Troubleshooting portlets

This section contains information that can assist you in preventing, identifying, and correcting problems related to WebSphere Portal. For information related to specific components, see the appropriate troubleshooting topic.

 

Web Clipping Portlet

The following section lists known problems and solutions related to Web clipping.

 

Web clipping portlet: Needed certificate is missing error

If you attempt to connect to a secure site using the Web clipping portlet and get an error message indicating that the needed certificate is missing, you will need to add a certificate file to correct the problem. Note: These instructions assume that a browser such as Internet Explorer can successfully connect to the site and that it has the root certificate that is needed.

To add the necessary certificate, complete the following steps:

  1. Open a browser, and enter the Web address of the secure site that you are trying to connect to with the Web clipping portlet. After connecting to the site, see the SSL Secured icon displayed in status bar of the browser.
  2. Click File Then click Properties.
  3. Click the Certificates button to display the Certificate dialog box.
  4. Select the Certification Path tab.
  5. Select the topmost root certificate entry in the tree. This is the name of the certificate that you will need to export from the browser.
  6. Click OK to close the dialog box.
  7. Click Tools Then click Internet Options from the main menu of the browser.
  8. Select the Content tab.
  9. Click the Certificates button to display the Certificate dialog box.
  10. Select the Trusted Root Certification Authorities tab.
  11. Select the root that was previously identified.
  12. Click the Export button to open the Certificate Export Wizard dialog.
  13. Click Next in the wizard dialog box.
  14. Select Base-64 encoded X.509 (.CER) as the format to use for the certificate file.
  15. Click Next.
  16. Type the file name that you want to use for the certificate file.
  17. Click Browse, and select the directory to contain the .CER file.
  18. Click Next.
  19. Click Finish.
  20. Copy the .CER file that you created, and place it into the java\jre\lib\security directory, where WebSphere Application Server was installed. For example, if WebSphere Application Server was installed in C:\WebSphere\appserver, the .CER file must be saved in the C:\WebSphere\appserver\java\jre\lib\security directory. To verify that you have located the correct directory, find the cacerts file in the same directory.
  21. Restart WebSphere Application Server, and attempt to connect to the secure site with the Web Clipping portlet again.

 

Problem: SOCKS proxies are not supported for the Web Clipping Editor

Under the Web Clipper Editor Advanced options, there is no option in the Modify firewall options page to differentiate an HTTP proxy from a SOCKS proxy. This is because only HTTP proxies are supported for the Web Clipping Editor.

Solution: When modifying the firewall options for a Web Clipping portlet, use only HTTP proxies for your Proxy hostname and Proxy port.

 

Problem: Dynamic refreshing of existing Web Clipping portlet settings is not supported

When editing or modifying the settings of an existing Web Clipping portlet, the changes are not immediately reflected if it is already running on a page.

Solution: To ensure that your modified Web Clipping portlet settings take effect, restart your portal.

 

Problem: Empty content in the Web Clipping portlet

When clicking on a link in a Web Clipping portlet, you might find that no content appears.

Solution: Ensure that:

  1. The destination of the link is secured.

  2. The URL in the link is valid.

  3. The destination of the link is located in the internet and the proxy setting is correct.

  4. The URL in the link is not redirected.

If you work through those steps and content still does not appear, the problem could be:

  1. The destination of the link contains some functions of Javascript which are not supported by the Web Clipper Editor in this release.

  2. The destination of the link returns applets or embedded objects like Flash which are not supported by the Web Clipper Editor in this release.

 

Problem: When using the Web Clipping Editor through Mozilla, users cannot select HTML images

Mozilla is not supported for creating Web Clipping portlets.

Solution: Use either Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator as your browser when creating Web Clipping portlets.

 

Problem: When using the Web Clipping Editor through Opera, the clear button does not function properly

Opera is not supported for creating Web Clipping portlets.

Solution: Use Microsoft Internet Explorer as your browser when creating Web Clipping portlets.

 

Problem: Receive portlet unavailable error when browsing a portlet created with the Web Clipping Editor

If you have a Web clipped portlet that contains a link which requires a third party authentication certificate, you might receive the following error when following that link: "This portlet is unavailable. If the problem persists, please contact the portal administrator"

Solution: Apply the WebSphere Application Server fix that updates the JSSE code. This fix can be found on the WebSphere Application Server Fix Pack and Fixes disc for your operating system. The fix is as follows:
/manualfixes/WAS_Security_07-07-2003_JSSE_cumulative_Fix.jar

Comments: If users will be clipping content from secure sites using https:// or sites that have links to secure sites using https:// this fix should be applied.

 

Problem: Web Clipping does not work with Machine Translation

If you use a clipping that is in a locale other than the local locale of WebSphere Portal, you get a wrong drop-down translation menu with EnableViewerInitiatedTranslation according to the locale of WebSphere Portal, but not according to the locale of the clipping portlet.

Solution: If you wish to use machine translation to translate the clipping, set the portlet parameter ContentLanguage with the locale of the clipping portlet.

 

Application Portlet Builder

The following section lists known problems and solutions related to the Application Portlet Builder.

 

Problem: Missing or incorrect configuration for JDBC Builder causes error.

You will see the error: No configuration has been entered for this portlet. Click on the configure icon. There are two possible causes:

Solution:

 

Problem: JDBC Portlet Builder creates and runs portlets with invalid user ID and password on Cloudscape.

If you have a Cloudscape data source, you might find that an invalid user ID and password for the JDBC Portlet Builder and Portlet runtime (login) will not prevent you from successfully creating and running Cloudscape portlets.

Solution: The user ID and password are used for a JDBC connection. Authentication to Cloudscape in this manner is always successful regardless of user ID and password.

 

Runtime Errors

 

Configuration Hints

 

Problem: Create, Update, and Delete are not working.

Solution: Create, update, and delete operations are permitted only on tables with primary keys.

 

Cloudscape Hints

 

DB2 Hints

 

Problem: Unable to connect to the Domino server.

You will see the error: Invalid user ID and password.

Possible causes:

Solution:

 

Problem: Error building portlet when using Oracle as the backend database for Portal server version 4.2.0.

Solution: Apply fix pack 1 to Portal server 4.2.0.

 

Problem: IBM NetMeeting portlet is not available if the Microsoft NetMeeting application is not already installed

If you are using Internet Explorer 5.5 on Windows, and Microsoft NetMeeting is not already installed, the NetMeeting portlet will not be available.

Solution: Upgrade to Internet Explorer 6 or install the Microsoft NetMeeting application (as provided by Microsoft Corporation) on your machine.

 

Problem: Configure proxy for Pinnacor portlets

The Pinnacor portlets My News, My Weather, and My Stocks assume that you have direct access to the Internet to retrieve content for rendering in the portlets. If access is only possible through a proxy, then the proxy must be configured in the portlet by modifying its web.xml file.

Solution: There are four context level parameters in web.xml, and by default they are all empty: 

<context-param>
     <param-name>proxyHost</param-name>
     <param-value></param-value>
  </context-param>

  <context-param>
     <param-name>proxyPort</param-name>
     <param-value></param-value>
  </context-param>

  <context-param>
     <param-name>proxyUserName</param-name>
     <param-value></param-value>
  </context-param>

  <context-param>
     <param-name>proxyPassword</param-name>
     <param-value></param-value>
  </context-param>

The values for these parameters should be:

  1. proxyHost: The host name of proxy server (dns name or static IP address).

  2. proxyPort: The proxy server port, such as 8080.

  3. proxyUserName/proxyPassword: If the proxy server requires authentication, specify the user ID and password for the proxyUserName and proxyPassword parameters, respectively.

 

Problem: Configure proxy for Financial Times portlets

These instructions suggest using Winzip but any zip utility can be used.

  1. Open FinancialTimesPortlet.war and extract the file divine.jar to a local temp directory using Winzip.

  2. Open divine.jar and extract the file financialTimes.properties.

  3. Using a text editor, edit financialTimes.properties as shown in the following example. Use yes to enable proxy and no to disable proxy:
    proxy.useProxy=yes
    proxy.host=proxy.ft.com
    proxy.port=8080
    proxy.user=proxuser
    proxy.pw=proxpassword

  4. Place the new version of financialTimes.properties back into divine.jar by dragging it to Winzip. Make sure not to insert it using any directory information. This divine.jar should always show only one copy of the file.

  5. Place the new version of divine.jar back in to FinancialTimesPortlet.war. Make certain it goes to the WEB-INF/lib directory. You many need to create those directories locally in order to place it back into the .war properly.

  6. Update or install FinancialTimesPortlet.war on your portal.

  7. If you are aware of additional Financial Times portlets installed on you system it will be necessary to edit the financialTimes.properties files within those respective WAR files.

  8. Restart the Websphere Portal service.

 

Problem: "YourCo" portlet samples do not work from right-to-left

The sample portlets for "YourCo Financial Theme" and the "YourCo Financial There for logged in Users" were not intended to be used in a bi-directional environment.

Solution: Use the Portal Administration portlet to remove the two "YourCo" portlets. The sample portlets then displays with the default portal theme.

 

Problem: (For 5.0.2.3 only) "The portlet is unavailable" message appears when the url parameter points to a non-existent resource.

Solution: Ensure that the resource addressed by the URL is available, particularly if referencing a resource on a mapped network drive.

See also