| Siebel Administration > Internet Explorer hangs in Siebel
Internet Explorer Hang Analysis
I. Cursor Remains as an Hourglass
Internet Explorer is a client-side application, and if it hangs while you are using the Siebel application,
you will most likely see the mouse cursor remaining as an hourglass indefinitely as shown below:
Depending on the type of hang that has occurred, it may only be possible to exit the application by
using Windows Task Manager to end the IE task. Normally there are no errors produced when IE hangs.
Please note that an IE hang is very different from an IE crash.
Typically an IE crash is when the iexplore.exe process dies, and the following error may be displayed on the screen:
II. Java Script Errors
Sometimes Internet Explorer may hang as a result of a Java script error on a page within the Siebel application.
In this case the mouse cursor will not necessary be in the hourglass state however
the user will be unable to continue working in the application. For example:
In this particular case the screens applets and controls are all missing, hence the blank screen.
Java script errors do not necessarily cause the behavior as shown in the above example.
Sometimes it is possible to continue working even with a javascript error.
The yellow triangle in the bottom left hand corner of the IE status bar indicates that a Java script error has occurred:
Double-clicking on the yellow triangle provides further information about the error that has been generated:
III. Server Task Status
When investigating IE hangs it is important to establish the status of the corresponding Siebel server task.
If the task is still processing a command then this shows that the request has not yet completed and
is still running on the Siebel server. This request should eventually complete and control of the application
should be returned to the user. There are two common scenarios:
1. The request completes however control of the application is not returned to the user.
Normally the IE mouse cursor will remain as an hourglass. In the screen shots below,
the user associated to Task 8263 is experiencing an IE hang, however the Siebel Administrator can see
the Status of the Task is Waiting for command.
This means that the server side processing has finished so the hang is most likely to be client side.
2. The request does not complete and hence control of the application is not returned to the user.
In this scenario the fact that the control of the application has not been returned to the user
is expected behavior because the request has not completed. In the example below the Siebel Administrator
can see that Task 8264 has a Status of Handling Request which means that the server side processing
has not yet finished. If this request does not complete then this should be investigated.
There are two methods by which the Status of a server task can be verified:
1. Via the user interface, Site Map > Administration Server Management > Tasks as shown above.
2. Via the srvrmgr utility, run the following command in srvrmgr:
srvrmgr> List task %task_id%
where %task_id% is the Object Manager Task id of the hanging task.
images/article/ie_hanging/iehang_8.png
Cause
Internet Explorer hangs have a large number of possible causes, including:
Unsupported hardware or software
Memory or CPU exhaustion on the client machine
Custom Scripting
Misconfiguration
Third party hardware and software issues
Siebel Product Defects
Diagnostic Steps
I. Environment Verification
When troubleshooting IE hang behaviors, it is extremely important to verify that the environment meets the system requirements.
Oracle Technical Support will always validate the environment is correct when assisting you with IE hang behaviors.
Validate all components of the Enterprise and confirm they meet all requirements as documented in the following:
Systems Requirements and Supported Platforms Guide (SR&SP).
Siebel Server Installation Guide for Microsoft Windows in Siebel Bookshelf.
Siebel Alerts.
Document 476952.1 which details the Web Client Deployment Options for Siebel 7.x and 8.x
For Siebel version 7, the Environment Verification Tool (EVT) is available to assist with this task.
Please refer to Document 477105.1 for more information about the EVT utility.
NOTE: Currently the EVT tool does not validate for any additional operating system requirements
which may be documented in Siebel Alerts or validate the system requirements for the client machines, so these must be checked manually.
Internet Explorer hangs normally occurs on the client machine so it is particularly
important that the client machine meets all the specified requirements:
1. Ensure the client machine meets the minimum hardware and software requirements in the SR&SP.
To confirm this, gather the System Information using the Microsoft msinfo32 command. Start > Run > type msinfo32 and press the Enter key:
The System Summary section shows OS Name, Version, Processor and Total Physical Memory.
Confirm that these meet the requirements as documented in SR&SP.
In this example the machine is running Windows 2000 Professional Service Pack 4, has 1 GB of RAM and using an 1196 MHZ processor.
2. Ensure the client machine meets the IE requirements in terms of IE version,
Service Pack level and required Microsoft hot fixes. To gather this information, you can use the Microsoft msinfo32 command:
The Internet Explorer Summary shows the Version, Update Versions, Service Pack
level and applied fixes. In this example the machine is running IE 6 Service Pack 1
and has the following hotfixes applied Q810847, Q813489, Q818529, Q822925 and Q832894.
Confirm that the above values meet the requirements in the SR&SP and also any Alerts.
3. Ensure the client machine meets the Java requirements in the SR&SP in terms of
either Microsoft Java Virtual Machine (JVM) version or Sun Java Runtime Environment (JRE).
For further information about support for Sun (JRE) please refer to Document 477051.1
" Support of Sun Java Runtime Environment (JRE) and Microsoft Java Virtual Machine (MSJVM)".
To determine whether the client is using the Sun JRE use Internet Explorer > Tools > Internet Options > Advanced:
In this example the machine has JRE version 1.4.2_02 installed, but it is not being used.
Note that if there is no Java icon displayed in IE > Tools > Internet Options > Advanced,
then check under Start > Settings > Control Panel > Java Plug-in > About.
The JRE could be installed but not currently in use. If the Sun JRE is not in use,
then the msinfo32 command can be used to verify which version of Microsoft JVM is installed and being used:
In this example the machine is using Microsoft JVM version 5.0.3805.0.
4. Ensure that the client machine has all the required settings enabled as per Document 476952.1.
II. Environment Issues
When an IE hang occurs using the Siebel application, it is important to have the user record the exact date and time
of the hang and as much information as possible about the actions they had taken in the user interface prior to the hang.
When an IE hang occurs no entry is written to the Microsoft Windows Event Log as there is for an IE crash scenario.
Once you have established the time of hang, it is important to verify if there were any other critical errors or
lack of resources at this time. Review the Microsoft Windows Event logs (Application, System and Security) around
the time that the hang happened. These can be reviewed via Control Panel > Administrative tools > Event Viewer.
Hardware problems may produce unexpected results, for example disk errors.
It is important to confirm that the machine where the hang occurred was not short of any vital system resources,
in particular memory or CPU. If there is no or little free memory or CPU left available,
this may have been the reason why the Internet Explorer browser hung.
If you suspect that the Internet Explorer had either consumed a large amount of memory or was
a high proportion of the CPU, then it is useful to enable additional performance diagnostics ready
for the next time the behavior occurs. This can be done using Microsoft Windows performance monitor.
For basic instructions refer to "How can users generate Performance Monitor information into a log file?"
Document 476826.1 document. For monitoring overall CPU, memory usage, process and thread usage,
trace the following counters; iexplore.exe needs to be monitored:
III. Siebel Maintenance Releases, Fix Packs and Quick Fixes
Many hang behaviors have been fixed in later Maintenance Releases, Fix Packs and Quick Fixes.
If at all possible apply the latest Maintenance Release and determine whether the hang still persists.
If the hang can be reproduced in a test environment then apply the latest available Maintenance Release,
and confirm whether the hang still occurs. Oracle recommends that Maintenance Releases are thoroughly
tested in a test environment before deploying into production.
If it is not possible to apply the latest Maintenance Release, review the associated Maintenance Release guide
for any hang behaviors that match the behavior being experienced. Also review existing Alerts to see if the
behavior has already been addressed. At the time of writing this document,
the following Alerts and Technical Note should be verified for IE hang behaviors:
Document 477407.1 Third Party pop-up killer applications may cause Internet Explorer browser hangs
with Siebel 7 which describes a behavior with third party pop-up killer applications that may cause Internet Explorer browser hangs with Siebel 7.
Document 477395.1 Distributing Internet Explorer with IEAK may cause browser hangs on Siebel 7.x and 8.0.x
releases which describes a behavior with distributing Internet Explorer with IEAK that may cause browser hangs on Siebel 7.
Alert 598, which describes a behavior with SmartScript running on IE 5.5 with Option Pack enabled and Siebel version 7.0.4.211.
Document 477345.1 Client Machines Without the Required Internet Explorer Service Packs or Hot Fixes are Likely
To Experience Browser Hangs with Siebel 7 which describes a behavior with the client machines hanging when
not all the appropriate IE Service Packs or Microsoft Hot Fixes are applied.
IV. Investigating a Reproducible IE Hang
It is easier to investigate a reproducible IE hang behavior although having a reproducible test case can sometimes be difficult to resolve:
If the IE hang is reproducible then the steps taken to trigger the hang are known.
For example an IE hang is reproducible taking the following steps.
Logging into the Call Center application > Click on Contacts > Drilling down on a Contacts Last Name
> Clicking on the Accounts tab to see Accounts associated with that Contact > Clicking New and
associating an Account with the Contact. The key is to try to reduce the reproducible test case to the bare minimum number of steps to reproduce the hang.
Once the IE hang has been narrowed down to a small test case, determine whether the hang occurs
when using a standard Siebel SRF file. This knowledge can help in establishing whether the hang
is related to something caused by customizing the Siebel application. If the hang can only be
reproduced with a customized Siebel SRF file, experiment by deactivating parts of the configuration to further narrow down the cause.
If the IE hang cannot be reproduced with the standard SRF file then it is possible that the
is being triggered by custom scripting. Disable scripting with the custom SRF file and determine
whether the hang still occurs. To disable scripting, set the Application Scripting Enabled component parameter,
alias name CFGEnableScripting, to False for the application Object Manager that the user is accessing
and restart the component. For the dedicated client set the CFG file parameter EnableScripting to False.
If the hang can be reproduced with scripting disabled, then you can assume that the custom scripting is
not the primary cause for the hang. If the hang cannot be reproduced with the scripting disabled,
experiment by deactivating parts of the script that is invoked to further narrow down the cause.
V. Investigating a Non Reproducible IE Hang
If the IE hang is not reproducible it is important to try to gather as much information as possible
to help narrow down the cause of the hang. There are several different types of diagnostic information
that should be gathered to help the investigation. The following points list the important information to gather:
In Siebel version 7, the majority of the component event logging is not enabled by default.
The event logging that you will need to enable will depend on the circumstances of the particular hang
that you are troubleshooting. Rather than try to detail all the appropriate logging levels,
a simple approach that is applicable is to set all event logging levels to 4 for the Object Manager component in question.
This can be done via the srvrmgr utility:
srvrmgr> change evtloglvl %=4 for comp sccobjmgr_enu
This command sets all event logging levels to 4 for the Call Center Object Manager component.
Note that enabling the event logging as described above can cause large log files to be generated in
the SIEBEL_HOME\siebsrvr\log directory on the Siebel servers where the component is enabled.
You should make sure you have sufficient disk space available for these log files or limit the amount of
the space consumed by the component log files. For details on how to do this, refer to Document 477112.1
"How Can Users Manage the Size of the Siebel Log Files?".
Once the IE hang has occurred it is important to gathering some additional information to help determine the
Status the Object Manager Task is in. In srvrmgr run the following commands and save the output to text file.
srvrmgr> spool c:\list_task_mmddyy_hhmm.txt
srvrmgr> list tasks for comp <Name of Object Manager Component>
srvrmgr> list sessions for comp <Name of Object Manager Component>
srvrmgr> spool off
Install and configure one of the tools described in Document 477737.1 "How To Install and Configure 3rd Party Tools
To Capture Dump Files on Microsoft Windows"on the client machine that is experiencing the IE hang.
These tools will be used to manually capture a hang dump of the iexplore.exe process.
Once detailed logging has been enabled and the hang reoccurs, review the Object Manager log files for
information about what happened prior to the hang and use this information to try to reproduce the behavior.
Example
The following example shows how it is possible to track down and then reproduce an Internet Explorer hang.
Please note that not all hangs will be reproducible using the techniques below however obtaining a reproducible case should always be attempted:
1. As Internet Explorer hangs tend to only occur for one specific user at a specific time,
they are normally reported to the Siebel Administrator directly by the end user or via a help desk.
It is extremely important that the Siebel login used to trigger the hang, the exact date and time
that the hang happened, which application was being used and what the user was doing when the hang occurred,
is supplied to the Siebel Administrator as a bare minimum. There are some additional pieces of information
that should be gathered when raising a Service Request with Oracle Technical Support.
Please refer to the Solution section below for more information.
In this example, assume that the Siebel Administrator has been informed that the Internet Explorer hang
was triggered by the SADMIN user at 09:15 11/05/2004 and that the user clicked the Show More
button on the Service Request > Activities applet from the Call Center application.
2. Using the above information, the Siebel Administrator can now perform a search on the
SIEBEL_HOME\siebsrvr\log directory for log files that contain the user id SADMIN:
In this case the search returned many Call Center Object Manager log files however there is one file
SCCObjMgr_enu_9297.log which has a Modified date of 11/5/2004 9:26 AM.
The Siebel Administrator knows that the hang was triggered at roughly 9:15 so this log file is a possibility to investigate further.
It is important to note that even after a user has experienced an IE hang it is still possible for the
associated Object Manager log file to grow in size. If the hang is a client side hang then it is likely
that the log file will contain additional events after the hang has occurred. For example message broadcast
events will continue to be written to the log file if message broadcasting is enabled.
NOTE: You will need to take into account any time differences between the client's date and time setting
versus the Siebel server's date and time setting when trying to locate the correct Object Manager log file.
The above example reflects that the Siebel server is running on a Microsoft Windows operating system.
If the Siebel server is on UNIX, you should use the grep command to search for the correct Object Manager log file.
3. Now you can search the SCCObjMgr_enu_9297.log file using Microsoft Notepad or vi on UNIX for the ObjMgrSessionInfo string:
This will confirm that this log file is for the SADMIN user.
4. EventContext tracing can provide useful information about the sequence of events that happened prior to
an Internet Explorer hang. EventContext tracing is available in Siebel Fix Pack version 7.0.4.304 or later,
and in Siebel version 7.5.x or later. For additional details about EventContext tracing, refer to
Document 477897.1 "How Can Tracing Be Increased for the Siebel Object Manager?" document.
Open a Microsoft command prompt and use the find utility to find all occurrences of:
All the occurrences of the string EventContext for Siebel version 7.5.x or later
and redirect this output to another file for further analysis:
find /I "EventContext" SCCObjMgr_enu_9297.log > repro.txt
The resulting file, repro.txt, details what actions were taken in the user interface:
Reviewing the last EventContext entry in the repro.txt file, you can see that it is the
Service Request Activity List Applet (ToggleListRowCount) that was accessed and that it happened at 2004-11-05 09:15:22.
This corresponds to the information that was supplied by the end user.
5. Now that you are sure you are reviewing the correct Object Manager log file (SCCObjMgr_enu_9297.log),
you can review the list task output captured from srvrmgr. 5. Searching the file for the string
(which is taken from the name of the log file) you can see that the server task 9297 has a Status of Waiting
for command which means that the server side processing has finished and this indicates that hang is occurring on the client side.
6. At this point it is worth trying to obtain a reproducible test case:
Contact the end users to see if they can remember how they triggered the hang.
Perhaps they can remember some additional information that may help build a reproducible test case.
Try to reproduce the hang based on the information gathered in the Object Manager log file.
Use the event context tracing to try to reproduce the hang with the same user id and machine.
Using the above EventContext information, the following steps were identified as the reproducible steps that triggered the IE hang:
a. Log in as the SADMIN user.
b. On the Home Page drill down on a Service Request then click on the Service Request Activity List Applet Show More button.
c. Click on the following screens, Campaigns Screen, Opportunities Screen, Email Response Screen, Quality Screen, Web Call Center Home Screen.
d. Click on the Home Page and drill down on a Service Request then click on the Service Request Activity List Applet Show More button.
e. Click on the following screens, Opportunities Screen, Email Response Screen, Quality Screen, Opportunities Screen, Web Call Center Home Screen.
f. Click on the Home Page and drill down on a Service Request then click on the Service Request Activity List Applet Show More button.
At which point the IE hang occurs.
In fact for the hang described above, this was reproducible with the standard SRF file.
Bug 12-HRMO3X has been raised to address this product defect. This product defect has been fixed in Siebel version 7.5.3.
VI. Using Microsoft Script Debugger
If the IE hang is caused by an underlying Java script behavior, it may be possible to gather
further additional information about the code that caused the hang or the error, by using the Microsoft Script Debugger.
For further information and to obtain the Microsoft Script Debugger refer to the following Microsoft Knowledge Base Article:
268445 - OL2000: How to Obtain the Microsoft Script Debugger
Install the Microsoft Script Debugger on the client machine that is experiencing the IE hang or Java script error.
Then configure Internet Explorer to enable script debugging.
To do this in Internet Explorer > Tools > Internet Options > Advanced > uncheck the Disable script checkbox as shown below:
Once the Microsoft Script Debugger has been installed and configured, reproduce the IE hang or wait for it to reoccur. When it does happen,
if a runtime error has occurred, the debugger will provide the error and the line number and prompt the user if they wish to debug as shown below:
Clicking on the Yes button will start the Microsoft Script Debugger and navigates the user to the line of script that caused the error:
In this example you can see that the highlighted piece of script is a call on line 62 to customfunction(id);
in function vt_actv() in the view_vb_top.js and the error reported as shown above was Object Expected.
Once further information has been obtained about the runtime error, search using the line of script that
generated the error, the error reported, the function name and the name of the Java script file may help to
determine if this behavior has already been reported. If the error occurs in a custom Java script then have
the developers of the script review it to locate and fix the issue.
Please note that in the above example someone has modified the view_vb_top.js which is a standard Java script file.
Oracle does not support direct modifications to the standard Java script files supplied with the application.
All custom Java script must be authored in Siebel Tools.
The srvrmgr list tasks output gathered from the time when the hang occurred:
srvrmgr> spool c:\list_task_mmddyy_hhmm.txt
srvrmgr> list tasks for comp <Name of Object Manager Component>
srvrmgr> list sessions for comp <Name of Object Manager Component>
srvrmgr> spool off
A zipped dump file of the iexplore.exe process that is hanging from the client machine.
To manually trigger a dump of Internet Explorer using Microsoft Userdump
(see Document 477737.1 How To Install and Configure 3rd Party Tools To Capture Dump Files on Microsoft Windows)
to obtain the Microsoft Userdump utility), follow the instructions below:
1. Close all other Internet Explorer tasks apart from the hung task.
2. Open a command prompt.
3. At the command prompt type userdump iexplore.exe.
4. This will create a file called IEXPLORE.dmp in the current directory.
Include a zipped copy of the dump file destination directory.
The Microsoft Windows Event Logs (Application, System and Security) via
Control Panel > Administrative tools > Event Viewer saved in .EVT format from the client machine where the hang occurred
A system information file from the client machine where the hang occurred, Start > Run > then type - msinfo32.
Highlight System Information > Action > Save as System Information File
A full export of the client machine registry from the client machine where the hang occurred.
Regedit > Highlight My Computer > Registry > Export Registry File
Some more information can be useful in debugging IE hangs.
Siebel Login used to trigger the hang
Exact date and time that the hang occurred
A screen shot of the hung application
A screen shot of the Help > View from the screen where the hang occurred
A screen shot of the Internet Explorer > Help > About Internet Explorer screen
A description of Internet Explorer state at the time of the hang by providing the answers to the following questions:
Is the mouse pointer in an hourglass state?
Is there yellow triangle in bottom left hand corner of the IE status bar indicating a java script error?
Can Internet Explorer be minimized and maximized?
Check if there is an error message in the screen.
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