
After extended use, the BI Publisher Web UI may enter a state in which the top header frame colors appear reversed (blue screen objects appear white); however, the navigation links remain white. Therefore you may not be able to see
Welcome, <username> Preferences Sign Out Help
To correct this problem, restart the browser.
The Java SE Development Kit (JDK) 5.0 version 1_5_0_7 contains a bug that impacts the performance of BI Publisher.
To correct this problem, upgrade to JDK 5.0 update 11 (1_5_0_11). You can download this update from:
http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index_jdk5.jsp
Starting with version 10.1.3.2.1 if the administrator has not correctly configured the BI Publisher scheduler, the Schedules tab and the Schedule buttons will be disabled even when the user has the XMLP_SCHEDULER role. To enable the Schedules tab and the Schedule button, you must configure and install the Scheduler tables. See the topic: Configuring the Scheduler Database in the Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher Installation Guide.
When performing an advanced install into an existing ORACLE_HOME a runtime error will occur if a space character is in the directory name of the selected ORACLE_HOME. This is a limitation of the Oracle Universal Installer (OUI) version 10.1.0.6.0 used for BI Publisher 10.1.3.3. The directory name is not validated before installation, thereby allowing installation to proceed. However, the runtime error will be encountered, which will require you to cancel the installation.
To work around this issue, choose an ORACLE_HOME directory name that does not include a space character.
If you encounter either of the following errors when using Discoverer Worksheets in your report data model:
500 Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
or Error 501
It is possible that the HTTP server where BI Publisher is running is timing out before the Discoverer Web service returns the data from the worksheet. If that is the case, you can correct this problem by increasing the values of Timeout and KeepAliveTimeout in the file:
<Oracle_Home>\Apache\Apache\conf\httpd.conf For example you can change the following values:
Timeout 7200
KeepAliveTimeout 150to
Timeout 10000
KeepAliveTimeout 300If you are running the BI Publisher server on a Linux or Unix machine that does not have an X Server installed reports that contain images may not be properly generated.
Workaround: If you are running Java 1.4.2 or later, start the environment with a headless implementation. Specify the following property at the java command line:
-Djava.awt.headless=true For JDK versions prior to 1.4.2 please see your documentation on how to implement X Host for your environment.
If your report file name contains multibyte characters and you download the report by selecting the Report Actions icon then clicking Download this report, the file names in the generated zip file will be invalid. This is due to a Java bug (details available from the Sun Developer Network). Consequently, the downloaded report zip file cannot be uploaded back to the BI Publisher server. To workaround this issue, use only ASCII characters in file names.
Because the encoding of multibyte character file names is dependent on the operating system and locale of the runtime environment, BI Publisher cannot support multibyte characters in file names. To workaround this issue, use only ASCII characters in file names.
Oracle BI Publisher does not support column-level time zone settings applied in BI Presentation Services. BI Publisher reports that use BI Answers requests with column-level time zone settings may result in different dates displayed in BI Presentation Services and BI Publisher. This is not an issue for reports without column-level time zone settings as long as the User Time Zone setting for BI Publisher and BI Presentation Services is the same.
If you wish to use external Web Services or HTTP data sources and your BI Publisher server is set up behind a firewall or requires a proxy to access the internet, then you must configure Oracle Containers for J2EE (OC4J), or your supported J2EE application server to be aware of the proxy.
For OC4J, update the <Oracle_Home>\oc4j\bin\oc4j.cmd file. Locate the following line:
rem JVMARGS
set JVMARGS=-Djava.library.path=C:\oracle\bi\server\Bin;C:\oracle\bi\web\bin -DSAROOTDIR=C:\oracle\bi -DSADATADIR=C:\oracle\bidata -XX:MaxPermSize=128m -Xmx512m %OC4J_JVM_ARGS%and update with the following string:
-Dhttp.proxyHost=<proxy.mycompany.com> -Dhttp.proxyPort=80so the result will be:
rem JVMARGS
set JVMARGS=-Dhttp.proxyHost=<proxy.mycompany.com> -Dhttp.proxyPort=80 -Djava.library.path=C:\oracle\bi\server\Bin;C:\oracle\bi\web\bin -DSAROOTDIR=C:\oracle\bi -DSADATADIR=C:\oracle\bidata -XX:MaxPermSize=128m -Xmx512m %OC4J_JVM_ARGS%For other application servers, consult your documentation.
The RC4 algorithm is less secure than newer algorithms such as AES and is not recommended for use in new applications. However, the RC4 algorithm is the only supported encryption algorithm for Adobe Acrobat 6.0. Support for AES encryption for Adobe Acrobat 7.0 and higher versions is planned for future releases of Oracle BI Publisher.
This issue has no workaround.
It is strongly recommended that you enable HTTPS on the middle tier hosting the Web services as the trusted username/password that is passed can be intercepted. This also pertains to Web services that are used for communication between BI Publisher and Oracle BI Presentation Services and between Oracle BI Publisher and Oracle BI Discoverer.
If you receive errors when making calls to a Web service that is protected via Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) (that is, uses https://), you may need to export the certificate from the Web server hosting the Web service and import it into the java keystore on the machine running BI Publisher. An example error might be: "SSL received a record that exceeded the maximum permissible length.”
This step should not be required if the server certificate is linked to some certificate authority (such as Verisign) -- the default java keystore can handle that. But if the Web service server is using some self-generated certificate (for example, in a testing environment), then it is required.
If your system is SSO-enabled, you must modify your mod_osso.conf file to disable SSO to allow Web service communication between BI Publisher and its client components: the Template Builder and the Excel Analyzer. To open up the xmlpserver to allow the Web services, enter the following directives in the mod_osso.conf file:
<Location /xmlpserver/services/>
require valid-user
AuthType Basic
Allow from All
Satisfy any
</Location>
<Location /xmlpserver/report_service/>
require valid-user
AuthType Basic
Allow from All
Satisfy any
</Location>
<Location /xmlpserver/ReportTemplateService.xls/>
require valid-user
AuthType Basic
Allow from All
Satisfy any
</Location>
For the complete procedure for setting up BI Publisher with Oracle Single Sign-On, see the topic: "Setting Up Oracle Single Sign-On" in the Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher User's Guide.
If you are using Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or 7 over SSL (that is, https://) you will not be able to open PDF or other binary documents. This is an Internet Explorer issue that results when the header "Cache-Control: No Cache" is present in an HTTP response. For more information see the following Microsoft documents:
Internet Explorer file downloads over SSL do not work with the cache control headers
Prevent caching when you download active documents over SSL
For Oracle Application Server deployments, you can workaround this issue by modifying the mod_osso.conf file as follows:
Locate the following entry:
<Location /xmlpserver>
require valid-user
AuthType Basic
</Location>Modify this entry as follows:
<Location /xmlpserver>
require valid-user
AuthType Basic
OssoSendCacheHeaders off
Header unset Pragma
Header unset Cache-Control
Header unset Vary
</Location>For non-Oracle Application Server deployments, please see the Microsoft documents noted above for possible resolutions that can be implemented in your environment as well as your application server documentation for information on turning off the "Pragma" and "Cache-Control" HTTP header properties.
If you are using a clustered environment, and you have a CUPS server implemented as a delivery option with no other printers defined, you may not see your CUPS Server as a delivery option.
To workaround this problem, add a real or dummy printer destination by creating an entry in the Admin > Delivery > Printer interface.
The user guide contains the "Row Formatting" topic that describes how to set the background color on alternate rows in a tabular report. This description works for PDF output only. In HTML, RTF, and Excel output formats, the alternate rows do not show the background color. In these output formats, all the rows appear with a white background.
This issue has no workaround.
Microsoft Word provides a Page Setup option for specifying the margin for the headers and footers from the edge of the page. This option is available by choosing the File menu, then Page Setup, then the Margins tab, and the From edge box. This margin setting is not retained when the output format is RTF. The output is created with the default margin settings instead. The margin settings do work correctly for other output formats such as HTML, PDF, and Excel.
This issue has no workaround.
When viewing a report layout that has a chart in Excel output, you may not see the chart and only see a small icon in the place where you expect to see the chart.
To workaround this problem, you must unblock security on image URLs as follows:
Open WEB-INF/web.xml.
Find the following block:
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>SecurityFilter</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/xdo/tmp/*</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>Change the <url-pattern> element as shown:
<filter-mapping>
<filter-name>SecurityFilter</filter-name>
<url-pattern>/xdo/tmp/*.tmp</url-pattern>
</filter-mapping>Note that by relaxing this security policy as described above, any HTTP session can access and view these images without authentication. Although random numbers are used for image file names, it poses some risk to allow someone to write a program to explore dynamic images (charts and graph) used by BI Publisher HTML reports.
As Oracle XDK conforms to XSL standards for IEEE 754, you might encounter rounding issues when adding numbers that are decimals. For example, suppose you add 13683.80 and 516.39, using this syntax in Oracle BI Publisher:
<?13683.80 + 516.39?>
The value returned is 14200.189999999999 which is caused by a limitation based on the IEEE 754 Binary Floating-Point-Arithmetic.
To work around this issue, use the format-number function or the round syntax as shown here to obtain a return value of 14200.19:
<?format-number:(13683.80 + 516.39);'D99'?>
or
<?(round((13683.80 + 516.39)*100) div 100)?>
When you design a PDF template with repeatable fields, the output in portrait mode is correctly formatted. However, when the same report is created in landscape mode, the table headers are correct but the following occurs:
Repeating line information (that is, each data field in the iteration) rotates by 90 degree.
The repeating lines spread across in a horizontal direction from right to left instead of top to bottom in a vertical direction.
This issue has no workaround.
If your data source is concatenated XML from multiple SQL queries, the XML data will not load properly to the Template Builder from the direct connection to the BI Publisher server.
To workaround this issue, after building your data model, generate sample data and save it to an accessible directory. Use the Template Builder's load data function (Oracle BI Publisher > Data > Load Sample XML Data) to load the report data to the Template Builder. For more information on using the Template Builder in disconnected mode, see the Oracle Business Intelligence Publisher User's Guide.
If you are working in multiple languages, to show and input the text on the Template Builder dialogs correctly, you must set your operating system regional settings for the target language. To set the Regional and Language Options:
From the Control Panel choose Regional and Language Options.
Click the Advanced tab.
Under Language for non-Unicode programs, select the appropriate language from the list.
The Template Builder does not support other languages than those available from your system regional settings.
Flash templates require Adobe Flash Player 9. Currently the Flash Player 9 is not available for FireFox on Solaris. Until Flash Player 9 is released for this platform, Flash templates cannot be viewed on Solaris. This issue has no workaround.
The Oracle Business Intelligence New Features Guide contains detailed descriptions of the following new features in this release of Oracle BI Publisher:
Template Builder Enhancements
Flash Templates
PowerPoint Output
Integration with Oracle BI Discoverer
Performance Improvements
Converting Reports from Oracle Reports to BI Publisher
Support for Digital Signatures in PDF Documents
Support for PostScript Printers
This guide is included in the documentation library delivered with Oracle BI Publisher.
Additional new features are included in this release that are not documented in the Oracle Business Intelligence New Features Guide. Those features are listed here with some descriptions. Documentation for these features will be added to this Release Notes document soon. Please see the BI Publisher page on OTN for the latest version of this document: http://www.oracle.com/technology/products/xml-publisher/index.html.
Features include:
Report Definition Features
BI Publisher's data template data source now provides native support for BLOB, CLOB, long and raw data types.
When defining parameters for your report, if you select Menu as your parameter type, you now have the option under the "Can select all" check box to choose between "Null value passed" and "All values passed". Previously, selection "all" passed a null value by default.
Properties added to the Runtime Configuration page:
RTF Output: Default Font - enter the default font name and size (for example: Arial:12) to use when no font is defined. This is particularly useful to control the sizing of empty table cells in generated reports.
HTML Output: Use percentage width for table columns - set this property to True to render table columns according to a percentage value of the total width of the table rather than as a value in points.
FO Processing:
Disable external references - a "True" setting (default) disallows the importing of secondary files such as subtemplates or other XML documents during XSL processing and XML parsing. This increases the security of your system. Set this to "False" if your report or template calls external files.
FO Parsing Buffer Size - (default 1,000,000) sets the size of the buffer for the FO Processor. When the buffer is full, the elements from the buffer will be rendered in the report. Reports with large tables or crosstabs may require a larger buffer to properly render those objects in the report. Increase the size of the buffer at the report-level for these reports. Note that increasing this value will affect the memory consumption of your system.
RTF Template Enhancements
Report Viewing and Output Features
Support for comma-separated value (CSV) output - CSV is supported as an output for any report with a simple <rowset>/<row> data structure.
Views created in the online Analyzer can be saved as templates.
When in View mode, you will now see "Link to this Report" displayed on the page. This enables you to capture the URL of the currently viewed report. The Link to this Report selection has four options:
Current Page
No Header
No Parameters
Document Only
Administration Feature
For the LDAP security model, a new property, Group Retrieval Size, has been added. This enables support of the LDAPv3 control extension for simple paging of search results. By default, pagination is not used. If this property is provided then the value determines the number of results to return on a page (for example, 200).
Your LDAP server must support control type 1.2.840.113556.1.4.319 to support this feature, such as OID 10.1.4. See your LDAP server documentation for information on support of this control type. For more information about LDAP pagination and the required control type, see the article: RFC 2696 LDAP Control Extension for Simple Paged Results Manipulation.
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Copyright © 2004, 2007, Oracle. All rights reserved.
Oracle, JD Edwards, PeopleSoft, and Siebel are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.