Friday, February 6, 2009

Exporting records from List Applet in Siebel

Debugging an issue, which is completely related to a Vanilla process in Siebel, is really a difficult task. Moreover, I will say that, for this particular issue you won't find anything in Object Manager log, then you might start scratching you head in thinking how should I move further now to debug this issue.


One of our application user was trying taking an export of records from list applet and he was getting "The Page cannot be displayed" error and before this error Siebel screen blinks for sometime along with the export window and user has to forcefully kill the Siebel session. The record count was around 8K and most surprising fact about the issue was when I was trying taking export from my machine for the same exact set of records, it was working fine. I tried on some more machines and I was able to take the export successfully. The question came into my mind : "Is Export record functionality is machine specific??"............ frustration !!!!

==> Export on Dedicated Client was working fine.

==> Export on Thin client from my machine was working fine.

==> Export on Thin client from some more machine (where I tried) was working fine.

==> No clue in the Object Manager log.

==> No Siebel Error on the UI. The error what user was getting : "The Page cannot be displayed".

Now, its the time to do a Screen sharing session with the user and see what exactly is happening.

I asked the user to take the export for around 100 records and see whether export is at all working on his machine or not. And to the surprise, it worked. That means :


1. There is something wrong with the data thats why it is not getting exported.

OR

2. The data size being exported is so huge in size that Siebel cannot handle.


To investigate the first point mentioned above (From User's machine)

a) I prepared a query which will fetch exact records and columns from the database that user wants to export. Ran the query in SQL Developer and exported the data.

b) Scroll into the list applet uptill the last record to check if some junk is stopping the export process. Because if any junk data would have stopping the export process then it would certainly stop in scrolling as well. But what I observed is that, no issues in scrolling uptill the last record.

So, first point metioned above is not the culprit.

To investigate the Second point mentioned above (From User's machine)

While export process, Siebel pulls out data in chunks of 1000 records. Keep that chunk in some temporary space and then pulls the next 1000 records. This is the way it works. So it seems to be issue with less temporary space and its nothing but Internet Temporary File space.

So, to check for it, go to : "IE -> Tools Menu -> Internet Options -> General Tab -> Settings". Check for the size of "Temporary Internet Files Folder" and got surprised when I see that number was only 2 MB. The recommendation is 640 MB.

So, finally we found the culprit and corrected the temporary files folder size to 640 MB and tried taking the export.

And Everything worked fine........ hhhhoooo. Yes. We did it again !!!! Issue closed with resolution :)
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7 comments:

  1. For the first point section b) if I wont be able to scroll data in list applet,what to do.
    How can I identify the junk data in this applet.Its taking to much time to scroll down for every next 10 records in the account list applet.Please suggest me what to do.

    ReplyDelete
  2. @Sanjay.... good question !! The next step you have to take in that case is to identify the exact query which is running at the Siebel Database to fetch the record on the UI. Run the query at database and find out the number of records you are able to scroll in the list applet and check the next set of records, which you are not able to pull on the UI, in the result that you have received from backend query. Lets say, at one time you fetch 10 records on the UI, so just take out the row_ids of the next set of 10 records and do a query on the UI to find out the culprit record. Analyse the data and try to figure it out what could be the problem is. This way you can narrow down the problem to few records and in most of the cases I have found that the problem is due to "Text Length Override" user property. Please refer to :

    http://siebelmantra.blogspot.com/2009/01/error-retrieving-next-record-from.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Gaurav,
    I have a Wierd problem while exporting Account data from Account List Applet to an Excel file, According to the Req, we must Query Insensitive case,
    Query for
    test
    Result Should be
    TEST1
    test2
    Test3
    i Implemented this in the pre query event of the Buscomp by overriding the srch expr to LIKE 'FieldName' it gives me the desired result
    Now the Problem is when i export this, by selecting All rows in a Current Query....
    it Exports Entire records in Account (~= 10,000 Recs) along with this 4 records, Can anybody suggest me what i have to do so that it exports only the Rows of the Current Query..? or How to Capture the Srch Expression which is used by Siebel Export fucntionality??.
    Regards
    Sanjay

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Gaurav,
    This Issue is Resolved, i captured the Query Expression when this Export Happens, i again Overrride the Srch Exprss..phewww... Issue Resolved.
    But thanks for your post it gave me a detail insight..about exporting the data from Siebel..
    Regards
    Sanjay S

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hey Guys,
    Found one more clue, which we need to set to expect the export functionality to work as expected when we are trying to load large volumes of data.
    Select the bullet button for "Automatically" in the following path.
    IE -> Tools Menu -> Internet Options -> General Tab -> Settings". Check for the size of "Temporary Internet Files Folder"
    And test the functionality.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hi Sanjay

    What Search Spec You gave To Export Only The Queried Records ??

    ReplyDelete