SASWIPClient error during VA Data Query import

[pszabady]

Greetings,

I have a *new* SAS VA environment that we've been testing and I've run into an issue with importing visual analytics data queries.  The export is from our old SAS9.4M4 environment and the new one is SAS9.4M5.  All other imports have worked without an issue.  E.g.: Folders, ACTs, etc.  We get this error:

ERROR - Could not retrieve information for visual data query "". Reason Could not access HTTP invoker remote service at [https://sas-tst.unc.edu/SASWIPClientAccess/remote/svcs.UrlGeneratorService]; nested exception is java.io.StreamCorruptedException: invalid stream header: 3C68746D

Does anyone have any clue(s) on what the issue may be?

I've attached the relevant parts of the web log (SASWIPClientAccess9.4.log) and tomcat log (catalina.out).

Thanks in advance!

Paul

[JuanS_OCS]

Hello @pszabady, Paul,

first of all, I would like to state the fact that you sent some information from logs, but they do not include the message that you get, actually, it is less information. I will give some pointers, butin case they do not help enough, I would need more information, and logs. Worse case scenatio, I suggest to contact SAS Technical Support.

All right, that being said, there is a big difference between data queries and all the metadata objects you already imported: they are not just metadata anymore. They store as well in the Web Infrastructure Platform (postgres) and in the SAS Content Server (webdav).

You are getting this error because the import tries to make a connection to the Web Infrastructure Platform, and it cannot. Reasons can be many, let me list some, and what you can check.

- SSL certificates. Is your VA 7.5 configured for HTTPS urls? If yest, you might need to import the certificates in SASPrivateJRE of the SAS Management Console you execute.

- Single Sign On. Can you log in to the new SAS VA7.5 without credentials? 

- WIP is having deployment problems. If you stop all VA 7.5, and clean all the logs, and temporary files of the Web Application Servers, and start the servers again: do you have any errors in the logs?

I would check all of this, in order, and see if any solves the trouble or gives more information. If not, please send more log information or contact SAS Technical Support if the logs do contain sensible information for you.

Does it help?

Kind regards,

Juan

[pszabady]

Juan,

Thank you for your reply and assistance!  

The error we were seeing is in SMC during the import process.  The error in the import window is: "The import process finished with errors.  For more details, view the import log."

From the import log, with some bits redacted:

INFO  - ******** Importing Metadata ********
INFO  - Including access controls during import.
INFO  - Metadata imported successfully.
INFO  - ******** Importing Properties ********
INFO  - ******** Adjusting Metadata ********
INFO  - Updating Visual data query objects.
INFO  - ******** Importing Content ********
INFO  - Importing content for Visual data query objects.
INFO  - Writing content for visual data query "<redacted>"
ERROR - Could not retrieve information for visual data query "".  Reason Could not access HTTP invoker remote service at [https://sas-tst.unc.edu/SASWIPClientAccess/remote/svcs.UrlGeneratorService]; nested exception is java.io.StreamCorruptedException: invalid stream header: 3C68746D
INFO  - You can submit the following command to the batch import tool if you want to import this package again.
Note: This command does not take into account any changes that were made to the object selections in the Import Wizard.
Also, the types supported by the application used to run the Import Wizard are not included in the "-types" option.

ImportPackage -profile "SAS TST" -package "/tmp/PaulTest2.spk" -target "/<redacted>(Folder)" -subprop -includeACL 

INFO  - Total time to run the import process: 1.03 seconds.
INFO  - The import process has finished with errors.

1) Regarding certs.  We have our sas infrastructure in a different vlan from our apache reverse proxy servers and behind different Big IP F5 load balancers and firewalls.  Because of this, we are running most of our services without SSL encryption in that SAS-specific space.  

2) We tried to removing the SSO bits and the error changed.  The process in the log looked similar to above, but it failed with a 401 error:

ERROR - Could not retrieve information for visual data query "".  Reason Could not access HTTP invoker remote service at [https://sas-tst.unc.edu/SASWIPClientAccess/remote/svcs.UrlGeneratorService]; nested exception is java.io.IOException: Did not receive successful HTTP response: status code = 401, status message = [Unauthorized]

3) We removed the logs and temp files and restarted and nothing changed.  Same errors in the SMC import tool, catalina.out and WIP logs.

If it's of any value, here's an overview of our architecture.

Best regards!

Paul

[JuanS_OCS]

Hi Paul,

thank you very much, this indeed helps.

I see several proxies and layers in between, where each layer can introduce or filter headers on the GET/POSTs. And they could add also delays between them.

What I am seeing in the error is an error reading theheaders and ending in a java error reading strings, which makes sense.

The main problem is that I cannot put my finger on what it is, just guesses, and the only way to know more, is with an on-site analysis of your network transfers and those headers.

Are you having same problems with the internal and the external access/routing?

My best suggestion for you is to get remote support from SAS Technical Support, a SAS Consultant onsite, or any of thoese as well with partners, SAS can help giving directions.

For now what I would do in your case, and not necessarily in this order:

• Use web rbowser developer tools, as in Chrome, Firefox, or IE, to analyse the headers, and compare them with an environment that works. You could also see if network traffic, from begining to end, is similar or not in time to the one environment of yours that works.
• http://support.sas.com/kb/55/927.html gives some directions for other application, but it might help you a good deal.
• Check the gides for fine tune your middle tier. It might contain something interesting https://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/appsrvtuning/69859/HTML/default/viewer.htm#titlepage.ht...
• Get support from a specialized consultant or technical support. Involving your network guys as well.
• Maybe, you could reach some web developers from your company. They are used to analyse those kind of things. I was 🙂

[pszabady · Accepted solution]

Circling back around, in case anybody ever stumbles upon this same issue...

We worked with two SAS Support folks all day earlier this week, one from mid-tier support and another from metadata support.  After looking at and trying numerous things, we finally determined we had to externalize our content server, change our sas.scs.svc.internal.url JVM setting (on SASServer1_1), and made some changes to our Shibboleth SP configuration.