Summary

After you upgrade to PRPC 6.3 SP1, you might occasionally experience styles (controlled by Skin rules) that fail to load for Developer portals and User portals. As a result, developers and business users cannot use the application screens.

This issue:

• Occurs very sporadically
• Cannot be reproduced predictably
• Has been observed in the Developer portal and the User portal for both Pega-provided portal skins and custom portal skins

Explanation

When application developers and business users experience the skin corruption issue on the portal, in many cases the PegaRules log file entries show the following failures:

Failed to resolve rule file Rule-File-Text.webwb.pzskin_ . . .

Failed to resolve rule file Rule-File-Text.webwb.pzharness_ . . .

2013-08-08 08:13:05,560 [fault (self-tuning)'] [          ] [                    ] (ticcontent.StaticContentClient) ERROR   - Unable to find file type marker in static content request from request /yMRD1QygpfhwIwSHcOBtRu3tskhYJMFO*/Failed to resolve rule file Rule-File-Text.webwb.pzskin_pp_grcm_9f131fc186d19d68597c148ebbc0c25e.css!!.css requestor=H0F62CD2356FD631337C01BB0D40EE74A referrer=https://prpc.pppp.com/prweb/PRServletCustomAuth/
yMRD1QygpfhwIwSHcOBtRu3tskhYJMFO*
/!STANDARD?pyActivity=GenerateActionFrame&HarnessMode=ACTION&TaskIndex=&FormError=
&FieldError=
&pyCustomError=&bExcludeLegacyJS=&NewAction=true&UniqueStamp=
1375974784554
&pzPrimaryPageName=pyWorkPage

Sometimes, instead of seeing the Failed to resolve rule file log entries, you will see the exception:

RuleNotFoundException

These failures indicate what is commonly understood to be a cache corruption situation.

Suggested Approach

To correct the cache corruption manifested by the user interface problems in portals and failures detected in the log file, complete the steps of this two-part procedure:

Part 1: Solve the current cache corruption issue in the application.

Part 2: Prevent the cache corruption issues from recurring.

Part 1: Solve the current cache corruption issue in the application

To address the current cache corruption issue:

1. Contact GCS to obtain the SQL script, truncate_cache_tables.sql, that is provided as part of HFix-6646.
2. Work with your System Administrator to bring the system down and run the script on the PegaRULES database to truncate the cache tables.
3. Delete the PegaRULES_Extract_Marker.txt file and recycle the node.
   • If you are in a multi-node, clustered environment, repeat Step 3 for every node.
4. After you bring up the system, log in as a Developer and run the Revalidate and Save wizard to resave all the affected instances of skin rules, Rule-PortalSkin.
5. Delete all Internet Explorer Temporary files.
6. Open a new Internet Explorer browser session.
7. Log in to your PRPC application.

Your portals should now load and display properly.

Part 2: Prevent the cache corruption issues from recurring

To prevent the cache corruption issues in the future:

1. From Hotfix Self-Service, select HFix-6646 to download and install using Update Manager.
2. After you have installed HFix-6646, log off from your PRPC application.
3. Delete the PegaRULES_Extract_Marker.txt file and recycle every node in the application server.
4. Delete all Internet Explorer Temporary files.
5. Open a new Internet Explorer browser session.
6. Log in to your PRPC application.

Your portals should now load and display properly.

Additional Related Hotfixes

HFix-7038 includes HFix-6646 and other Additional Related Hotfixes (dependents). Read the HFix-7038 Short Summary on Hotfix Self-Service, which includes this directive:

Install HFix-7038 for the complete solution to the problem described here and related issues.

HFix-6646 replaces HFix-6621 and includes it as an Additional Related Hotfix (dependent). Read the HFix-6646 Short Summary on Hotfix Self-Service, which includes this directive:.

If you have installed HFix-6621, you must manually delete the defective activity pzDeleteOrphanCSS. That activity was modified by HFix-6621, but refined further by HFix-6646.

Additional Information

Troubleshooting PRPC 6.3 SP1 cached rules not the same across multiple JVMs (HFix-7038)

Understanding caching

How to create a Skin rule and define Style Presets