WebSphere Dashboard Framework - Annotations troubleshooting

Problems using annotations

Problem: Users need to know how long their comment headlines and body text can be.

Background and solution:
The character limit for a comment's headline and body text is the same for both single-byte character sets such as English and double-byte character sets such as Chinese.
The headline must be 200 characters or fewer.
The body text must be 2,000 characters or fewer.

Problem: The Alerts section is missing when users create a comment.

Background and solution: When you create a project that will have annotation alerts, include the WebSphere Dashboard Framework Alerts Module and Alerts Scheduler feature sets.

Problem: All users see comments even though the author selected "Only certain individuals should be able to see this comment."

Background and solution:
The following setting in the WEB-INF/config/bowstreet.properties file must be set to true to enable privacy settings:

ibm.wdf.annotation.enableSecurity=true 

Problem: A user is not receiving annotation alerts.

Background and solution: If the problem is limited to a particular user, the user may not have rights to receive the alert. That privilege is determined by the comment's author, who allows certain users or groups to see the comment. If the problem is widespread, the application developer may not have added the Alerts Module and Alerts Scheduler feature sets to the project or the administrator did not enable Annotation Alerts in the Manage Alerts portlet.

Problem: A page containing an Ajax region does not show annotations correctly.

Background and solution:
The Ajax Region builder allows operations in one area of a portlet to execute independently, thus eliminating the need to reload and re-render an entire page. This feature causes problems with annotations because the Annotation builder must refresh the full page when users click "Add comment" or "View comments." To allow annotations to work with an Ajax Region builder, use the builder input "Location type: Location on page" rather than "Entire page" or "All pages." (In this context, "page" refers to the pages created in a model, not all the "portlets" in a WebSphere Portal page.) To have two Ajax regions on a page, add two Ajax Region builders and select "Location type: Location on page" for each.

Problem: A portlet with an Annotation builder that uses an action menu does not run and produces a methodExecution Exception error.

Background and solution:
A limitation in WebSphere Portal restricts the length of servlet class names. When a servlet class name exceeds the limit, the portlet does not run. The servlet class used for an Annotation builder's action menu that is placed on a page can exceed this limit because the full name of the servlet class name includes the model name, the page builder name, the Annotation builder name, and so on. In addition, an underscore character () becomes "_5F" when WebSphere Portal assembles the full name. To avoid this limitation, use short names for the model name, the page builder name, and the Annotation builder name and avoid underscore characters. Note that the name lengths are not a concern when placing the annotation controls on an action button.

Problems using a database persistence manager

JDBC Interface with DB2

In order to use the JDBC interface to DB2, db2jstrt (the DB2 JDBC Applet Server service) must be started. Normally, this service runs when the system starts. To be sure the service is running, run the applet server service and give it a port number: db2jstrt port_number
For example, db2jstrt 50000

DB2 Driver

The DB/2 driver can be found in DB2_HOME\java\db2java.zip. The Application Server uses a class called COM.ibm.db2.jdbc.DB2ConnectionPoolDataSource. However, this class cannot be found in db2java.zip. Follow these steps to make sure db2java.zip is complete:

1. Go to DB2_HOME\java12.
2. Find the usejdbc2.bat file.
3. Execute usejdbc2.bat to copy the files.
4. Check that the file in use contains "jdbc2.0," which confirms that db2java.zip file contains the missing class files.

Before executing SQL queries, make sure that a statement termination character is used to terminate statements in command scripts. To check or change the statement termination character:

1. Open the Command Center.
2. On the General tab, select the Use statement termination character check box. You can also type a character that will be used as the statement termination character in the entry field. By default, it is a semicolon ";".