Getting 'Referenced Catalog Object Inaccessible' after dahsboard migration

Gianni Ceresa

Hi Charles,

So I assume all the objects works fine and your issues is "just" that between the 2 environments the paths aren't the same.

If the objects doesn't work (you can't open them etc.) you have other issues (probably related to security).

To make it more clear why you have this behaviour when deploying something in a different path: OBIEE use full path to reference objects. Even if your report and dashboard prompts are inside the dashboard folder or just next to it, the reference will always be a full absolute path. Relative paths doesn't work. OBIEE objects (dashboard pages) are XML files, and it's there inside that the absolute paths are included.

As Pedro said I would also suggest you do not rename any folder to match the name of UAT, mainly because it's PROD and you must be crazy if you start renaming folders in PROD like that. Sure it's highly advised you align paths between UAT and PROD, but you do the change in UAT. The option ArijitC suggested (with the "preserve reference" checkbox) is like creating a symbolic link if you think at a linux filesystem. It means all your objects will be accessible by using 2 different paths. This isn't a solution on the medium long term, it's just a quickfix if you are desperate an evening waiting for a clean fix.

As already said above if you edit your dashboard pages and re-link all the objects inside the problem is solved. If you have tons of objects there could be a super quick option: "XML Search & Replace" (in the Tools menu of Catalog Manager). By using this you can search for the UAT path and replace it by the PROD path in all your freshly unarchived objects.

The issue is that there is no "undo" option, you must be 400% sure you selected only the folder where you unarchived your content, you must be sure you wrote the UAT path correctly and the PROD one too. Another thing to be sure: you search & replace values which are specific enough to avoid replacing other things in your objects (for example do not search "Reports" and replace it by "Folder" as you have chances to replace the word "Folder" in other things and not only paths). If you are sure to have a backup of your catalog and you feel comfortable in using it to rollback if you destroy more than you fix you can try to search "/shared/... BI Reports/" and replace by "/shared/... BI Folder/".

Again: XML Search & Replace is powerful and dangerous in the same time, be sure of what you do ... Fixing your dashboard by hand is longer, annoying but safer.

And tell your devs to rename their UAT paths to match 1:1 PROD !!

PS: you posted a screenshot of a MOS document in the public forum, theoretically it's something which can be an issue (because MOS are resources you have to pay a support to have access) as it's forbidden to post MOS content in public forum. You better avoid it in the future, just to avoid issues

Charles M

Hi Gianni,

Thanks for the reply, very good explanation for this. I still haven't been able to edit the dashboards in the right way as of yet. There are 8 pages altogether. I have tried dragging & dropping the objects from the catalog back to the editor, but the warning still doesn't go away. Not sure what I am doing wrong. I do recall that this was how the current, working dashboards were "fixed".

I did remove that MOS screenshot ... sorry about that  .

Regards,

Charles

Pedro F

Hi Charles,

That's weird. If you have objects in a dashboard page, ultimately, if you remove all of them and add them all again directly from the catalog, there should be no reason for you to have those warnings anymore.

Can you provide some more screenshots of what you're doing? How the dashboard page looks when you start editing it, how you're putting the object there again and how it looks once you're done editing the page.

Charles M

Hi Pedro. Thanks ... I will put together a posting with my steps.

Charles

Charles M

Here is an example:

"Count of Invoices" page

Original view, after un-archiving:

First view of the page editor:

Opening the corresponding catalog items:

Placing each object directly below the existing:

Deleting the original, after:

Saving:

Hit 'Run':

Still the same ...

Charles

Pedro F

Hi Charles,

I see the problem now. You're re-adding the object directly from the dashboard page itself, so you're basically adding the same thing there so if the object already has an invalid reference, you're adding the same thing there, it won't work.

What you need to do is, for example, find out where that object (dashboard prompt) "Oracle Fusion - NPNP Prompt" is located and add it from the folder where the object is stored in the catalog. That will solve your issue and you won't have invalid references.

Charles M

Thanks Pedro. I was not able to find the objects in the production instance. I did see them in the UAT environment, so I migrated that folder over as well. Now, I am able to view/interact with these dashboards (using the method discussed here)! The initial testing looks good.

I'd like to thank everyone who contributed here. It was all very helpful and insightful!! There are so many facets to this application, I am happy to be learning more about each component.

Respectfully,

Charles