After Deployment, Menu Items Greyed (Grayed) Out, Default App Fails To Load In Fixed Initial Tab

Scriptcase 9
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#1

Hi Everyone.

Hopefully someone might have some answers on these two challenges.

First, to be clear, I do not have either of these problems on my dev machine. It is all perfect.

I deploy the solution to a test machine (Linux, 32 bit). It is a full deployment - all apps, all libraries.

When I run the app, I do not see any error messages. However…

A) The default application, which is defined in the menu app, which is set to run as a fixed tab, does not appear.
B) A number of the menu items appear greyed (grayed) out or dim. As you’d expect, clicking on greyed out menu items fails to do anything.

Can someone tell me:

  1. What causes menu items to be greyed out (and how I might fix this)?
  2. What are the common causes for the initial app not to load?

I’d be grateful for any insights.

Cheers, Russell.

#2

The first thing you should get is a form that allows you to set the database connection(s). If that does not appear then something went wrong with uploading. If it is uploaded then you can start the config util manually. Without this connection the application ‘dies’ with no error message.

#3

The problem manifests itself after this point (if I understand what you are saying). Upload was successful. I did set up the db connection & tested it and that was successful.

I sign in (sec_Logon) and the menu bar appears along the top of the page as expected, but my initial app does not appear in the first (fixed) tab - there could be a DB issue I am not seeing and I’ll turn on debug and re-deploy to check.

Meanwhile, as I hover over the menu items, I noticed that a few of them are greyed out. There is nothing in my code to do that, and it doesn’t happen in Dev. Oddly, only a few of them, but when they are greyed out they can’t be clicked. There is obviously something that the menu framework is having trouble with and greying out items. Any ideas?

#4

As part of my ongoing investigation, I have compared the contents of the folders for two similar applications - one app has a greyed out menu, the other does not and works fine. Both folders/apps are present on the server. Both folders have the same permissions and ownership. Both folders have the same number of files and all the permissions and ownership of the files are exactly the same. So none of this is the issue.

Clearly I am still in problem isolation mode - have not even started to solve it yet. It would be nice to know the exact condition, or set of conditions, that cause the menu app to grey out an item. I.E., what, exactly, is missing here?

#5

This has been resolved. Recording the cause here in case others have this issue.

On some of the applications the “Use Security” switch under “Form Settings | Security” was turned on - this happened to match the greyed out items in the menu. Turning this switch off and re-deploying to the test environment fixed the grey-ed out menus.

I find it all a bit odd. This was not the first time I have deployed the app to the test environment and I have not seen the issue before. I have updated SC a few times since the last deployment, so I am wondering whether a) a security bug has been fixed (that is, the switch now works properly), b) maybe it is a new bug, because I have to admit, I do not understand why this switch would be in effect when you are only using User level security?, or c) or somehow I managed to randomly turn that switch on (bit hard to imagine - I rarely go to that part of form settings).

Another thing - It is interesting how this manifests itself only after deployment to another environment (in this case “Test”) - it does not manifest itself when running the app in the development environment. Bit of a nuisance IMO - it would have been easier to isolate and fix if I have seen it on my dev machine before going to the trouble of deploying the solution.

Finally, the missing “initial application on fixed tab” issue was the same problem - that same switch was turned on in the app.

Anyway, cause identified, use express edit to ensure all the apps have that switch turned off and it now all works.

I hope this helps.

#6

thanks so much. This was one of my issues…