You are on page 1of 13

VPRM

Operational Bugs
and Workarounds
VPRM Release 9.8
Issue 22
Disclaimer

1.1 AVEVA does not warrant that the use of the AVEVA software will be uninterrupted, error-free or free from
viruses.

1.2 AVEVA shall not be liable for: loss of profits; loss of business; depletion of goodwill and/or similar losses; loss
of anticipated savings; loss of goods; loss of contract; loss of use; loss or corruption of data or information; any
special, indirect, consequential or pure economic loss, costs, damages, charges or expenses which may be
suffered by the user, including any loss suffered by the user resulting from the inaccuracy or invalidity of any data
created by the AVEVA software, irrespective of whether such losses are suffered directly or indirectly, or arise in
contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise.

1.3 AVEVA's total liability in contract, tort (including negligence), or otherwise, arising in connection with the
performance of the AVEVA software shall be limited to 100% of the licence fees paid in the year in which the
user's claim is brought.

1.4 Clauses 1.1 to 1.3 shall apply to the fullest extent permissible at law.

1.5 In the event of any conflict between the above clauses and the analogous clauses in the software licence
under which the AVEVA software was purchased, the clauses in the software licence shall take precedence.

Copyright

Copyright and all other intellectual property rights in this manual and the associated software, and every part of it
(including source code, object code, any data contained in it, the manual and any other documentation supplied
with it) belongs to, or is validly licensed by, AVEVA Solutions Limited or its subsidiaries.

All rights are reserved to AVEVA Solutions Limited and its subsidiaries. The information contained in this
document is commercially sensitive, and shall not be copied, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted without the prior written permission of AVEVA Solutions Limited. Where such permission is granted, it
expressly requires that this copyright notice, and the above disclaimer, is prominently displayed at the beginning
of every copy that is made.

The manual and associated documentation may not be adapted, reproduced, or copied, in any material or
electronic form, without the prior written permission of AVEVA Solutions Limited. The user may not reverse
engineer, decompile, copy, or adapt the software. Neither the whole, nor part of the software described in this
publication may be incorporated into any third-party software, product, machine, or system without the prior
written permission of AVEVA Solutions Limited, save as permitted by law. Any such unauthorised action is strictly
prohibited, and may give rise to civil liabilities and criminal prosecution.

The AVEVA software described in this guide is to be installed and operated strictly in accordance with the terms
and conditions of the respective software licences, and in accordance with the relevant User Documentation.
Unauthorised or unlicensed use of the software is strictly prohibited.

Copyright 1994 to current year. AVEVA Solutions Limited and its subsidiaries. All rights reserved. AVEVA shall
not be liable for any breach or infringement of a third party's intellectual property rights where such breach results
from a user's modification of the AVEVA software or associated documentation.

AVEVA Solutions Limited, High Cross, Madingley Road, Cambridge, CB3 0HB, United Kingdom.

AVEVA Solutions Ltd, High Cross, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HB, UK
Trademarks
AVEVA and Tribon are registered trademarks of AVEVA Solutions Limited or its subsidiaries. Unauthorised use
of the AVEVA or Tribon trademarks is strictly forbidden.

AVEVA product/software names are trademarks or registered trademarks of AVEVA Solutions Limited or its
subsidiaries, registered in the UK, Europe and other countries (worldwide).

The copyright, trademark rights, or other intellectual property rights in any other product or software, its name or
logo belongs to its respective owner.

AVEVA Solutions Ltd, High Cross, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HB, UK
VPRM Operational Bugs & Workarounds Contents

Contents
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................ 4
GENERAL ...................................................................................................................................... 5
MS Word and Excel Interfaces do not expand labels in headers/footers. ............................ 5
VPRM Label Macro utility will not run correctly in MS Excel 2003........................................ 5
INTERNATIONALISATION ............................................................................................................ 7
Reports containing multi-byte data have incorrect font types and hence contain corrupt data.
............................................................................................................................................ 7
Reports contain corrupt data yet the font types do support the language character set. ...... 7
Function Keys do not behave correctly and Ctrl+K crashes the Form.................................. 7
Linguistic Sorts in Reports do NOT sort as required. ........................................................... 7
SCREENS ...................................................................................................................................... 8
Oracle error when importing large XML file ......................................................................... 8
Workbench Hot Key Access not working ............................................................................. 8
Selecting [X] in Alert boxes causes Unpredictable Results. ................................................. 8
Auto-query not Available from Menu ................................................................................... 8
Buttons may not be disabled in Enter Query mode .............................................................. 8
Use of Enter Key May Cause Incorrect Button to be Pressed.............................................. 8
Cursor focus shifting rows when navigating between Tabs.................................................. 8
Part of Screen Moves Upwards ........................................................................................... 8
Text field has no colour highlight ......................................................................................... 9
Disabled text appears bold .................................................................................................. 9
Fields May Not Show Last Character Of Text ...................................................................... 9
Failure to Upload Files to Web Server ................................................................................. 9
Disappearance of Open File Window .................................................................................. 9
Excel Export/Import or WP Update/WP Return Hang .......................................................... 9
REPORTS .................................................................................................................................... 10
Font size for RTF reports .................................................................................................. 10
Paper size for RTF output reports ..................................................................................... 10
Point Orientation Must Be Set To Portrait .......................................................................... 10
Reports in pdf format bringing up blank screen ................................................................. 10
IT .................................................................................................................................................. 11
Oracle error ORA-1000 maximum open cursors exceeded encountered ........................... 11
VDB DBCheckup lists THE FOLLOWING 8 synonyms in check schema not in local schema
.......................................................................................................................................... 11
FRM-92101 ERRORS ....................................................................................................... 11

Issue 22 i
VPRM Operational Bugs & Workarounds Introduction

Introduction
This guide details known bugs (and workarounds to them) that are applicable to the operation (as
opposed to the functionality) of VPRM. Generally speaking, they are as a consequence of
shortcomings contained in the Microsoft or Oracle software on which VPRM depends, and will be
fixed in a future release of that Oracle software.

All users and IT support personnel should be aware of these problems and the solutions to them.

Issue 22 4
VPRM Operational Bugs & Workarounds General

General

MS Word and Excel Interfaces do not expand labels in headers/footers.


It is not possible to automatically replace VPRM "labels" placed in a header or footer with the
appropriate text from the database. This is a registered bug in MS Word and Excel although there is
no published fix schedule.

VPRM Label Macro utility will not run correctly in MS Excel 2003.
When running the VPRM Label Macro in Microsoft Excel 2003 for the first time (in any Excel session
running within the Internet Explorer) the following Error message is generated;
Invalid document name must be xxxxx.<doc_type>xx.XLS (where doc_type is F,P,Q,R or S)
Simply running the VPRM Label macro again will perform its function correctly. This is a registered
bug in MS Excel although there is no published fix schedule.
VPRM Label buttons disappear if VPE Interface wizard is installed also.
The workaround... is to add the VPRM Label button to any other toolbar than the Standard one.
Every time I try that, it works fine. But every time I make a change in Excel to the Standard toolbar,
the VPE Interface Wizard then undoes it.

VPRM Will not launch any of the modules when you hit the module button even when
popup blocker is disabled in IE.
Google menu bar popup blocker is blocking, click on the blocked popups icon and allow popups
from webserver.

Windows 7 - VPRM Module not running up.


This is because of UAC. The dll's (webutil etc) are not being copied in to the java bin folder.
The solution is to start IE as administrator (start>all programs>right-click Internet Explorer>Run as
Administrator).
This only needs to be done once (to get the dlls copied) then you can run IE as normal.
Oracle are working on a fix for this.

When you open a new window on the Web Client the window's title bar shows the
URL of the page rather than the name of the Form\Application.
This issue is not specific to any Tools Release Or INI Setting, rather it depends on Internet
Explorer(IE) parameters.
There is a security setting that allows the window to display the E1 Form name instead of the URL:
Open Internet Explorer
In the Tools/Internet Options/Security tab, go into the specific settings (Custom Level) and choose
to 'Enable' for:
"Allow script-initiated windows without size or position constraints"
Depending on where you are accessing the web client, you need to ensure that the above setting is
' Enabled ' for Local intranet and/or Trusted sites or possibly a different zone, in the IE security

Issue 22 5
VPRM Operational Bugs & Workarounds General

settings.
Restart Internet Explorer and launch the new window, and it should display the Form name instead
of the browser URL.
Note: The same setting is true for Internet Explorer Version 8 (IE8).

Issue 22 6
VPRM Operational Bugs & Workarounds Internationalisation

Internationalisation

Reports containing multi-byte data have incorrect font types and hence contain
corrupt data.
VPRM Reports do not directly support the full Unicode character range, as they where originally
built using a non-Unicode font. The use of a Font Alias file is required that maps the original fonts
to a font that supports the multi-byte character.

Reports contain corrupt data yet the font types do support the language character
set.
Not able to generate a Report containing Multi-byte data? Make sure that the NLS_LANG
parameter is set as <language>_<territory>.UTF8 in the appropriate Servlet section.

Function Keys do not behave correctly and Ctrl+K crashes the Form.
The function key mapping files, fmrwebxx.res; where xx is the country code i.e. fmrwebja.res for
Japanese, supplied by Oracle are configured differently for each language. Take a backup copy of
this file and then overwrite with the default key mappings file frmweb.res. Finally, if desired
translate the content of the frmwebxx.res to the appropriate language.

Linguistic Sorts in Reports do NOT sort as required.


Where given languages support more than one sort algorithm the required linguistic NLS_SORT
should be set in the Servlet section e.g. NLS_SORT = XSPANISH for Spanish.

Issue 22 7
VPRM Operational Bugs & Workarounds Screens

Screens

Oracle error when importing large XML file


Importing large XML files uses memory on the Oracle database server. Where the file is too large,
this may result in an error such as :
ora-4030: out of process memory when trying to allocate 65552 bytes (subheap),
ora06512: at "SYS.XMLTYPE", line 0 ORA-6512: at "ADMIN...
It should be noted that the memory is not released until the VPRM module is exited.
Recommendation is therefore to exit the VPRM module screen after importing a large XML file.

Workbench Hot Key Access not working


The hot keys to access the modules from the VPRM Workbench are not working except for EST
module and the Exit option. Trying to access other modules, Security Exception when accessing a
signed JAVA bean error message is displayed. Users should access the modules using the mouse.

Selecting [X] in Alert boxes causes Unpredictable Results.


When an Alert box requests a user option, Yes, No or Cancel etc., the user should not select the X
button.

Auto-query not Available from Menu


When an attempt is made to turn Auto-query on or off via the checkbox on the menu under Options
an error FRM-41009 Function key not allowed is encountered and Auto-query remains on. To turn
Auto-query on or off use the function key Alt-F5.

Buttons may not be disabled in Enter Query mode


When a screen is in Enter Query mode, buttons may be enabled which are not relevant in Enter
Query mode.

Use of Enter Key May Cause Incorrect Button to be Pressed


This affects a handful of screens containing buttons. The problem occurs when the user, while in a
data field, presses the <ENTER> key in order to move to the next field, but forms behaves as
though a button had been pressed. The workaround is to use the <TAB> key or mouse to move to
the next field, which is in any case the recommended method of moving to the next field.

Cursor focus shifting rows when navigating between Tabs


So far this behaviour has only been noticed in the Expediting Items screen of the Procurement
Module. When the cursor is in the first item of the first tab but not in the first record, and the user
navigates to the second tab using the mouse, the cursor is positioned in the first record. The cursor
can be repositioned in the correct item and record by hitting the tab key.

Part of Screen Moves Upwards


Sometimes when the cursor is positioned into the third record or lower of a multi-row block then the
whole block moves upwards on the screen. This behaviour has been noticed in the VPRM Interface
Audit screen. The correct appearance of the screen can be restored by moving the cursor focus up
the block using the upward arrow key.

Issue 22 8
VPRM Operational Bugs & Workarounds Screens

Text field has no colour highlight


Affects screen DOC0014 and others. When moving to next block, and the block is a multi-row block,
the row is correctly highlighted BUT the item has no colour highlight. This also occurs when
navigating programmatically to another block, and then returning to the original block. The row is
highlighted but the item is not. A mouse click will re-establish the correct functionality.

Disabled text appears bold


When the current row is highlighted, disabled items appear to be enterable.

Fields May Not Show Last Character Of Text


In VPRM, fields are shown using a proportional font. This is consistent with Windows and allows
VPRM to be used in SVGA mode, as well as giving more flexibility during screen design. It has a
drawback in that during development the display size of a field cannot be calculated from a fixed
character call size; each letter has a different width, of which upper case 'W' is the widest.
It would be possible to assume that, say, an 8 character field has to accommodate 8 'W's, however
this approach would result in a very inefficient screen design, with a large amount of wasted space.
We have verified the screens with data that we consider to be as large as one could reasonably
expect to see in a live environment. However it is possible that some fields are not sufficiently wide
to accept a Project's data, for example the last character of a field may not be displayed. This may
be more apparent when using VPRM in SVGA mode, owing to the slightly different font profile.
This is a situation that is easy for us to rectify (assuming there is space on the screen to stretch the
field). In all cases, the problem should be reported as soon as possible to the Helpdesk, who should
be able to quickly supply a modified screen.

Failure to Upload Files to Web Server


In screens which upload files to the web server an error message ERROR : 4569 - Specified file
does not exist in specified folder or failed to upload it to server (error #1) may be received. These
screens include Excel or text file imports and the WP Return facility within the Template Document
and Produce screens. The most likely cause of this error is that a filename was completed in the
Open file browser and the Open button clicked without first navigating the browser to the folder
containing this file. This is rectified by repeating the upload operation, ensuring that the file is
correctly selected from the correct folder.

Disappearance of Open File Window


Whilst selecting a file for upload to the web server using the Open file browser, if the user goes to
another application window and then returns to the VPRM window, using the icons on the Windows
Taskbar, the Open file window is not visible. This is rectified by pressing the Alt-Tab Windows
keys together until the Open file window is selected i.e. the one with the coffee cup (Java) icon.

Excel Export/Import or WP Update/WP Return Hang


This affects Excel Export/Import screens whilst performing an Export or Import and the Template
Documents screen or Produce screens when performing a WP Update or WP Return. The cause
is that the relevant file Excel or Word file is being accessed on a middle tier file server via a drive
mapping rather than a UNC path. The Physical Directory field should be checked in VPRM System
Administration by querying back the MCAT, VDB, EST or project in which the hang occurred using
the appropriate Create/Re-register screen. If Physical Directory begins with a drive mapping (other
than a drive on the web server itself such as c:) it should be amended to the corresponding UNC
path i.e. to begin with \\fileserver_name\ rather than drive_letter:\

Issue 22 9
VPRM Operational Bugs & Workarounds Reports

Reports

Font size for RTF reports


When running reports with destination format as RTF some reports, for example, Despatch
Allocation in the PROC Module, show slight truncation of text items due to the variation in font size
between RTF and PDF format reports. When using the RTF output option, it is advisable for the
user to check the final output carefully.

Paper size for RTF output reports


When reports are output to RTF file, and subsequently opened in Word, the paper size is set to
custom. If it is intended to print the report, it will be necessary to either set the Paper Size in Page
Setup, or to repeatedly use the Continue button on the printer. If the report file is inserted into an
existing Word document, this should not be necessary.

Point Orientation Must Be Set To Portrait


This item concerns the Orientation parameter that is set using the Setup screen from the Windows
Control Panel - Printers icon.
A setting of Portrait is mandatory for VPRM. This allows Oracle Reports to output each report as
either Portrait or Landscape as coded within the report definition.
A setting of Landscape forces all reports to be output as Landscape.

Reports in pdf format bringing up blank screen


Acroreader needs to be registered by running up product on client.

Issue 22 10
VPRM Operational Bugs & Workarounds IT

IT

Oracle error ORA-1000 maximum open cursors exceeded encountered


Occasionally users may get this error when running VPRM. This is because the number of cursors
open on a database increases when a user switches from screen to screen but are not all closed
until the module is closed. If this error occurs infrequently you can simply exit the module and re-
execute. If however this problem is encountered frequently the DBA should increase the init.ora
parameter open_cursors to a greater value. The recommended value is specified in the
Installation Instructions section DBA Guide to VPRM.

VDB DBCheckup lists THE FOLLOWING 8 synonyms in check schema not in local
schema
MCAT_CATALOGUE_PARAMETERS
MCAT_COMODITIES
MCAT_ID_CODESMCAT_ID_CODE_REGISTER
MCAT_ID_GROUPS
MCAT_PARTS
MCAT_SIZE_REFS
MCAT_UNITS_OF_MEASURES
These are synonyms from VDB to MCAT.
Solution is to connect to VDB module, screens, reference data, standard MCAT pricing and specify
an MCAT.

FRM-92101 ERRORS
The error is occurring because Windows has exceeded the capacity of the operating systems Non-
IO Desktop heap resource.
If Using local system account for Oracle Process Manager Service
(See Oracle metalink/My Oracle Support Doc ID: Note:187455.1 for details)
To overcome this issues, the setting below has to change:
Go to Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Services
Select the Oracle Process Manager Service and right click.
Select Properties.
Select the Log On tab.
Check "Allow service to interact with desktop".
Restart the Oracle Process Manager service so that it picks up this change.
OR
If using a Service Domain account for Oracle Process Manager Service then

Issue 22 11
VPRM Operational Bugs & Workarounds IT

Essentially, to overcome this issue, change the heap size in the registry:
From the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE sub tree, go to the following key:
\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\SubSystems
Right mouse click the "Windows" name and click modify.
Find the SharedSection parameter. SharedSection specifies the system and desktop heaps
using the following format:
SharedSection=xxxx,yyyy,zzzz
The default values are 1024,3072,512 all the values are in kilobytes (Kb).
xxxx = System-wide Heapsize. There is no need to modify this value and it is
ignored for the rest of this discussion.
yyyy = IO Desktop Heapsize. This is the heap for memory objects in the IO Desktop.
zzzz = Non-IO Destop Heapsize. This is the heap for memory objects in the Non-IO
Desktop.
Programs that get run as a service or which are spawned from a service fall into the Non-IO
Desktop, and therefore consume memory from that heap.
All other programs, such as those run from an icon or from a command line, or get spawned
from those, consume memory from the IO Desktop heap.
If the Apache / Oracle Process Manager process are started as a service, then the third
value, Non-IO Desktop heap, would have to have been increased.
Change to 5112 Kb for more than 700 users to run concurrently.
If you change these values, you must reboot the system.
The values are recommended to be a multiple of 512, but this isn't necessary.
There is a hard limit of 48 Mb, which is the total heap size for Windows.

Issue 22 12

You might also like