Issue accessing Media Objects in HTML

I'm a bit miffed by a problem we're having with Media Objects and the HTML client. They can be added and saved but not retrieved. The puzzling thing is, it works fine in PY, but not in PD. Both of my ini's are fine. I've tried some security changes. JDE is suggesting a WebSphere reinstall (yuck).

Anyone have some other things I could check first?

Thanx
Doug

Compare you OCM mappings and see if there are any major differences.

You say it works fine in PY and not in PD..then it s a little confusing.

I faced a smilar problem on my JAS on AS/400. I had to setup the FTP services on the DS. The AS/400 JAS accesses the media objects on the DS by doing an FTP Get. Once I set this up i got it to work. But since you say you already have it working in one environment I guess you must have already done this or something similar

Verify the proper user/pwd in the PD jas.ini for the FTP server:

FtpUsr=xxxx
FtpPwd=xxxx

OneWorld Xe SP20 , Update 4, Sun Solaris, Oracle
WebSphere/JAS, JAVA/HTML Clients across WAN/LAN

I am having an issue with media objects in HTML. If I display the attachment using a FAT client, then I can view it in HTML. If I do not view the on the FAT client first, when I attempt to view in HTML I get 'Web Client Exception' and the jas.log reports 'Fetch Media Object Failed'. Do you have any idea why it must be viewed using a FAT client first.

I had similar issues with MO's in the HTML client. We were able to get around it by having a valid user account that had access to resource.

Reference:
JDE Web Client running on Windows/Intel platform. The Websphere Service account has to have access to the resource. I changed the WAS service account to reflect a domain service account with access to the resource on an AS400 IFS.

Even JDE couldn't figure this one out after contacting support and all.

Hope this helps. Post your results. Thanks.

Michaelm007

When uploading a MO attachment to the web, it is cached on the JAS server first and then moved to the MO location defined in F98MOQUEUE (assuming the JAS server has rights).

If you try to view the file immediately after it has uploaded, before it has been copied to the MO Queue location, the file will not be there yet. Worse, something (IIS, WebSphere, E1?) caches fact that it is not there and won't show you the image until you restart the JAS server.

If you wait 10 minutes or so after uploading before you try to view the image, everything should work.

I would welcome anybody who could clarify further how this works. This issue is rather annoying.

We are having problems with OLE attachments when using WebSphere horizontal clones on two Sun Solaris servers. The attachments are created correctly, but one of the servers cannot view them. What seems to happen is that the attachment is ftp'd to the cache directory on the server the user is logged into, but the Media Object Viewer then tries to read it from the cache directory on the other server.

You must have Websphere serve the content, since on a load balanced setup you could end up storing the object in a MO queue on the wrong http server.

Search the KG for Darryl Shakespeare's paper "Media Objects and Remote HTTP Servers"

Ever resolve this?

"I am having an issue with media objects in HTML. If I display the attachment using a FAT client, then I can view it in HTML. If I do not view the on the FAT client first, when I attempt to view in HTML I get 'Web Client Exception' and the jas.log reports 'Fetch Media Object Failed'. Do you have any idea why it must be viewed using a FAT client first."

hi
I don't know whether this answer will help you or not.
To retrieve text from Media object in FAT client we will use System function, but that will not work in HTML.
For HTML you have to write a "C" function using API to retrieve generic text from Media Object.

Is it helpful?

Regards
sathish

You do have to have FTP setup on the deployment server with anonymous access. There is also a setting in the JAS.ini file for the FTP username and pwd. The media attachments we were having issues with were inserted via a batch process from an excel spreadsheet. I finally had to open all of them once on a FAT client. Now they work every time. If the attachment is created new either on the FAT or HTML client they work every time since I setup FTP.

Hope this helps.

brother_of_kara <[email protected]> wrote:
brother_of_kara replied to your post at the site: .
http://www.jdelist.com/ubb/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=OW&Number=74679

Ever resolve this?"I am having an issue with media objects in HTML. If I display the attachment using a FAT client, then I can view it in HTML. If I do not view the on the FAT client first, when I attempt to view in HTML I get 'Web Client Exception' and the jas.log reports 'Fetch Media Object Failed'. Do you have any idea why it must be viewed using a FAT client first."

Hello Michael,
What do you mean by 'a valid user account with access to the resource'?
Our WAS service is starting with a valid user account and we can go in certain directories and see attachments. But when we try to open those attachments through the JAS server, we get an error message telling us that it can't find or open the attachment.

For WebSphere4, which is the WAS service? Do you have to enter a valid user in the "services" screen or somewhere else?

The user id starting the IBM WS service must be a domain account who have access to your deployment server (if that's were you're storing your attachment files).

Hi Wes, thanks for clarifying that! That's how I interpreted the words as well and that's how it is at the moment, but still it doesn't work.

I'll elaborate:
I am talking about attachments in a secured directory (limited access) on a network drive somewhere... The link uses a drive mapping (O
If we login on the web server with the WS service user, we can see the drive mapping and we can go to the file that can't be opened (so it's no authority problem)
We are thinking in a different direction now: maybe drive mappings aren't considered when a user is used to start a service? Can anyone verify that?
It would explain why it can't access the file although it has access to it (security-wise)

I'm under impression, that the drives would not be mapped in this case.

Typically, MO directories are defined in UNC format (as in "\\SERVER\SHARE\DIR"). This way mappings are irrelevant. Try it and see if it fixes your issue.

Hi Alexander,

If we map the files using UNC formatted paths, it works. Problem is that we decided not to use UNC paths anymore, since they tend to change server names here, now and then. Last time, it caused us to manually reattach all MO... We started using drive letters because of that but after a migration to Active Directory it stopped working (at least, it worked for us until about a month ago and that's when our migration to AD happened)

Changing back from mapped network drive to UNC would help us alot, but the links for all attachments are in a BLOB file if I recall correctly and those can't be edited (at least we didn't get it to work after we edited them)
If someone has a working tool or technique to change that, it would be very helpful

If server name changes are the reason to not use UNC, couldn't you use a DNS entry to resolve the issue? In P89MOQUE, have \\MOSERVERNAME\b7xx for the path and then have the network team add a DNS entry pointing MOSERVERNAME to the real server name. Then if you need to change the name of the real server, just change the DNS entry to point to the correct server.

I'm not a network guy but...
You can create a second DNS entry for your MO server as JDEMO and use UNC in OW. When you change servers for your MO, you would only update the DNS entry (assuming your folder structure stays the same)..

As others have pointed out, there are many solutions for the name changes.

For the MO editing software, please, check our WEB site (in the signature).