Johan van Zijl

My default Web Browser is still Internet Explorer 6.0. Not that I particularly like IE 6, I happen to have Firefox, Opera and Safari installed as well.

But, most of my customers still use IE6 and some of their(woefully unpatched) SAP CRM 4.0 and 5.0 IC WebClient Systems still require IE6.

A quick run down on IC WebClient browser support(all the versions support IE6) from the PAM:

• CRM 4.0 – IE7 has been released(11 July 2007) conditionally to the implementation of notes 986254, 1005093 and 981710.
• SAP CRM 5.0 – IE7  is supported with CRM 5.0 Support Pack 10 since 29 July 2007. Also note that the WebClient on IE7 with Vista will only be supported by 30 September 2008!
• SAP CRM 2007 – IE7 support came standard. Also, there is limited support for Firefox 2(This really works, except for the bloody ActiveX controls).

Bottom line, IE6 is still the most trusted and reliable browser to use with the WebClient.

Microsoft released IE7 in October 2006 and it took SAP 9 months to get the WebClient to work with it. It seems IE8 is in beta on its way later this year. Time will tell if the final version 8 will fix the bugs and be as standards compliant as promised.

I don’t think there was anything wrong with SAP developing the IC WebClient(and most of its other BSP Applications) only for IE6 as that was what 99% of its customers were using at the time(I have never seen anything other than IE on a corporate network). However, I imagine SAP spent a truck load of money to make its 3 supported CRM versions work with IE7. Now, IE8 is coming and I wonder how much it will cost SAP to provide IE8 support.

My hope is that SAP realizes that by chasing compatibility for individual browser editions is inefficient. Developing to a standard such as XHTML, wasn’t feasible 2 years ago, but it surely must become the development direction now.

And there is no reason why you shouldn’t be able to display SAP Notes(also a BSP application) with a relatively standards compliant browser such as Opera. By the way, Opera is not supported for any HTMLB based BSP applications, so this is not a CRM specific issue.

A final thought relating to the screenshot above. Why should SAP completely bomb me out if I use an unsupported browser? Why not just run the page and see what happens? Its not as if I am going to log a message about it as the PAM clearly omits Opera as a supported platform.

I am currently redesigning our corporate website, and will be posting some info on it over the next couple of weeks.

This process really drove home the point that IE6 is the buggiest, least standards compliant browser around. I had no problems with IE7(still lots of bugs but I didn’t run into them), Firefox 2/3, Opera, Safari or Konqueror. Here is an excellent site that lists(and helped me fixed the IE ones) the known bugs in current web browsers.

I’m not one for getting into holy wars, but IE6 can do strange things. I guess we never see it, because web designers(like me) take its bugs into account. Another thing I will write about later is why IE6 is still my default browser.

Speaking of standards compliance, the site is now compliant with W3C standards, and the HTML Tidy plugin for Firefox has been a huge help.

By the way, I used WordPress as the backend…

We recently experienced a problem at a customer that drove everyone up the wall. Between 15:00 and 17:00 in the afternoon the user would get a spontaneous Java login popup. Once this happened the ITS would also require the user to log in again.

These login screens aren’t unknown. You normally get them at every customer the first time you log into the WebClient. In order to enable the sending of real time notifications to the client(i.e Broadcasts, Alerts and Telephony) a Java Applet is used to continuously poll the ICF(BC->Notify->Polling Service). This applet requires a login to SAP. The ITS also requires the user to log in again.

So you fix this by sending your local basis consultant a mail telling him to please set the parameters below and restart the instance:

• login/create_sso2_ticket = 2
• login/accept_sso2_ticket = 1
  

Problem solved, no multiple logins required, that is until 3 O’Clock in the afternoon…

We searched for notes, interrogated Desktop Support, logged the problem with SAP, sniffed the network, checked java versions, moved users, reinstalled machines, etc… We can’t figure out what happens 8 hours after a user has logged in?

By the way, below is a couple of notes you may find helpful:

• Note 996854 – MYSAPSSO2 cookie gets deleted while launching IC Webclient
• Note 1075935 – Logon Popup from IC webclient from the Applet
• Note 1021530 – Alert message is shown after a delay(about 15 minutes)
• Note 1097546 – Polling applet creates many sockets

Eventually, SAP responds on the note after 2 months, that we should check our Single Sign On configuration and they provide the link below.

http://help.sap.com/saphelp_nw04/helpdata/en/88/4b353a03e5494ce10000000a114084/frameset.htm

And there it is!!!

login/ticket_expiration_time  => Default = 60 hours

Turns out the default is not 60 hours, but 8 hours. 8 Hours after the user logged in, the ticket expires, requiring them to reauthenticate. I still can’t believe I didn’t think of/find it/RTFM’d this earlier.

I need to upgrade our internal demo systems every once in a while. Now, as I don’t unleash my Basis skills on customers everyday I tend to forget how its done. I decided to record the steps here to save me a bit of time next time around. Please treat any advice given here with care(I’m no expert at this) and read the official guides and help files.

Applying patches to an SAP system is not as simple as, say updating your Windows PC. There is no auto update or one click upgrade process. I will be surprised if there ever will be. The thing is, SAP actually allows you a lot of freedom and flexibility in changing the way it works(Windows doesn’t). The price you pay is a slightly complex upgrade process.

Doing a full Support Pack update of an SAP system broadly involves the following:

1. Log in to the Service Market Place and select the packages to be downloaded. Admittedly, this is a bit easier now with SP Stacks.

2. Log on to your Solution Manager System(Maintenance Optimizer) to confirm your download basket. If you don’t do this you can’t download your Patches. I must still figure out what the benefit of this is.

3. Download the files using the SAP Download Manager.

4. Use sapcar to extract the patches. You can use the command sapcar -xvf <filename.car> from command line to do this. An easy way to extract these files in Windows is to register the extensions .CAR or .SAR to open automatically in Explorer.

You can do this by opening Windows Explorer and going to Tools->Folder Options and clicking on the File Types Tab.

Create a new type for the .CAR/.SAR file types and create a default action as shown in the screen shot below( Copy SAPCAR.EXE to your C:\Windows directory first).

You can now “mass extract” all your patches at once by selecting all 50+ files in Windows Explorer and hitting enter on them. If you do this on a laptop now would be a good time for a coffee break.

5. Now the real upgrade can start. Always update your kernel to the latest release first. This involves the following:

• Determine your global kernel directory. Goto transaction AL11 and look for directory mapped to DIR_CT_RUN. In my case(on Linux) this is /usr/sap/<SID>/SYS/exe/run.
• Log in with your <sid>adm user. This will ensure you preserve the correct rights to your files.
• Backup this directory by copying it to somewhere safe.
• Overwrite the files in your DIR_CT_RUN directory with the new kernel files extracted in step 4. These files aren’t used by the SAP System, so you can safely overwrite them while the system is still running.
• On Windows I would recommend rebooting the box, on Unix environments you only need to stop and start the instance.
• During the startup of the instance a program called sapcpe will copy the new kernel files in DIR_CT_RUN to DIR_EXE_ROOT(usr/sap/<SID>/exe).

6. Now, do a full off line database backup and keep in a safe place.

7. Copy the ABAP Support Pack files extracted in Step 4 to the following location on the SAP Server: /usr/sap/trans/EPS/in.

8. Log on to the SAP System in client 000 with your own user(not SAP* or DDIC).

9. Execute transaction SPAM(what a name…).

10. Load the Support Packages. On the SPAM main menu goto Support Package->Load Packages->From Application Server.

11. Now we hit the stage where P.P.P.P.P.P. You have to read all the notes on all the patches for all the components you want to upgrade. There are many dependencies here and it is easy to stuff up. But a few points:

• Make sure TMS is configured properly and actually working(i.e. test with a transport). This is important on new installs and has burned me in the past.
• Always upgrade SPAM to the latest version first. Always!
• Read the notes on optimal queue definitions, make them as long as possible, but keep the next point in mind…
• Don’t overshoot(see note 70228 for explanation). This is critical if you have add-ons such as XRPM, WFM or even CRM 2007(which now requires a CRT(Conflict Resolution Transport) after every ABAP support pack).
• Write down all the steps you took and queues you used as this will help in the upgrade of downstream systems.

12. If you read the plethora of notes before hand and manage to follow them correctly everything should go fine.

13. If you do it Cowboy style(and ignore point 12 like I do ), SPAM failure is likely. You could try the following, in order:

• Restart the Process. Always do this 2 or 3 times before proceeding, especially with BASIS/ABAP support packs.
• Search for notes on the Service Market Place. You are probably not the first one to mess up. Also, sometimes the support packs contain errors.
• Try to reset the queue and process again.
• If you absolutely have to back out and SPAM does not allow you to reset the queue, you can do the following if you are brave. Run Function Module OCS_RESET_QUEUE in SE37 with the parameters IV_TOOL=SPAM and IV_FORCE=X. Just realize that this will leave your system in an inconsistent state. You may need to do some significant manual fixing.
• Log it with SAP.
• Restore your backup and try again.

Eventually you should have an up-to-date, everything recompiling, SAP System.

Oh, and if you are unlucky enough to use a J2EE stack as well. Good Luck…