Summary/Detail Reports give "Server Error 404 - File or directory not found"
Article ID: 35356
Updated On:
Products
Issue/Introduction
Symptoms:
- A 404 error is produced on a Summary or Detail Report.
- The error stops happening when the active Data Partition is disabled.
Steps to reproduce the issue:
- From the CA Service Desk Manager web client, access "Reports" and either a "Summary" or "Detail" Report.
- An error appears quickly on screen:
"Server Error
404 - File or directory not found.
The resource you are looking for might have been removed, had its name changed, or is temporarily unavailable."
<Please see attached file for image>
Environment:
- Any CA Service Desk Manager or ITSM environment.
- Browsers differ in the length of URL they support.
Cause:
Very long Data Partition Constraints can cause the Report to generate a long URL that exceeds the browser capacity.
Exceeding the URL length will cause the browser to throw an error, which is passed to CA Service Desk Manager and reported back as the above error.
Different browsers have different length limitations.
A rule of thumb is that browsers are expected to handle URL lengths up to around 2,000 characters.
Note that in addition to the Report query, there is also a wrapper of other text, as well as conversion of characters such as an apostrophe (') into longer HTML strings that can significantly increase the URL length. A Data Partition Constraint that is around 500 characters may sometimes convert to more than 2,000 characters.
Example.
This Data Partition Constraint will trigger the above issue. Even though it is only around 500 characters, it converts to more than 2,000 due to the symbols and wrapper text.
Table Name: Call_Req
Constraint Type: View
Constraint:
(group.[group]group_list.member IN (@root.id))
OR
(
group != U'101A99AE699FF34C861EA780D0EBBE2B' AND
group != U'2146E253F3B4FB4C9F8D45D8ECE50B2C' AND
group != U'3E1F415718CA0944B4936853FDD382F6' AND
group != U'AD33C1F100EE604AB0927BC9A51324F3' AND
group != U'E607DD50DB74BF4980CC1E86E54AB6FF' AND
group != U'12D5308C9B4A3D4D97C02287DDC58A42' AND
group != U'91BD45B8F8BD4C4484B2657FCF70770F' AND
group != U'8791AD6B7ED6E149B22CA1CF4DA7B7AE' AND
group != U'1270B1F933E8334EBB83D5E1992FB88C' AND
group != U'6AA9F62F37F3B54282A475061F39F4D6' AND
group != U'EF60CAB4250C764F88FDF27F44FA262F' AND
group != U'A15EDFC01532914092A44189267AC469' AND
group != U'AD33C1F100EE604AB0927BC9A51324F3' AND
group != U'EF60CAB4250C764F88FDF27F44FA262F' AND
group != U'411390E7F0B40F4EBB2CDD3FA0E845CF' AND
group != U'BC7D56F3F39D8B45B667E67CD61AC3A2' AND
group != U'13E3777D362ADC478D66265353261C04'
)
<Please see attached file for image>
You may verify that you are encountering this issue by one of two tests:
- Disable the Data Partition and see if the problem stops.
- Enable an HTML trace tool such as Fiddler, and examine if the generated URL is long.
Workaround:
There is currently no solution to this issue within the CA SDM/ITSM product, as the restriction in URL length lies within the browser.
You may vote on this Idea at CA Communities for this area be enhanced: Allow Summary/Detail Reports to handle long URLs in CA SDM/ITSM
Some browsers have longer supported URL paths than others.
Typically this issue is only seen on large Multi-Tenanted sites that have a large set of exclusions in the Data Partition Constraints.
Some workarounds exist:
- Rewrite the Data Partition Constraint query if possible to generate a shorter URL path OR
- Restrict the running of Reports to users with smaller Data Partition Constraints, such as super users OR
- Use an alternate reporting tool, such as Business Objects, which is not subject to the same HTML constraint.
Additional Information:
Internet Search: Search on keywords such as "HTML URL limit" which will give results such as "What is the character limit on URL" at http://stackoverflow.com.
Idea at CA Communities: Vote for this area to be enhanced: Allow Summary/Detail Reports to handle long URLs in CA SDM/ITSM
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