HP Application Lifecycle Management Readme
Software Version: 12.50
Document Release Date: September 2015
Software Release Date: September 2015
This file provides the following information about ALM 12.50:
For detailed information about ALM, refer to the documentation set. To access the ALM documentation from the main ALM window, choose Help > ALM Help.
To check for recent updates of ALM documentation, or to verify that you are using the most recent edition, visit the HP Software Product Manuals site (requires an HP Passport).
Note: Documentation for ALM extensions is available from: https://hpln.hp.com/group/application-lifecycle-management.
For a list of new features in ALM 12.50, refer to the HP Application Lifecycle Management What’s New, available from: http://almhelp.saas.hp.com/en/12.50/doc_library/online_help/Content/What_New/wn_alm_1250.htm.
If you are installing ALM 12.50 on a machine that does not contain a previous version of ALM, follow the full installation instructions as described in the HP Application Lifecycle Management Installation and Upgrade Guide.
If you are upgrading to ALM 12.50 from version 12.0x and earlier, uninstall the existing version of ALM and follow the full installation instructions as described in the HP Application Lifecycle Management Installation and Upgrade Guide.
If you are installing Performance Center 12.50 for the first time or upgrading from a previous version, follow the full installation instructions as described in the HP ALM Performance Center Installation Guide.
As a prerequisite to installing Performance Center 12.50, you must install ALM 12.50.
The following section describes the system requirements for installing ALM and Performance Center.
For the most up-to-date system requirements and supported environments information, see https://hpln.hp.com/page/alm-qc-enterprise-technical-specifications.
Note: HP ALM 12.50 and HP Quality Center Enterprise 12.50 have been tested against FDCC regulations.
This section includes:
This section includes the server-side system requirements and configurations for installing HP ALM 12.50 on Windows and Linux.
The following table lists the minimum hardware requirements for installing ALM on a server machine:
CPU |
Windows: Quad Core AMD64 processor or equivalent x86-compatible processor Linux: Quad Core AMD64 processor or equivalent x86-compatible processor |
Memory (RAM) | 8 GB |
Free disk space | 8 GB |
The following table lists the recommended configurations for each operating system:
Operating System | Database Server | Web Server |
---|---|---|
Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 | Microsoft SQL Server 2014 | Microsoft IIS 8.5 |
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.x 64-bit | Oracle 12c | Apache 2.2 |
The following table lists all supported ALM server-side configurations.
However, to ensure best performance and quick support resolutions, use one of the Recommended ALM Server-Side Environments.
Operating System |
Note:
|
Database Server |
Note:
|
Application Server | The Application server functionality is now built in to the ALM platform and there is no need to install a third party application server (WebLogic, WebSphere, and JBoss) from version 11.50 and later. The HP ALM application server uses JDK7 (1.7) and supports 64-bit JVM. |
Web Server |
Note:
|
Virtual Environment |
VMWare ESX/ESXi Server 5.0 and later Note: HP ALM/QC is certified to work with VMWare ESX/ESXi. Due to the rapidly evolving architectures provided by virtualization vendors ( e.g. Hyper V or Citrix) as long as the above stated vendor guarantees full compatibility of the virtualized environment to the HP ALM/QC approved system requirements for physical hardware, HP ALM/QC will support the virtualized environments and function as designed. |
Full Disk Encryption | Full disk encryption (FDE) is supported for all system components, including database, server, repository server, and client machines. Implementation of FDE, does have an impact on system performance. For details, contact the vendor that provides the encryption. |
The following are the client-side system requirements and configurations for installing an HP ALM/HP Quality Center Enterprise client:
CPU |
Core duo 1.6 GHz (or faster) or equivalent compatible processor |
Memory (RAM) | 2 GB |
Free disk space | 2 GB |
The following table lists the recommended client configuration:
Operating System | Browser | Office Suite |
---|---|---|
Microsoft Windows 8.1 64-bit | Microsoft Internet Explorer 11 | Microsoft Office 2013 32-bit |
The following table lists all supported ALM Desktop client configurations.
However, to ensure best performance and quick support resolutions, use one of the Recommended ALM Client Environments.
Prerequisites |
|
Operating Systems |
Note:
|
Browsers |
Note: For customers who have restrictions on plug-ins in their browsers, such as ActiveX, HP ALM can be loaded in the HP ALM Explorer Add-in. For more information on downloading and installing the Add-in, see the HP Application Lifecycle Management Installation and Upgrade Guide. |
Office Suites |
|
Virtual Environments |
Note: HP ALM is certified to work with Citrix XenApp, Microsoft Terminal Services and Remote Desktop Services. Due to the rapidly evolving architectures provided by Virtualization vendors as long as the above stated vendor guarantees full compatibility of the virtualized environment to the HP ALM approved system requirements for physical hardware, then HP ALM will function as designed. |
Other Configuration Settings |
Screen Resolution: 1024 x 768 (minimum) DPI Setting: 100% |
The following table lists the system requirements for installing HP ALM Lab Service for remote test execution:
Processor |
2.2 GHz or faster |
Memory (RAM) |
Minimum: 1 GB Note: Actual memory requirements depend on the number of add-ins. |
Free Disk Space |
Minimum: 1 GB Note: You must also have an additional 120 MB of free space on the system disk. |
Operating System | The supported operating systems for ALM Lab Service are derived from the operating systems of other tools, such as Unified Functional Testing (UFT), Business Process Testing (BPT), and VAPI XP. For more information on the supported operating systems, see your product documentation. |
Operating Systems Supporting Auto-Login |
|
This section describes the system requirements for installing ALM for Performance Center, and Performance Center components.
The following table lists the system requirements for installing a Performance Center Server:
Processor |
Dual-Core 2.2 GHZ or faster |
Memory (RAM) | Minimum: 8 GB |
Free Disk Space | Minimum: 8 GB |
Screen Resolution |
Microsoft Windows: 1366 x 768 or higher Mac OS: 1280 x 800 or higher |
Operating System |
|
Browser |
|
Web Server | IIS 7.5, 8.0, or 8.5 |
The following table lists the recommended configuration for Performance Center server components. They should be used along with the Recommended ALM Server-Side Environments.
Performance Center Operating System |
Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 (SP1) 64-bit Microsoft Windows 2012 R2 64-bit |
Host Operating System |
Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 (SP1) 64-bit Microsoft Windows 2012 R2 64-bit |
The following table lists the system requirements for installing a Performance Center Host and a standalone Load Generator on Windows.
Processor |
Dual-Core 2.2 GHZ or faster |
Memory (RAM) |
Minimum: 8 GB |
Free Disk Space | Minimum: 50 GB |
Operating System |
|
The following table lists the supported operating systems and CPU types for installing a standalone Load Generator on Linux systems.
Processor |
CPU Type: Intel Core, Pentium, Xeon, AMD or compatible Speed: 1.6 GHz or faster recommended |
Operating System |
|
Memory (RAM) |
Recommended: 4 GB |
Free Disk Space | Minimum: 500 MB |
The following table lists the system requirements for installing Standalone VuGen and Standalone Analysis.
Processor | Dual-Core 2.2 GHZ or faster |
Memory (RAM) |
Recommended: 8 GB |
Free Disk Space | Minimum: 50 GB |
Screen Resolution | Minimum: 1366 x 768 |
Operating System |
|
Browser |
Microsoft Internet Explorer 9, 10, 11 (It is recommended to keep the default IE settings) |
This following table lists the system requirements for the MI Listener.
Processor | Dual-Core 2.2 GHZ or faster |
Memory (RAM) |
Recommended: 8 GB |
Operating System |
|
Free Disk Space | Minimum: 40 GB |
For details about the supported integrations for ALM, see ALM Integration Support Matrix.
This section includes:
Oracle:
Important: Performance degradation may occur in ALM when working with more than 500 projects in Oracle. To improve performance, it is recommended to disable a PAL related maintenance task (a Performance Center feature). For more details, see HP Software Self-solve knowledge base article KM01357239 (https://softwaresupport.hp.com/group/softwaresupport/search-result/-/facetsearch/document/KM01357239).
Oracle Container DB mode is not supported in ALM 12.50.
Microsoft SQL database: When you upgrade the existing Site Administration schema or upgrade a copy of the existing schema on an SQL server with SQL Server Authentication, the td user must exist in the database and be the owner of all user tables.
Workaround: Use the following SQL command to update the table owner in the database: sp_changeobjectowner '<table_name>', 'td'.
Trial Version: If you run the HP ALM Server Configuration Wizard more than once in order to renew a 30-day ALM trial version, you violate the evaluation license policy, and are in breach of compliance. You run the risk of being assessed the full license cost.
License Administration: ALM has been updated to support management of a new license type, Named License. HP Quality Center Enterprise Edition continues to support concurrent license types, but does not support the Named License type.
When a project is restored or imported onto a server with a confidential data passphrase that differs from the one on the server on which the project was originally created, an error occurs. The message, Failed to Get Simple Key Entity
, appears when the data encrypted on the database layer is accessed. To avoid this issue, make sure to install the server with the same confidential data passphrase as the original server.
If a PDF viewer is not installed on the server machine, the Help button in the HP ALM Server Configuration Wizard does not respond.
Workaround: Install Acrobat Adobe or compatible software, and verify that the software is configured to automatically open PDF files. You can also open the HP Application Lifecycle Management Installation and Upgrade Guide directly from: <ALM installation folder>\application\20qcbin.war\Help\doc_library\pdfs\Install.pdf.
Shortcuts: After you install ALM, shortcuts are not created on the desktop.
Workaround: Use the shortcuts in the HP ALM Platform Start menu, or create a shortcut on the desktop from the<ALM installation folder>\bin folder.
Install Anywhere is the third party product used for the ALM server installation. The dollar sign ($) is a reserved sign in Install Anywhere. To use the dollar sign ($) in any editable text parameter, replace $ with $DOLLAR$
.
Jetty
Starting in ALM 12.20, ALM uses Jetty 9, which no longer supports the AJP protocol. If you have previously used an AJP connection to ALM Jetty from a front-end Web server (Apache or IIS), it is recommended that you switch to an HTTP connector. For more details, see http://wiki.eclipse.org/Jetty/Howto/Configure_AJP13.
In ALM 12.20, Jetty is upgraded from version 5 to version 9. Before you upgrade to ALM 12.50, review the settings in jetty.xml (<ALM Server directory>\conf\jetty.xml). If SSL is enabled, you should obtain a new server certificate, or copy the existing certificate by performing the following steps:
Copy the certificate file to the destination server after installing ALM 12.50.
Configure a secure connection on Jetty. Follow the procedure on how to secure Jetty, as described in the HP ALM Installation and Upgrade Guide.
ALM installation: The DNS name cannot contain an underscore character "_" in the repository location.
Workaround:
Replace it with an IP address.
Alternatively, in Site Administration, click the Site Configuration tab. Then edit BASE_REPOSITORY_PATH and change the default repository location. For more information, see HP Software Self-solve knowledge base article KM189843 (https://softwaresupport.hp.com/group/softwaresupport/search-result/-/facetsearch/document/KM189843).
Client Certification: When trying to load the ALM client, you may receive an error indicating that initialization has failed. This can occur if the client machine is missing the new root certificate. For information about Verisign code signing, see this Verisign article: https://knowledge.verisign.com/support/ssl-certificates-support/index?page=content&id=AR1747&actp=search&viewlocale=en_US.
Workaround: Install the 2048-bit code signing root and intermediate certificates. For information, see this Verisign article: https://knowledge.verisign.com/support/ssl-certificates-support/index?page=content&id=SO19140&actp=search&viewlocale=en_US.
Antivirus software installed on a client machine may interfere with the deployment of client ALM files. Deployment may slow down significantly.
Workaround: Update the antivirus software and virus definition files. If this does not solve the problem, disable the antivirus software, and then install ALM.
If a non-administrator user with privileges to install ActiveX controls clicks the yellow information bar to install ALM, client installation fails.
Workaround: Non-administrator users should be prevented from installing ActiveX controls, and should only use the link on the launch page to download the ALM Platform Loader.
The following prerequisite applies if there is a forward proxy with Basic Authentication between the server and client machines. Before the first connection to the ALM server, each ALM client must configure the proxy credentials by using the Webgate Customization Tool. To run the tool, on the ALM client machine, browse to the following path and click the appropriate link:
http://<ALM server name>[<:port number>]/qcbin/Apps/
In WebGate Customization, navigate to the Proxy Credentials area, select the Use these credentials check box, and type values in the Proxy Username and Proxy Password boxes. Click Save and then Close.
Project Repository Migration:
While repository migration is in progress, you cannot export the project, or create a new project by copying data from the existing project.
While repository migration is in progress, if you deactivate a project on an ALM server, and restore the project on another ALM server, the project is not synchronized between both servers and may be corrupted.
Workaround: Instead of deactivating the project, remove the project from the first ALM server.
The following limitation may occur when adding a file manually or renaming an existing file name directly in the repository while the repository migration is in progress: The file may remain in the old repository without a record in the repository migration report.
Workaround: After the repository migration has completed, remove the file manually from the repository.
Repository migration may take a long time due to numerous debug messages.
Workaround: Set the log level to Warning.
While repository migration is in progress, you must not perform a backup of the database or file system.
Workaround: If it is essential to back up the database or file system before repository migration is complete, first suspend the repository migration, and deactivate the project. For more information, refer to the HP Application Lifecycle Management Installation and Upgrade Guide.
To upgrade a project that has extensions enabled, the same extensions must be available in the new version. Before upgrading the project, the availability of these extensions in the new version should be verified. Contact your system administrator for more information.
Stored Procedures: ALM upgrade fails when trying to upgrade projects which contain stored procedures created by a user who doesn’t have the required permissions for the upgrade project process.
Workaround: Save and remove the stored procedures before the upgrade and put them back in after the upgrade succeeds. Alternatively, change the DB user of the stored procedures to a user that has the required permissions for upgrade.
ALM fails to upgrade projects where the ALM repository uses a mapped drive (non-UNC path) as the base repository path.
Workaround: In the Site Configuration tab of Site Administration, modify the base repository path from an absolute path to a UNC path.
Project Upgrade Prioritization: When upgrading projects, ALM does not use the priority values defined in the Project Prioritization dialog box.
Database schema:
When the project schema on Oracle contains user defined tables or views which have field names which are the same as the ALM project’s predefined field names, it leads to inconsistent behavior.
Workaround: Rename the field names of the user defined tables and views so that they are unique.
ALM fails to upgrade projects if the size of the field LN_LINK_TYPE is changed.
Microsoft SQL database: When working with a case-sensitive SQL database, the upgrade process fails if the exception file contains an extra table in which the name is in lowercase.
Oracle: When you upgrade ALM projects on an Oracle database, the size of the Oracle rollback segment (RBS) may increase when running large transactions. When you upgrade large projects (with a database size greater than 2 GB), it is recommended that you increase the RBS size for the duration of the upgrade so that it has at least 3 GB free. After the upgrade, you can change the RBS size to its size before the upgrade.
To benefit from ALM's session reconnect feature, use of the Major Change option for saving customization changes should be minimized. After a project is upgraded to ALM 12.50, the project administrator should review the Allow Major Change permission for custom user groups, and adjust accordingly to minimize the number of users who are granted this permission.
Oracle: After installing ALM 12.x using Upgrade a copy of the existing schema, if ALM succeeded to create a copy of the LAB_PROJECT, the verify report shows missing indexes, triggers, sequences, and constrains. For more information, see HP Software Self-solve knowledge base article KM00912265 (https://softwaresupport.hp.com/group/softwaresupport/search-result/-/facetsearch/document/KM00912265).
After importing a version control-enabled project from a project that has the Enterprise Integration Module for SAP Solutions extension enabled, the user is unable to create tests from the Test Plan module.
Workaround: Repair the project from Site Administration.
Templates: When creating a template by copying an existing template or project, or when importing an existing template, the option to enable versioning is mistakenly displayed. ALM creates the template with versioning enabled or disabled based on the source template or project.
Project Import: When importing a project file into ALM, you cannot import a file larger than 2 GB.
When creating a project, you cannot use the characters °
, µ
, or §
in the project name or domain name.
Copy Project:
When a project is copied, non-default values in the DATACONST table are not copied. For example, the REPLACE_TITLE parameter.
Workaround: Manually insert the values into the DATACONST table of the target project after the project has been copied.
Copying a project may lead to an execution timeout error if the project is too large.
When applying the REPLACE_TITLE parameter to the Management, Test Resources, and Dashboard modules, only the module name in the ALM sidebar is replaced.
When restoring a project, you should select the dbid.xml file located in the project repository. This ensures that the project retains its original ID. If a project does not have its original ID, the following cross project features may not function properly: cross project customization, importing and synchronizing libraries, and cross project graphs.
In some cases when there is a proxy server between the user and the ALM server, the user may receive an email with the URL of the ALM server instead of the proxy server. The user cannot navigate to ALM based on the URL in the email.
Workaround: Configure the URL with the ENTITY_LINK_HOST and ENTITY_LINK_PORT site parameters.
Importing a QCP file from an earlier major version is not supported. If you try, the error message you receive is not clear and does not provide a failure reason.
When adding a non-nullable column to BP_ITERATION (or to it's corresponding BL and HIST tables), the upgrade of the project to ALM fails with an error of "not enough columns"
.
Workaround: Drop the extra columns from the table.
Starting from ALM 11.x and later, ALM converts symbolic links to real paths. The physical directories of ALM domains and projects are real paths. They cannot be changed dynamically. For more information, see HP Software Self-solve knowledge base article KM01002101 (https://softwaresupport.hp.com/group/softwaresupport/search-result/-/facetsearch/document/KM01002101).
If a project copying operation is interrupted (for example, the server becomes unavailable), the source project remains inactive and cannot be activated from Site Administration.
Workaround:
The following limitation applies in upgraded projects, where user groups are assigned a Create permission without an Update permission: When trying to create a new entity, all the entity fields are read-only. As a result, the user is unable to create the entity.
Workaround: For any entity where a Create permission is assigned, assign the Update permission as well.
User groups created based on the Performance Test Specialist group, are unable to add private hosts, even if such permission in granted in Project Customization.
Unable to save user properties in Project Customization while the project administrator is modifying properties of another user.
Workaround: Wait for the project administrator to exit Project Customization.
Restoring a project that was previously linked to a template onto another server without the template causes Project Customization to be read-only.
Workaround: Clear the Linked_Template_Items database table, restart the server, and log in to the project.
Project customization applied to linked projects from a template project can be edited using Open Test Architecture (OTA).
IPv6 support: ALM can work on IPv6 enabled systems. However, ALM is developed within an IPv4 environment. This means that in ALM:
Data communication is possible using IPv4 transport.
Management communication can be over IPv4 transport.
The presence of the IPv4 network stack is required.
Logging in to ALM with the same user name on machines with different locales may result in an error upon login, or when navigating between modules or to Project Customization.
Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 SP. When using the Save As dialog box, if a file is selected, the entered file name is ignored. The file is saved as the selected file name.
If you are working with the Text Search feature or Advanced Filters, and there is a high load on the system, you may experience an impact on performance. In this case, further iterative tuning and optimization of your environment and specifically your database server is required. If necessary, patches will be provided in the future to address these issues.
If you use the data-hiding filter to hide data in a particular folder from a particular user group, and subsequently delete the folder, a user that belongs to the group is unable to log into ALM.
Workaround: A project administrator should modify the data-hiding filter in Project Customization.
Unicode support. The following ALM features are not included in Unicode support:
Workflow script editor: Available in Project Customization.
Automatic Runner: Available from the Test Lab module
System Information: Available from Attachment views, when clicking the System Info button
Screen capture / Snapshot: Available from Attachment views, when clicking the Snapshot button
Requirement to Test Wizard: Available from the Requirements module, when executing the Convert to Test command
Generate Test: Available from the Requirements module, when executing the Generate Test command
VAPI-XP script editor: A control embedded in the Script view in the Test Lab module
Document Generator: Available from the main ALM menu
Excel reports: Available from the Dashboard module, when viewing an excel report
Site Administration
Files that are larger than 4 gigabytes cannot be uploaded to ALM. For example, attachments, test results, or test resources.
Shortcut keys. To focus on the module menu options, use ALT.
Service Test Management. The Service Test Management module is no longer included with ALM. For more information, see HP Software Self-solve knowledge base article KM00748092 (https://softwaresupport.hp.com/group/softwaresupport/search-result/-/facetsearch/document/KM00748092).
After enabling an extension in Site Administration, its associated test type is not available from the test type list in ALM.
Workaround: After enabling an extension, restart your Microsoft Internet Explorer browser.
New dialogs cannot be opened if you enable the 'Prevent this page from creating additional dialogs' option in Firefox.
Workaround: Do not enable the 'Prevent this page from creating additional dialogs' option in Firefox.
Filtering. If you filter on entities using the Version checked out by and Version owner fields, checked-in entities are still included in the filter.
Workaround: To exclude checked-in entities, use the Version Status field.
When enabling version control on an existing project, the first check-in time is set when the first version control action occurs (check-out, check-in, view history of versions, etc.).
Version control is not supported when working with the following test types: Vuser Script and LoadRunner scenario.
In a version control enabled project, you cannot copy and paste entities that you have checked out. You also cannot copy and paste entities with related entities that you have checked out.
Workaround: Check in the entities or undo the check-out before you copy and paste them.
In the Comparison Settings dialog box, selecting the Coverage check box in either the Requirements or Tests tab instructs ALM to consider coverage. To ignore coverage, the Coverage check box in both the Requirements and Tests tabs must be cleared. Therefore, if you select or clear the Coverage check box in a library that contains only requirements, for example, this setting is saved and also applied when comparing a library that contains only tests.
In a version control enabled project, if you synchronize libraries when there are entities checked out by another user, the checked out entities are not synchronized. When you compare the libraries after synchronization, the entities that were not synchronized because they were checked out by another user are not displayed as Modified in the Compare Libraries Tool dialog box, despite the fact that they are different.
Unable to capture a baseline. The user receives an error message during the baseline verification process that indicates that the feature "capture_baseline"
has exceeded size limit fuse for some entity.
Workaround: Add the following site parameters to the Server Configuration tab in Site Administration:
LIBRARY_FUSE - 300000
The parameter value indicates the base number for calculating the maximum number of entities for a library, in order to maintain optimal performance. By default, the value is 2500.
Calculation is performed as follows:
A validation of this value is performed when you create baselines, import libraries, or synchronize libraries.
CLOSURE_ROWS_FUSE_FACTOR_PCT – 300000
The parameter value is used to adjust the limitation on the number of rows of each table (Entity) allowed in a closure for all features (such as baseline, version control, copy/paste). The default value is 100, which means 100% of the original limitation defined on the number of rows for each entity. Setting this value to 300000, for example, means 3000 times the original limitation.
Traceability Matrix View. Unable to generate a traceability matrix report when the Total number of trace from and Trace From tables have only one row, or when the Total number of linked tests and Linked Tests tables have only one row.
Version Control. The following limitation occurs when checking out a requirement that is not an assessment requirement, and then it is changed to an assessment requirement: The requirement will not be included in the RBQM analysis until it is checked in again.
If you remove a model from the business models tree without deleting the representative requirements and then you reimport the same model, new representative requirements are created with the suffix _1.
Colors and fonts of model activities are not imported into ALM. Activities are displayed in default colors and fonts.
If a model path includes a loop, the loop is ignored, and activities are listed only once in the path. Paths that begin or end with a loop are not considered.
If reimported models change drastically, paths may not resolve automatically.
Workaround: An icon indicates unresolved paths. Resolve the paths manually.
When uploading a folder with a file that has the same name as a file in the resource folder, the file is uploaded without deleting the original file.
Test Execution. When non-Latin characters are used for the Domain Name and Project Name fields, the notification email for test set execution summary may contain corrupted characters in those fields.
Pinned test sets. The following test types cannot be added to pinned test sets: Vuser Script, and LoadRunner scenario.
Timeslots. If you use a customized version of one of the predefined time formats for your client's system time, timeslots do not function properly.
Customizing Lab Entities. After customizing an entity in the Lab project, you may receive an error when you log back in to ALM.
Workaround: Delete the TD_80 folder on the client machine before logging in to the project.
In the Host module, the Host Purpose values include Quick Test Professional and Service Test instead of UFT (GUI Testing) and UFT (API Testing).
Workaround: For UFT (GUI Testing) use Quick Test Professional and for UFT (API Testing) use Service Test.
When scheduling a maintenance timeslot for 30 minutes (by default), in order to install a Performance Center patch on a Performance Center host, the following error occurs: "Can't reboot hosts"
.
Workaround: Schedule a longer maintenance timeslot (at least 45 minutes) and resume the install patch operation.
Functional test sets:
If you try to delete a functional test set that contains a test instance with a past run in an active state, an error occurs, and the test set is not deleted.
If you create a test set with at least one test instance with a specific host requirement, and that specific host’s purposes include the purposes necessary for the rest of the test instances in the test set, that specific host will be the only host requested for the test set. In that case, if that specific host fails, it will not be replaced by another host, and the test set will not be able to run.
Workaround: In the Requested Hosts tab, add an Automatch host which includes the purposes of the rest of the test instances.
If you try to execute a Functional test set that contains a test with a manual component, an error occurs. See the event log for the full error.
Parallel execution of tests on the same machine using server-side execution (Functional test set) and client-side execution (Default test set) is not supported.
Execution Report:
If your project name includes non-Latin characters, the Execution Report does not open.
Workaround: Rename the project.
The Execution report does not support 125% scale or a non-medium font size.
Workaround: Using the View > Zoom menu in Internet Explorer, reset the zoom to 100%. Using the View > Text Size menu, change the font size to Medium.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 9. After working in ALM Web Client or Performance Center, a failure error occurs when attempting to open the Server Side Execution report.
Workaround 1: Close all instance of Internet Explorer and make sure no iexplore processes are running in Task Manager. Then reopen ALM and open the report.
Workaround 2: If ALM Web Client is open, log off and reopen the report.
Users that belong to a group based on Viewer (default user group), are unable to run BPT tests in Server Side Execution.
Workaround: In Project Customization, navigate to the Groups and Permissions page, select the user group in the group list, and click the Permissions tab. Click the Test Lab tab. Under the Run entity, select Timeslot ID.
Automated tests cannot run using server-side execution and client-side execution at the same time.
'a* a'
or 'a%a'
, which contain the operators * or %, an error message may display.Project Reports. In attachments, hyperlinks to files with I18N letters in the file name appear distorted. Clicking on the hyperlink leads to an error.
Project reports generated using the Design Step Tabular Template have the following formatting error: The font of the step names in the Design Steps table changes after the second word. The error is fixed in projects created in ALM 11.51 and later, but persists in projects created in older versions of ALM.
Workaround: In Project Customization, navigate to the Project Report Templates module. Select Design Steps Folder > Design Step Tabular Template. Click the Download Template button and save it to your file system. Navigate to the file and open it. Highlight the field of the text containing <<Step Name>>
, and change the font size to 9. Save the document. Return to ALM, click the Upload Template button, and select the saved template from your file system.
Graphs. When you generate a Progress Graph in the Dashboard module, the graph may display different information from that displayed in previous versions of ALM. This can occur when the field that you group by does not have the History option enabled in Project Customization, or the History option was not enabled at some time during the period shown in the graph.
Requirements. When creating a Requirement Coverage report section as a child of a Tests report section, if you include Test fields in the filter for Requirement Coverage, these fields are ignored when filtering the coverage.
Requirements. When creating a Requirement Coverage report section as a child of a Tests report section, if you include Test fields in the report template, these fields are empty in the generated report.
Exports to Excel. Images in memo fields are not exported to Excel.
Unified Functional Testing (UFT):
After re-saving a UFT test, the broken relations are deleted and the user can no longer view them in the ALM Dependencies tab. If a UFT test has a dependency that is broken (for example, because the dependent asset was deleted), it is displayed, as expected, as a broken relation in ALM. If you later add another dependency to the UFT test, ALM displays the new dependency. The Dependencies tab no longer displays the broken dependency as a dependency at all, even though the action is still referencing an asset that does not exist, and the test fails when it runs. In UFT, the missing asset still shows up as a missing asset, as expected.
If the environment variable file associated with your test or component is stored in ALM and you modify it from the ALM Attachments tab, the changes are not applied until you reopen the test.
When launching a UFT script from ALM, the user running the script must have read/write permissions for the system cache folder.
When installing UFT on a machine with a load generator SA, you must restart the LoadRunner Agent Service to be able to replay UFT scripts.
Unicode. The integration of ALM with other products is not Unicode compliant. Therefore:
When working with tests or components stored in ALM, you should not use Unicode values (such as the name of the test or component, the name of an application area, the default value of a test, action, component parameter, or method argument values).
Data sent to UFT from ALM (such as values for test, action, or component parameters) is not Unicode compliant.
If you change the workflow script of a created entity, the change does not occur in copied entities.
When you use an Open Test Architecture (OTA) list, note that list numbering begins at 1. For example, mylist.Item(1)
refers to the first item in the list myList. If you have used OTA lists with numbering beginning at 0 in previous versions of ALM, you must manually update them to begin at 1.
Favorites. You cannot retrieve favorite filters from the OTA connection's common or private settings, or from the COMMON_SETTINGS table. Use the new API for the Favorite entity.
Creating Users. If LDAP is enabled, you cannot add users with API.
Defects. When setting defect comments to read-only, the Add Comment button is not disabled.
Attachments. When deleting an attachment in the New Defect dialog box, an incorrect action is triggered.
No workflow action is available for closing the requirements tree or Req Coverage tab.
The NewValue parameter in the FieldCanChange workflow event does not return a value when changes occur to the Target Cycle or Target Release field values.
Workaround: Run the following script:
Function <entity>_FieldCanChange(FieldName,NewValue)
For i = 1 To NewValue.Count
MsgBox NewValue.Item(i).Name
Next
End Function
where NewValue is a list of ISysTreeNode objects.
Existing Open Test Architecture applications that change data will fail in a project with Version Control enabled. You must change your code to check out items before you change them in code, and check them in after posting.
Workflow scripts and Open Test Architecture applications run with the privileges of the logged-in user, not the privileges of the user who created the script. Scripts and applications that use protected objects, like the Command object, may fail, depending on the project security settings and the group to which the user belongs.
When sending a TRACE request to an ALM server, the "403 Forbidden" status code is returned instead of the "501 Not implemented" status code.
Workaround: Enable the TRACE method. Add the following security constraint to the web.xml file under <deployment folder>\webapps\qcbin\WEB-INF folder:
<web-app>
.....
<!-- SECURITY CONSTRAINT #1 -->
<security-constraint>
<display-name>Allow unprotected TRACE</display-name>
<web-resource-collection>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
<http-method>TRACE</http-method>
</web-resource-collection>
</security-constraint>
....
</web-app>
The issues described below relate to workflow events, actions, and objects that have been changed. When necessary, instructions for modifying existing scripts for purposes of backward compatibility are provided.
In Project Customization, the following workflow events are not listed in the Scripts Tree in the Workflow Script Editor. These workflow events are supported for purposes of backward compatibility and are available only in upgraded projects:
GetNewReqPageName
GetReqDetailsPageName
GetNewBugPageName
MoveToFolder
MoveToSubject
MoveToComponentFolder (renamed to ComponentFolder_MoveTo)
GetDetailsPageName--now supported for all entities, not just defect entities and replaces
GetNewReqPageName
GetReqDetailsPageName
GetNewBugPageName
The CanDelete event has been added to tests, test folders, test sets, test set folders, business components, and business component folders. The Quality Center 10.00 syntax is still supported for purposes of backward compatibility in upgraded projects.
In workflow scripts, the Lists object can be used only with fields that are defined as the Lookup List type in Project Customization of project entities. In previous ALM/Quality Center versions, you could use the Lists object on fields defined as type Lookup List and String.
Workaround: In Project Customization, change the type to Lookup List. To be able to specify values that do not appear in the defined lookup list, clear the Verify Value check box.
New HTML tags added in ALM 11.50 might not be supported by Workflow scripts or external tools which rely on a specific Memo fields' HTML structure.
Workaround: Update the Workflow script/external data tool to the new HTML structure.
The issues described below relate to working with business components, flows, and business process tests in ALM. For information on issues related to working with business components in UFT, refer to the relevant product's readme file.
When running a business process test from Manual Runner, ALM cannot access the values of global parameters and objects set by the workflow scripts.
Workaround: For objects, recreate the public object before accessing it in the script.
This section includes:
For notes and limitations on LoadRunner, see the HP LoadRunner 12.50 Readme (http://lrhelp.saas.hp.com/en/12.50/dat/Readme.htm).
If Oracle is installed on the machine intended for the Performance Center Server, the IIS port will be in use by HTTPOra service. To use the machine as a Performance Center server, you must stop and disable the HTTPOra service, run IIS, and install the Performance Center server.
When installing Performance Center 12.50 over Performance Center 12.xx, the installation replaces the SSL certificate files. If you are working with cloud-based Load Generators and you are using custom SSL certificates, the certificates are deleted and then replaced by the default certificates.
Workaround: Before starting the Performance Center 12.50 installation, back up the certificate files in the following directory: <Installed location>\dat\cert
After installing Performance Center 12.50, copy the backed up certificate files to <Installed location>\dat\cert.
You cannot work with HPLN from a VuGen machine that was installed with a Performance Center 12.50 host. The following error occurs:
The file 'C:\live-network-connector\Inc\bin\live-network-connector' is missing. Please check your installation
Workaround: See HP Software Self-solve knowledge base article KM00966625 (https://softwaresupport.hp.com/group/softwaresupport/search-result/-/facetsearch/document/KM00966625).
When adding/reconfiguring a Performance Center 12.x server in Lab Management, the operation fails and one of the following IIS configuration or change identity errors occur:
Change Machine Identity failed. Reason: Value cannot be null
The IIS configuration of Performance Center server failed. Reset IIS and add or reconfigure the Performance Center server
javax.xml.ws.WebServiceException: Could not send message
Workaround: See HP Software Self-solve knowledge base article KM00966287 (https://softwaresupport.hp.com/group/softwaresupport/search-result/-/facetsearch/document/KM00966287).
To see the Vusers Log in an environment where the system user is non-administrative, grant the non-administrative system user full control of the following directory on the Controller machine:%windir%\system32.
If one of the diagnostics probes is offline, Performance Center does not try to establish a connection to the remaining probes in the list. The load test runs with no issues, but no diagnostic metrics are collected. Wait until the load test starts and check if all probes were successfully connected. If they were not, stop the test, remove the problematic probe and restart the load test.
When the URL Authorization feature is installed and enabled as part of the IIS role, the My Performance Center pages are not rendered correctly and some functionality issues, such as uploading a script and starting a load test, can occur. For more details, see HP Software Self-solve knowledge base article KM01430489 (https://softwaresupport.hp.com/group/softwaresupport/search-result/-/facetsearch/document/KM01430489).
When uploading a script to Performance Center, the length of the script file name combined with the length of the Performance Center server installation path cannot exceed 100 characters.
Performance Center does not support running Sybase Vusers on Linux.
HTML-based Vusers using Auto Proxy configuration may influence Performance Center host memory usage during a large performance test run.
You cannot view the "Snapshot on Error" if a Vuser is running on a Linux load generator.
When the Vuser script is a compiled Vuser, the Controller does not send the .dll to the remote machine.
Workaround: Using VuGen, add the .dll to the list of script files and upload the script to your project.
The following Vusers are not supported over the firewall: Corba-Java, RMI-Java, Jacada, and Java.
Replaying a VB Vuser on a load generator machine with Windows 7 requires administrator privileges.
Checked out scripts opened from VuGen using ALM Connection cannot be checked in from Performance Center. This limitation occurs if the same user is used to login to VuGen and Performance Center,
Workaround: Check in the scripts from VuGen.
If you create a Load Test with a monitor profile and copy it to a different project, but choose not to copy linked entities, you cannot remove the monitor profile.
A Load Generator Over Firewall machine can act either as a Load Generator or as the source machine for the Network Delay monitor at a given time, but not both of them concurrently.
If the Total Processor Time does not appear on the Host Monitor graph, this is due to a Microsoft limitation related to time synchronization between the client and server machines.
To change the default monitor settings of the Network Delay monitor, use ICMP instead of TCP.
If you install a SAPGUI client that is logged in with a specific user, the SAPGUI may not work when logging in with a different user.
Workaround: Install the SAPGUI client with the IUSR_METRO or equivalent Performance Center user (PC Identity).
If you configure Performance Center to postpone result collation to a later time, you need to configure an additional setting for Diagnostics data. Modify the server.properties file on the Diagnostics server <Diagnostics_HOME>\Server\etc directory and set distributor.offlinedelivery.preserveFiles = true.
The results are saved for up to five days. To extend this time, Modify the webserver.properties file on the Diagnostics server <Diagnostics_HOME>\Server\etc directory and change the default facade.run_delete_delay=5d to extend the number of days.
Performance Center will not be able to collate Diagnostics results when using the Controller as the only load generator machine in the performance test run.
Workaround: Manually copy the Diagnostics .eve files from the Diagnostics Server /data/<RunID> to the <LT_Result_Folder>\j2ee_bdPerformance Center results folder.
To view Diagnostics data in Analysis, use the Analysis option to open the complete data rather than the summary data.
Performance Center cannot collate Collector metrics, Probe metrics, and Host metrics. This data will not appear in Analysis, but it is available online during the performance test run.
If the Performance Center host cannot access the Diagnostics Server during data collation, the Performance Center collation for the Diagnostics metrics will fail.
When running a performance test using the Controller as the only load generator machine, diagnostics data might not be collated.
Workaround: Do not run Vusers on the Controller machine.
The remote patch installation feature should be used for installing Performance Center certified patches only.
Before running the IP Wizard to define multiple IPs on a host, make sure to first add the host to ALM.
The cloud account creation may fail with the following error in the server log: sun.security.provider.certpath.SunCertPathBuilderException: unable to find valid certification path to requested target.
Workaround: Before you create a cloud account, you must first define network settings for communicating with the cloud and create digital certificates. For details, see the HP ALM Lab Management Guide and HP Software Self-solve knowledge base article KM00891595 (https://softwaresupport.hp.com/group/softwaresupport/search-result/-/facetsearch/document/KM00891595).
Provisioning hosts on HP Cloud may fails with the following error: "Quota exceeded for ram: Requested <amount>, but already used <amount> of <totalAmount> ram"
.
Workaround: HP Cloud limits the amount of RAM that can be provisioned in each region. If the RAM requirements of the hosts you attempt to provision exceed the region limit, you will receive this error. Contact HP Cloud support and verify your account limits.
Provisioning hosts on HP Cloud is supported only when using the default security group. The default security group must be configured with the minimum rules required. For more details on provisioning hosts, see HP ALM Lab Management Guide.
When creating a new cloud host template, the default value of the Host Installation field is set to Windows Standalone LG
. If you are working with a Linux environment image, make sure to set the Host Installation field to Unix Load Generator
.
Provisioning a load generator on Amazon EC2 Cloud, when the Amazon security group name contains spaces, results in the following error: "Invalid expression [<security group name>]. Message: literal ['xxx'] is illegal"
.
Workaround: Create a new security group in Amazon with no spaces.
Microsoft Azure Cloud: When provisioning a large number of hosts ( ~ 50), a high failure rate occurs due to an Azure Active Directory Access Control Service limitation.
Provisioning fails, and the following error appears in the Site Administration log: The supplied password must be 8-123 characters long and meet password complexity requirements.
Workaround: Run provision again and select a password that meets the operating system passwords complexity requirements.
When setting the td password to include the equal sign (=), Performance Center functions, such as System Health and run load test, do not work. Avoid using = in the td user’s password.
If you configured ALM to work with a proxy server using NTLM authentication, Performance Center load tests fail to collate results if the Performance Center server was added to ALM with the Internal URL field value of the proxy server used for NTLM authentication.
Workaround: When adding a Performance Center server to ALM, enter the direct URL to the Performance Center server in the Internal URL field.
Performance Center fails to collate when running a performance test over a firewall load generator with a host that has only one purpose load generator.
The maximum number of files that can be zipped for the collate or analysis process is limited by WinZip to 65,535. If you change the run-time logging settings to debug mode (Run-time Settings > General:Log > Extended log), it is likely, when running a performance test with a few hundred Vusers for more than an hour, that you will exceed this limit and WinZip will fail to create a zip file.
The Citrix Connection Center may prevent record and replay of Citrix ICA scripts, if it is running in a different user session on the same machine.
Workaround: Close all instances of the concenter.exe process for all users. To prevent the Citrix Connection Center from starting automatically, set the ConnectionCenter registry key to an empty value. This key can be found at:
For 32 bit systems: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVers ion\Run
For 64 bit systems: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Wind ows\CurrentVersion\Run
When working with Performance Center in a "lockdown" mode (i.e. the PC system user is not an administrator), the following error occurs when uploading a script from ALM: "Script upload failed. Error: Failed Downloading ALM Client. Please check network connection and user network credentials."
Workaround: Upload a script once as an administrator user. This process will install the ALM client tools for all users on the Performance Center server machine. After you have successfully uploaded at least one script, you can change the Performance Center system user to a non-administrator user.
Note: When working with several Performance Center servers, you must repeat this workaround for each Performance Center server before changing the user. In this case you will need to add a Performance Center server, perform the upload, set the server's state to Unavailable, add a second server, and upload another script.
Usage reports. When a new user name is created using a previously deleted user name, the statistical data is combined and presented in the reports as data from one user name.
Workaround: Do not reuse previously deleted user names.
HP Network Virtualization. Microsoft Internet Explorer 11.00 is not supported when working with HP Network Virtualization from Performance Center 12.50.
Workaround: See HP Software Self-solve knowledge base article KM00959046 (https://softwaresupport.hp.com/group/softwaresupport/search-result/-/facetsearch/document/KM00959046).
The CDA Servers module is unavailable for the PC Standalone license type.
When creating subfolders in the PAL Reports and Manage Production Data Sets panes, the user interface hangs.
Workaround: Refresh the user interface (F5). The data will not be lost.
When defining a Webtrends host in the PAL Data Set Creator wizard, make sure to enter the Webtrends Data Extraction API Host URL (http://<Webtrends Data Extraction API machine>:<port>
). Do not enter the Webtrends Server URL.
SiteScope. Topology integration is not supported for the Community edition of SiteScope 11.30. To enable the integration, you must upgrade your SiteScope license. For details on upgrading your license, see the HP SiteScope Deployment Guide, or contact the customer support: http://www.hp.com/go/sitescope/.
You may experience a degradation in performance during replay when the Step Navigator pane is visible.
Workaround: Close the Step Navigator pane when replaying a script. You can also set your Replay layout to exclude the Step Navigator pane.
Analysis fails when trying to connect to a version of the ALM server that is different from the server you are connected to in your browser.
Workaround: Connect to the other version of ALM in your browser and download the client files by clicking on the Application Lifecycle Management link.
This section includes the following sections:
To enable multi-language support, the DB and FS servers must support Unicode. Unicode is a feature of MS-SQL that allows multi-language support. In Oracle, multi-language support is defined when installing the server.
When working with an Oracle UTF-8 database, you can enter text in more than one non-English language. For MS-SQL databases, you can define your projects as Unicode to allow multi-language support. You can also modify existing MS-SQL projects to be Unicode compliant. In addition, you can enter non-English text regardless of the system locale setting on the ALM client machine. However, if the ALM servers are not Unicode compliant, non-English characters entered on the ALM client machine appear as question marks.
You can work with localized versions of Performance Center only if they match the localization of the corresponding ALM version. For example, to work with Performance Center in Korean, your ALM version must also be in Korean.
You cannot type Japanese characters in the ALM Login window Password field.
Workaround: Paste text from the clipboard.
Opening and updating a project that contains characters different from those set in the ClientOSLocale or ClientOSAdvanceLocale may cause irreversible damage.
The InputLanguage inserted from an external component to ALM must be the same as the ClientOSLocale and ClientOSAdvanceLocale. For example, you cannot insert a UFT script that contains Japanese characters in a client that runs on an OSLanguage with ClientOSLocale or ClientOSAdvanceLocale that is not Japanese.
When sending mail that contains non-English characters from the ALM/Quality Center client, it must be sent from the ClientOSLocale and ClientOSAdvanceLocale that are the same as the mail characters locale.
To send mail that contains non-English characters, the MailServerVersion and MailClientVersion mail server must support non-English characters.
To display non-English characters, the OSLanguage needs to include the proper fonts for the language.
The SiteAdminDBCollation and ProjectDBCollation must be set to the same language as the data insert. For example, inserting Japanese characters in a Korean collation is not supported.
The Spell Checker tool is available only in English.
Due to a problem in the JDBC driver’s specific version, using Chinese and Japanese collation in MS-SQL may cause an error while executing some actions.
You cannot create ALM/Quality Center projects with Thai characters in the project name.
The number of double-byte characters you can enter in an ALM edit box may be more limited than the number of characters specified in the relevant error messages. The number of characters that can actually be used depends on the database definitions and the character set collation that is being used. For example, one character can occupy 3 bytes when using Japanese characters with a database that is defined to work with UTF8.
ALM/Quality Center versions 9.2 and later support LDAP authentication using non-English character sets. Previously, login failed when passwords for LDAP-authenticated users contained non-English characters. To use non-English character sets, set the LDAP_CHARSET parameter in Site Administration to Default or add the relevant value listed in the Basic Encoding Set list.
Hebrew locale. On Hebrew locale client machines, to ensure that ALM memo fields (for example, Description, Comments, Rich Text) are displayed properly, configure the settings in the Control Panel > Regional and Language Options window. Set Languages For Non-Unicode Programs (Administrative tab) and Current Format (Format tab) to Hebrew.
HP ALM Client MSI Generator. You cannot install the ALM Client MSI Generator to a folder that contains non-English characters.
Workaround: Install to a folder that contains only English characters.
ALM installation. The path in which installation files for ALM are located, and the path in which ALM is installed, can contain only English characters.
When downloading a VuGen script from ALM, the file name displayed in the Save As dialog box might be truncated. Due to a Microsoft Internet Explorer limitation, this problem occurs if the original script name contains more than 160 letters, or if script name contains non-English letters.
Workaround: Download the script from My Performance Center.
Non-English national characters are not supported in project names.
Workaround: Use English characters in project names.
Non-English Cyrillic URLs are not supported when creating noise scripts.
Workaround: Use English characters when creating noise script URLs.
The UI language is defined by the ALM server and only one language can be defined per server.
ALM Language Pack must be installed and operated on a Windows machine where the Windows native language (MLU*) is identical to the MUI* language.
An ALM project created in an English edition cannot be upgraded to a localized edition.
When working with a localized version of Performance Center, you must install Arial Unicode MS - version 1.00 or later on your Performance Center server.
To support Unicode characters when exporting Trend reports to PDF, install Arial Unicode MS on the Performance Center Server.
When running system health on a Performance Center machine, the SiteScope health check might fail when parsing the SiteScope version number. This problem occurs on localized machines that treat the decimal point as a comma.
Workaround: Ignore the error.
You can visit the HP Software Support web site at: https://softwaresupport.hp.com/
This web site provides contact information and details about the products, services, and support that HP Software offers.
HP Software support provides customer self-solve capabilities. It provides a fast and efficient way to access interactive technical support tools needed to manage your business. As a valued support customer, you can: search for knowledge documents of interest, submit and track progress on support cases, submit enhancement requests online, download software patches, and more.
To access the Self-solve knowledge base, visit the Self-solve knowledge search home page.
Most of the support areas require that you register as an HP Passport user and sign in. Many also require an active support contract. To find more information about support access levels, go to: Access levels.
To register for an HP Passport ID, go to: HP Passport Registration
You can also access a localized version of the Software Support web site in a number of languages by selecting the relevant language in the list on the top right of the HP Software Support web site.
The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.
The information contained herein is subject to change without notice.
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