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Using BIRT with Flex

DreamCoder

Hello All, 
 
I'm a new BIRT user, but an old hand at Flex. Currently I am using Flex 3 to build a CRM platform and am looking to use BIRT to display reports inside my Flex application. 
 
One thing to note, I am completely new to using JBoss (or any J2EE server for that matter). I have installed JBoss 5.0.1.GA and am using the integrated Tomcat. I have the BIRT viewer up and running and can navigate to a report directly via URL (ie - <a class='bbc_url' href='http://192.168.133.129:8080/birt-viewer/frameset?__report=report/accounts.rptdesign)'>http://192.168.133.129:8080/birt-viewer/frameset?__report=report/accounts.rptdesign)</a>. 
 
I have been trying to write my app so I could display the viewer INSIDE my flex app using IFrames, but when I call the URL I get an error message stating "The viewing session is not available or has expired". This has me completely mystified. Has anyone seen this? 
 
Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can get this to work? Anything would be appreciated. 
 
Thanks, 
Amanda

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JasonW

Amanda,

What version of Java are you using? I have seen this error before with Java 1.5 which should work fine. Someone logged a bug for this, but could you try Java 1.6 or BIRT 2.3.0? Also I would love to see how you integrated BIRT with Flex. Send me an email at jasonweathersby at windstream.net if you do not mind sharing the details.

Jason

DreamCoder

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="JasonW">Amanda, 
 
What version of Java are you using? I have seen this error before with Java 1.5 which should work fine. Someone logged a bug for this, but could you try Java 1.6 or BIRT 2.3.0? Also I would love to see how you integrated BIRT with Flex. Send me an email at jasonweathersby at windstream.net if you do not mind sharing the details. 
 
Jason</blockquote>
 
Hi Jason, 
 
Thank you for responding so quickly. I am using java 1.6.0_13 and BIRT 2.3.2. I think this must be a cookie problem. For testing purposes, I have created two links inside my flex application, one that will open the BIRT report in an external HTML page, and one that will open the BIRT Viewer inside the flex application in an iFrame. If I try to open the internal one, I get the session error message, when I open the external HTML page the report runs fine and the viewer produces successfully. After I do that, I can then go back into my flex application and run the report in the iFrame without any issues. 
 
iFrame is a hack to get flash to display html pages inside the flash movie. I think I just need to figure out how to keep the session variables inside the flex app...tho I've had no luck figuring this out yet since flex doesn't use cookies it uses sharedObjects instead. 
 
Have you ever tried displaying html in flex? 
 
Thanks, 
Amanda

DreamCoder

Something else worth noting...the whole thing works great in FireFox, apparently it only bonks in IE (using version 7)

JasonW

Amanda,

It would be good if you could open a bugzilla entry for this. Can you post on how you have it setup and I can try to reproduce.

Jason

DreamCoder

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="JasonW">Amanda, 
 
It would be good if you could open a bugzilla entry for this. Can you post on how you have it setup and I can try to reproduce. 
 
Jason</blockquote>
 
Hi Jason, 
 
I'll happily post that. I am running Flex Builder 3 with the BIRT plugin installed. I have VMWare workstation (vs 6.5.2) installed on my desktop that is running Centos 5.3. On the Centos machine I have jdk 1.6.0_13 and jre 1.6.0_13, then I have jboss 5.0.1.GA installed with BIRT-viewer runtime 2.3.2.1. Jboss is running on the integrated tomcat. 
 
I followed these instructions for deploying BIRT to JBoss 
<a class='bbc_url' href='http://www.eclipse.org/birt/phoenix/deploy/viewerSetup.php'>Installing the BIRT Viewer in Tomcat</a> 
 
I am using mysql for the database, which is installed locally on my machine. I am using the jdbc connector for mysql in jboss (mysql-connector-java-5.1.7-bin.jar) 
 
For flex, you can download the source files for the test application I am using at: 
<a class='bbc_url' href='http://www.deitte.com/archives/2006/08/finally_updated.htm'>Finally Updated: Embedding HTML in a Flex application using an IFrame (Deitte.com)</a> 
He has two links, one to view the demo, one to download source code. Once you download the source code, just make a change to one of the links in the tree to point to a report saved on your birt-server. For example, I have done this: 
<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' ><node label="BIRT Report" path="http://192.168.133.129:8080/birt-viewer/frameset?__report=report/accounts.rptdesign" /></blockquote>
 
This should get you up and running exactly as I have been playing with it now. Other than a short test report that I created to hit the database on my machine. 
 
Some things I would like to note: 
1. This birt-viewer works 100% of the time if I open it as an HTML page from my flex page (as an external popup): 
<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' >
public function openExternal():void { 
var url:URLRequest = new URLRequest("http://192.168.133.129:8080/birt-viewer/frameset?__report=report/accounts.rptdesign"); 
navigateToURL(url,"_blank"); 
} </blockquote>
 
2. If I try to load the Birt-viewer inside the iFrame in my flex application while running my flex app in IE7, it will give me the same "The viewing session is not available or has expired." 
 
3. If I open the external BIRT report from #1 first, and then try to open it internally in the iFrame, it will suddenly work. 
 
4. This will ALWAYS work in Firefox, so the issue seems to be only with IE7 so far. 
 
My thoughts so far 
1. Maybe the issue is a security issue with IE7 since I am running this whole thing locally on my machine, and jboss is nothing more than a virtual server. 
 
2. Maybe this is some sort of cookie issue? 
 
Thanks for your help Jason, I really appreciate it. Let me know if you need any additional information or if I can send you code. 
 
Thanks, 
Amanda

JasonW

Amanda, 
 
I downloaded the code, changed for my local system and compiled and deployed and it worked fine with ie 7. 
 
This may be due to the fact that I just deployed it under the same context as the birt viewer. eg <a class='bbc_url' href='http://localhost:8080/birt-viewer/flex/IFrameDemo.html'>http://localhost:8080/birt-viewer/flex/IFrameDemo.html</a>. 
 
I also used tomcat as the app server. I will try this on apacache. 
 
Jason

JasonW

I tried this with Apache and it worked fine as well. Can you try again with the default test.rptdesign?

JasonW

Also one other quick question. Have you tried to use BIRT with AIR application?

DreamCoder

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="JasonW">Amanda, 
 
I downloaded the code, changed for my local system and compiled and deployed and it worked fine with ie 7. 
 
This may be due to the fact that I just deployed it under the same context as the birt viewer. eg <a class='bbc_url' href='http://localhost:8080/birt-viewer/flex/IFrameDemo.html'>http://localhost:8080/birt-viewer/flex/IFrameDemo.html</a>. 
 
I also used tomcat as the app server. I will try this on apacache. 
 
Jason</blockquote>
 
Hi Jason, 
 
Yes, I think that if I deploy it locally under the same context as the birt-viewer it would work fine as well. I think the issue with me is pretty much confirmed to be a security sandbox issue with IE7 whereas I am using my local machine to hit a website that is also on my local machine, but in a vmware session. So essentially, I'm trying to hit a website that is virtually on a different server, but is actually on my machine. I'm going to try deploying it directly on the server to see if that in fact solves the issue. 
 
Thanks, 
Amanda

DreamCoder

<blockquote class='ipsBlockquote' data-author="JasonW">Also one other quick question. Have you tried to use BIRT with AIR application?</blockquote>
 
No all our applications are web applications. I bet it works nicely in AIR.

Hakan

Hello, 
 
After an upgrade from Birt 2.3.1 I also got the "The viewing session is not available or has expired" and it seems that my problem is related to what is described in this thread. 
 
The problem for me affects all reports - even very simple reports such as test.rptdesign that comes with birt. 
 
In my approach the front web application is not flex but a GWT application. 
The GWT application was deployed as one web application and the birt-viewer as one web application. 
 
When using frameset instead of run it worked: 
<a class='bbc_url' href='http://localhost:8080/birt-viewer/run?__report=test.rptdesign'>http://localhost:8080/birt-viewer/run?__report=test.rptdesign</a> - did not work 
<a class='bbc_url' href='http://localhost:8080/birt-viewer/frameset?__report=test.rptdesign'>http://localhost:8080/birt-viewer/frameset?__report=test.rptdesign</a> - worked. 
 
After having seen this (and read this thread) I changed the name of the web application from "birt-viewer" to "birtviewer" i.e. the dash sign was removed. And now it works: 
<a class='bbc_url' href='http://localhost:8080/birtviewer/run?__report=test.rptdesign'>http://localhost:8080/birtviewer/run?__report=test.rptdesign</a> - works ! 
<a class='bbc_url' href='http://localhost:8080/birtviewer/frameset?__report=test.rptdesign'>http://localhost:8080/birtviewer/frameset?__report=test.rptdesign</a> - works ! 
 
I have not downloaded the source code to investigate why this problem occurs. 
For me it worked well using the name "birt-viewer" on the web app with birt 2.3.1 but not with birt 2.5.0. Looks like a bug. 
 
Thanks, 
Håkan 
 
 
 
The exception that was triggered when there was a "-" character in the web application name that hosted the reports: 
java.lang.IllegalStateException: The viewing session is not available or has expired. 
at org.eclipse.birt.report.service.ReportEngineService.createRunAndRenderTask(ReportEngineService.java:994) 
at org.eclipse.birt.report.service.ReportEngineService.runAndRenderReport(ReportEngineService.java:853) 
at org.eclipse.birt.report.service.BirtViewerReportService.runAndRenderReport(BirtViewerReportService.java:973) 
[ .... lots of rows deleted here ... ] 
at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Protocol$Http11ConnectionHandler.process(Http11Protocol.java:583) 
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$Worker.run(JIoEndpoint.java:454) 
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)

JasonW

Can you log a bug for this?