As I see it when you request excel output from a webfocus URL

1. It creates the file in a temporary directory.
2. It then redirects the URL to point to the .xht file which is given a random name.

xttp://servername/ibi_apps/umedtpdq.xht?PG_REQTYPE=REDIRECT&PG_MRsaved=false&PG_Func=GETBINARY&PG_File=umedtpdq.xht]http://chaos/ibi_apps/umedtpdq.xht?PG_REQTYPE=REDIRECT&...PG_File=umedtpdq.xht

The problem occurs when we have run the URL and then tick run in a new window. It seems to try and pick up the file created from the previous version. This generally causes excel to open as excel since it does not want to overwrite the file in the browser with the same name.

Is there some sort of hashing on the URL used to generate a random filename? If so the same url will generate the same filename and possibly never refresh.


We are using excel 2003 and using dhagen's famous fix.

https://forums.informationbuilders.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/...861065022#9861065022
Any clarifications would be appreciated.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kerry,

We have

_TempFileTimeout
Deletes files from the temporary directory. Files are deleted if they are older than the number of seconds specified.

set to the default of 900. Would setting that lower alleviate the problem?

The temporary file location is

&IBI_DOCUMENT_ROOT/temp

more familiar as

..\ibi\Webfocus76\temp

This message has been edited. Last edited by: hammo1j,

When excel or for that matter pdf runs two files are created in Webfocus76\temp.

eg

uibjucfv.xht (excel details will open with excel)
rpyifhqw.xht (redirect file wont open with excel)

The first is NOT an .xht format and contains some sort of redirect.

¬í sr ibi.webfoc.wfapi.WFReport4vD ج»  Z EDAGETReportI SendBufSizeZ addLineI 
burstCountZ 
firstFetchZ 
isBURSTReportZ isDecJustifiedZ 	isDecimalZ 
isGraphReportZ isMaintainModeZ isMappingReportZ isOLAPPaneReportZ isOLAPReportZ isReportFinishedZ isStreamingModeZ isText_HtmlMimeTypeI 
numberOfPagesL burstReportDirt Ljava/lang/String;L burstReportOutputStreamt Ljava/io/OutputStream;L endSearchSelectionq ~ L fileInfot Libi/webfoc/wfutil/WFMimeEntry;L 
ibiOptionst Ljava/util/ArrayList;L inputStreamMimeTypeq ~ L pagesq ~ L redirectModeq ~ L redirectionFileNameq ~ L redirectionHeaderFileNameq ~ L reportCachet !Libi/webfoc/wfutil/WFObjectCache;L savedVariablest Ljava/util/Hashtable;L savedWF_SESSIONIDq ~ L startSearchSelectionq ~ L viewert "Libi/webfoc/wfapi/WFReport$Viewer;xp   @                   ppt </u>sr ibi.webfoc.wfutil.WFMimeEntryŠçUüè'qn Z contentDispositionZ isBinaryL 
edaCatalogq ~ L 	extensionq ~ L mimeTypeq ~ L redirectq ~ xp  t XHTt .xhtt application/vnd.ms-excelt yespq ~ sr java.util.ArrayListxÒ™Ça I sizexp    w   
xt YESt uibjucfv.xhtt rpyifhqw.xhtsr ibi.webfoc.wfutil.WFObjectCacheY o­“ó I redirectionTypeL 	directoryt Ljava/io/File;L fileTimeOutq ~ xp    sr java.io.File-¤E
äÿ L pathq ~ xpt C:\wf76\ibi\WebFOCUS76\tempw \xt 900sr java.util.Hashtable»%!Jä¸ F 
loadFactorI 	thresholdxp?@     w      t 
ODP_targett ONt IBIWF_mrcolumnst 1t IBIWF_mreportst offxt l15788a78ceaeaf58bc6cede59a8f54138de3bacfa220096e76becda118d51635d744bc0e47831d33dacd942df75fc4574cb38c3c22fft <u>sr  ibi.webfoc.wfapi.WFReport$Viewerk¾Žµjaé I currentPageZ isCaseSensitiveZ isForwardSearchI searchOffsetI underlinedStrLenL alertq ~ L homeq ~ L multq ~ L searchStringq ~ L targetq ~ L this$0t Libi/webfoc/wfapi/WFReport;xp            t  ppq ~ )pq ~ 

The problem is that when we try to open the report in a new window it tries to open the redirect file as an excel file.

It issues the message rpyifhqw.xls (not .xht) and says that cannot be opened by default program and offers option to save or cancel.

However if excel has not been started and I request open in a new window then there is no problem and it uses a URL that points to the redirect file and opens the other file quite happily!

xttp://wfserver/ibi_apps/rpyifhqw.xht?PG_REQTYPE=REDIRECT&PG_MRsaved=false&PG_Func=GETBINARY&PG_File=vuqoavxf.xht

This message has been edited. Last edited by: hammo1j,

Of interest:

When you issue a html request to your browser window excel stops running. If you hit the back button it runs again and the forward will unload it again.

If you delete the 2 files in the temporary directory and go back from html you get

Report has been deleted from the server.
You must run the report again if you want this report.

I assume this is because IE keeps the redirect URL in its cache which gets re-activated once the back button is pushed and then it tries to re-retrieve the data from the server.

This is interesting because the back button on html will not re-retrieve the report but if you use .pdf or .xht then you need another trip to the client when you go back but you do not need to reproduce the report.

NB I have automatic setting in browser and I have set a very long (4Gs) lifetime of report pages so you can always go back on the browser without the IE no longer available message.

More stuff:

If you open excel via the browser it opens a copy in the process hierarchy under Services.

If you have "REAL" excel already open it will open the copy above the explorer process. It will not need to open a further copy under services.

If you have "real" excel open and open in a new window it does not complain.

However if you have excel in a browser, real excel running and then do open in a new window then this still fails but the excel window and the browser window seem to become the same so that if you click on excel then you get the wf browser.

Dropping the browser link to excel by running a html report in the original window causes the excel to become separated so that if you click on excel in the task bar you now get the correc output named with [1] following the .xht name which is now retyped to .xls!


The issue seems to be if you have excel already running in a window and then request it to run in a totally new window regardless of whether real excel is open.

I will use excel to refer to plug in and real excel for the normal product.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: hammo1j,

Just tried setting Windows Explorer - file types - xht files - untick box confirm download to see if it cures the problem.

No luck.

John,

You could change a line in the autoprompt.xsl file to clear the internal frame before running the report in the new frame. Just add -

"document.getElementById('idOutputFrame').src='/ibi_html/javaassist/ibi/html/describe/autopromptdefault.htm'";

in front of the existing URL in the onclick event for the submit button.

T

Thanks Adtony

That works well and is the equivalent of asking the user to click the X button "Clear the report output in the right hand frame" in autoprompt before running an excel report in a new window.

There are a couple of snags with your solution.

1. The clear frame should only take place when you are running excel in the new window.

2. The clear frame should only take place when excel is running in the right hand window.

3. Unfortunately when I try this in the dashboard, we get the old problems.

3.1. You have excel open in the right window on one tab
3.2 You then open another tab and then run excel in a new window.

1 and 2 might be solvable but 3 (where you would have to be able to inquire about more than one window) might be intractable.

In any case I will issue advice to our users and say we are working on the problem.

John

Thanks to Nick in a previous topic of mine...

Using excel 2003 SP3 cures a host of problems. I would suggest IBI officially lists this as a requirement as the behaviour generally gets blamed on webfocus rather than excel.

Regards

John