OBIEE 12c (12.2.1.3) post upgrade challenges - unable to save HTML based dashboard reports

Very recently, an OBIEE v12.2.1.1 upgraded to v12.2.1.3 on an Exalytics machine. Though it wasn't a major upgrade, we had to do it to fix some bugs encountered in v12.2.1.1. For sure, it wasn't a easy walk in the park during the upgrade and post upgrade.

I am here to discuss a particular issue we faced post upgrade. This should be interesting.

Post upgrade to v12.2.1.3, we heard from the application team that all the reports working perfectly fine, except the dashboard reports with HTML tag unable to save. The below error was thrown when try to save the existing HTML reports:

"You do not currently have sufficient privileges to save a report or dashboard page that contains HTML markup"

It appeared to be a very generic error, and we tried all the workarounds we found on various websites and Oracle docs. Unfortunately, none of the solution fixed the issues. One of the popular advice is the following:

you need to go and check the HTML markup privileges in Administration.


1. Login with OBIEE Admin user,
2. Go to Administration link - Manage Privileges,
3. Search for "Save Content with HTML Markup" and see if it has necessary privileges. else assign the necessary roles and re-check the issue. 

After giving an additional privilege we could save the existing HTML reports. However, still the issue exists when we create a new dashboard report, with HTML tag. This time the below error msg was appeared:



While doing the research we also opened a SR with Oracle support. Luckily, (I mean it), the engineer who assigned this SR was good enough to catch the issue and provide the solution.

The engineer tried to simulate the issue on his 12.2.1.3 environment and surprisingly he faced the similar problem. He then contacted the OBIEE development team and reaised the above concerns.

A few hours later, he provided us the below workaround, which seems to be a generic solution to the first and second problem we faced. I believe this is a common issue on 12.2.1.3.

Please follow below steps :: Take a backup of Instanceconfig.xml file, which is located in the following location,  <obiee_home>/user_projects/domains/bi/config/fmwconfig/biconfig/OBIPS/instanceconfig.xml  2. Add the following entry under security.  <Security>  <CheckUrlFreshness>false</CheckUrlFreshness>  <EnableSavingContentWithHTML>true</EnableSavingContentWithHTML>  </Security>  3. Restart the presentation services with command below ::  cd /refresh/home/oracle/12c/Oracle_Home/Oracle_Config/bi/bitools/bin ./stop.sh -i obips1  ./start.sh -i obips1  4. Now you will see the "Contains HTML MARK up" in the answers , check it and try to save the report now.

The solution perfectly worked and all HTML dashboard reports were able to save.

If you are on OBIEE 12.2.1.3, I strongly recommend you to test the HTML reports, and if you encounter one similar to ours, apply the workaround.

Database direct upgrade from 11g to 12c to Exadata X6-2 from X5-2 - RMAN DUPLICATE DATABSAE WITH NOOPEN

At one of the customers recently, a few production databases migration from X5-2 to X6-2 with Oracle 11g upgrade to Oracle 12cR1 was successfully delivered.

As we all knew, there are handful of methods available to migrate and upgrade an Oracle databases. Our objective was simple. Migrate Oracle 11g (11.2.0.4) database from X5-2 to Oracle 12c (12.1.0.2) on X6-2.

Since the OS on source and target remains the same, no conversion is required.
There was no issue of downtime, so, doesn't required to be worried of various options.

Considering the above, we have decided to go for a direct RMAN (duplicate command) with NOOPEN option to upgrade the database. You can also use same procedure with RMAN restore/recovery method. But, the RMAN duplicate database with NOOPEN simplified the procedure.

Below is he high level procedure to upgrade an Oracle 11g database to 12cR1 using RMAN DUPLICATE command{

• Copy preupgrd.sql & utluppkg.sql scripts from Oracle 12c ?/rdbms/admin home to 11g to /tmp or any other location;
• Run preupgrd.sql script on the source database (which is Oracle 11gR2 in our case);
• Review preupgrade.log and apply any recommendations; You can also execute preupgrade_fixups script to fix the issues raised in the preupgrade.log;
• Execute RMAN backup (database and archivelog) on source database;
• scp the backup sets to remote host
• Create a simple init file on the target with just db_name parameter;
• Create a password file on the target;
• Startup nomount the database on the target;
• Create TNS entries for auxiliary (target) and primary database (source) on the target host;
• Run the DUPLICATE DATABASE with NOOPEN , with all adjusted / required parameters;
• After the restore and recovery, open the database with resetlogs upgrade option;
• Exit from the SQL prompt and run the catupgrade (12c new command) with parallel option;

on target host:

nohup $ORACLE_HOME/perl/bin/perl catctl.pl -n 8 catupgrd.sql &

After completing the catupgrade, get the postupgrade_fixup script from resource and execute on the target database;
Perform the timezone upgrade;

Gather dictionary, fixed_objects, database and system stats accordingly;
Run ultrp.sql to ensure all invalid objects are compiled;
Review the dba_registry t ensure no INVALID components remain;

Above are the high level steps. If you are looking for a step-by-step procedure, review the below url from oraclepublihser.blogspot.com. We must appreciate for the work done at the blogspot for a very comprehensive procedure and demonstration.


References:

http://oraclepublisher.blogspot.com/2014/06/upgrade-database-to-12c-using-rman.html