Release notes

Version 2023.3 patch 3, May 2024.

Contents

Read this section first

These Release Notes contain the most up-to-date information relating to the installation, configuration and operation of the LiveCompare software. Please read them carefully, and we advise that you keep a hardcopy with the Installation and Configuration Guide for your reference.

Contents

Technical support

If you have any questions about LiveCompare, follow the Technical support link.

Contents

Backward compatibility

If you have upgraded to LiveCompare 2023.3 patch 3 from an earlier release, check the Backward compatibility topic.

Contents

What’s new in this release?

The What’s new in this release? topic lists the new features in this release.

Removed functionality

  • The Analyze JavaScript Quality and Create Java Impact Report actions are no longer available. Running an existing workflow that contains either of these actions results in the error ‘Action is obsolete.’.

  • The Execute R action is no longer available. Running an existing workflow that contains this action results in the error ‘Action is obsolete.’.

  • The Read S3 Bucket and Write S3 Bucket actions are no longer available. Running an existing workflow that contains either of these actions results in the error ‘Action is obsolete.’.

  • The APO, Business Process Analysis, Java Analysis, License Management and Upgrade templates folders are no longer available.

  • The Data/Java Files and Data/S3 Buckets hierarchy folders are longer available.

  • Code Quality datasets are no longer available.-

Known issues

Apps

Code Guard

In some cases, an unknown termination error may occur when running the Code Guard app. On investigating the problem, we found that it was caused by two competing threads attempting to read the same Excel External Data Source. A workaround for this problem is to replace the app’s External Data Source with one of the same name that uses a different type of data file (for example, a .CSV file).

Fix My Code

The Fix My Code app only supports atomic object types, and container object types, such as Function Groups (FUGR).

Reports

The Reports utility app is no longer available. Instead, a summary of the current user’s generated reports is displayed in the LiveCompare Dashboard.

Upgrade Assessment Summary Excel Report Chart Data Does Not Update

If an Excel spreadsheet opens in Protected Mode, the charts may not reflect the data in the actual spreadsheet. You must switch the spreadsheet into Editable Mode to see the correct values in the charts. This issue was noticed for the Upgrade Assessment Summary Excel report; however, it may occur for other Excel reports.

Apps UI

Server error in the Apps screen

A runtime error may occur when opening the Apps screen; an error page is shown with the title 'Server Error in ‘/livecompare/apps’ Application.'. This problem is caused if the IIS Session State feature value on the LiveCompare server is set to Read Only. To resolve this problem, carry out the following steps on the LiveCompare server:

  1. Start Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager.
  2. Ensure the ‘Features View’ tab is selected, and double click the ‘Feature Delegation’ icon in the Management section.
  3. Set the ‘Session State’ feature value to Read/Write.

Narrator does not distinguish between checked and unchecked check boxes in an AAQ Select List

The Narrator screen reader does not distinguish between checked and unchecked check boxes in the consumer interface’s AAQ Select List controls. We believe this to be a limitation of the third-party library.

Narrator may cause check boxes in an AAQ Select List to be selected

In some cases, after the Narrator screen reader has read an AAQ Select List control in the Consumer interface, some of the check boxes in the control may be selected randomly. If this happens, we advise you to review your AAQ Select List selections before pressing ‘Continue’.

Slider control values read by narrator

The Narrator screen reader reads the value of slider controls differently depending on which browser is used. If the slider control is changed while it has focus using Edge, Narrator reads the old slider value, followed by the new slider value. If the slider control is changed while it has focus using Chrome, Narrator reads the old slider value only.

Commit Configuration

Attribute not found: ExecTestEventsPath

Following an upgrade from LiveCompare 2023.1, the following error may occur during the Commit Configuration process:

ERROR(8): Attribute not found: ExecTestEventsPath

The error may be resolved by running the Commit Configuration process again.

External Data Sources

Microsoft OLEDB driver for SQL Server version 19

Microsoft have released version 19 of the MSOLEDBSQL driver, however it is not supported by LiveCompare as a driver for SQL Server External Data Sources. A workaround is to install version 18 of the MSOLEDBSQL driver; this version of the driver is checked for by LiveCompare’s Pre-install Check program.

Data extract program

Run the data extract program using SAP GUI 750

In some cases, the Upgrade Assessor data extract program may hang when run using SAP GUI 750, with the ST22 short dump file including either of the following errors:

The SAP Dispatcher (part of the application server) has lost the connection to a terminal process.

Control Framework : Error processing control.

In each of these cases, a workaround is to run the data extract program as a background job. See the Run the data extract program as a background job help topic for details.

Contacts

Custom contact details

If you have edited the contact details displayed in the Administration page, these details will be used in place of the default contact details when upgrading to LiveCompare 2023.3 patch 3. If you have Administrator privileges, the ‘Restore Default Contacts’ button on the Administration page may be used to restore the default contacts provided with LiveCompare.

Workspaces

Workflow is not displayed in a reregistered workspace

If a workflow is run, and then its workspace is reregistered (i.e., deleted without removing its database files and then registered again), the workflow will not be displayed when it is selected in the LiveCompare hierarchy. To resolve this problem, restart the RNSERVER service after first making sure that no users are logged into LiveCompare, and that no workflows are currently running.

Workspace databases are not removed using Chrome

In LiveCompare 3.6, the selecting the ‘Remove Database?’ option on the Delete Workspace screen unregistered the workspace, but did not remove the workspace database when using Chrome. This problem has been resolved, however if you are using Chrome and have upgraded from LiveCompare 3.6, you may have some unwanted workspaces on your LiveCompare server. You can check this in LiveCompare by selecting ‘Register Workspace’ from the Workspaces folder in the LiveCompare hierarchy and reviewing the list of unregistered workspaces. Workspaces that you no longer need may registered in LiveCompare 2023.3 patch 3 and then deleted as normal by selecting the ‘Remove Database?’ option.

Analyses

Analyze Object Links Actions RFC timeout errors

If an RFC timeout error occurs while running the Analyze Object Links action, this can be resolved by means of a registry entry on the LiveCompare server.

  1. Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Tricentis\LiveCompare\5.3\Settings registry folder.
  2. Create a new String value named AOLNoFanInOut, and set its value to X.

Create Object Links Cache actions

The Create Object Link Cache (COLC) action was improved in version 3.8. If only a few changes have been made to objects in an SAP system, for the most part it will only retrieve changes made to those objects and store them in the local cache. This greatly speeds up the COLC action (and any analyses that depend on it) by an order of magnitude, typically.

Note that if the EU_INIT job is run on an SAP machine, it also updates its SAP-resident cache regarding the SAP objects on the system. However, we have observed that it also regenerates all of the CLAS objects associated with WAPA objects. This can be 50K objects or more. The first time a COLC is run after the EU_INIT job is run, the COLC action will discard the current cache and completely rebuild the OLC cache.

The suggestion to users: if you have a regularly scheduled EU_INIT job, then schedule a COLC job to run after it, thereby making later COLCs run much faster.

Custom object naming patterns

This release contains new patterns in the Custom Object Naming Patterns External Data Source that classify objects whose names begin with SAPLY, SAPLZ, SAPMY or SAPMZ as custom objects. Customers who are installing LiveCompare for the first time will automatically receive this update. However, customers who are upgrading from an older release of LiveCompare will not automatically receive it. This policy exists because we do not wish to overwrite updates that customers have made to their External Data Source files.

If you are upgrading to LiveCompare 2023.3 patch 3 from LiveCompare 3.1 or earlier, the Add New Custom Object Naming Patterns workflow in the Tools template package should be run once only to update the External Data Source with the new patterns. Please see the workflow’s template help file for more details.

Generic RFC Call actions

For SAP functions with ordinal parameters of type CHAR or DEC, if the direction is CHANGING, and there is no non-blank parameter value, the Generic RFC Call’s output dataset will not be populated by the remote function call. In this case, please contact Tricentis Technical support for assistance.

Read HTML Table action does not support HTTPS

The Read HTML Table action does not support URLs that begin with https:.

Analyze ABAP Quality action unable to scan large strings

The Analyze ABAP Quality action may return ‘error in ABAP’ as the ABAP code’s complexity category, if the ABAP source includes long lines of code that run across several on-screen lines. For example, data declarations of long strings that exceed 4 on-screen lines and are literals may cause ‘error in ABAP’ to be returned.

IMG comparison reports

In some cases, the Create Hierarchy Report action may run out of memory when generating a report from IMG Comparison results. This problem may occur when large IMG areas are compared, for example ‘Payroll Accounting’. To resolve this problem, use IMG Select List parameters to generate a number of different reports, each for a smaller portion of the IMG.

Table contents comparison of table T000

In order to be able to compare application data from two systems with different client numbers, LiveCompare ignores the MANDT field when comparing table contents. Since MANDT is the only key field in table T000, LiveCompare has no way of matching up rows from the two systems. T000 is the only table known to manifest this problem.

Read cluster tables

In some cases, a timeout error may occur when using the Read SAP Table action to read large cluster tables. If this happens when comparing a list of objects, a workaround is to exclude the cluster table from the comparison, then read it separately from each system using the Read Large SAP Table action. The cluster table may then be compared using the Compare Tables action.

Row details for table keys

In Hierarchy datasets, the hyperlink that opens the ‘Row Details’ screen for Table Contents results displays a new a new window listing the table field names, the field values from each system and the field descriptions. However, the ‘Row Details’ screen displayed for Table Key results shows no data.

Web Services

Reregister old Web Services

If you have upgraded to this release from LiveCompare 3.8 or earlier and you have any workflows that are registered as Web Services, these will need to be reregistered in LiveCompare 2023.3 patch 3 using the Register Workflow as Web Service Wizard.

WSDL file runtime error

If a runtime error occurs when opening a WSDL file in the Web Services hierarchy folder, this may be resolved by deleting the <LiveCompare user data dir>\Cache\webservices folder.

Output parameter selected by the Register Workflow as Web Service Wizard

When a workflow is registered as a Web Service, the first output parameter found in the workflow is selected by default in the Register Workflow as Web Service Wizard’s ‘Choose Output Parameter’ screen. If the output parameter contains any spaces or non-alphanumeric characters, the resulting Web Service will be invalid, and in the case where this is the workflow’s only output parameter, no other parameters will be available for selection. Before registering a workflow as a Web Service, you should make sure that there are no spaces or non-alphanumeric characters in the name of the node that will be used for the Web Service’s output parameter.

Call a Web Service from an external program or third-party application

If you are upgrading from LiveCompare 3.1 and are using an existing Web Service that is called by an external program or third-party application, it may be necessary to re-register the Web Service using the Register Workflow as Web Service Wizard in this release. The new WSDL must then be used by the calling program. This is due to changes in the Web Service Definition Language expected in later LiveCompare releases.

Workflows

Workflow development

Google Chrome is the preferred web browser for workflow development.

Cannot get new RFC signature after modifying a remote function

If a remote function is bound to a Generic RFC Call action and then modified to include an additional input parameter, the Generic RFC Call action retains the function’s original definition even after the RFC Signature Builder Wizard is rerun. This issue occurs because the SAP RFC Runtime maintains a cache for each SAP system ID, which is not controlled by LiveCompare.

A workaround for this issue is to restart the RNSERVER service on the LiveCompare server, first making sure that no users are logged into LiveCompare, and that no workflows are currently running. After the RNSERVER service has been restarted, the RFC Signature Builder Wizard may be used to bind the Generic RFC Call action to the updated function.

Not enough memory to run Microsoft Excel

If a ‘Not enough memory to run Microsoft Excel’ error occurs when opening an Excel report from LiveCompare, this may be resolved by adjusting Excel’s Protected View settings as follows:

  1. Start Excel and choose ‘Options’ from the ‘File’ tab.
  2. Select ‘Trust Center’ and click ‘Trust Center Settings…’.
  3. In the ‘Protected View’ section, uncheck the ‘Enable Protected View for files originating from the Internet’ and ‘Enable Protected View for files located in potentially unsafe locations’ check boxes.
  4. Close the dialogs, close Excel and then open the Excel report from LiveCompare.

Export table contents to Excel

When you export a Table dataset to Microsoft Excel, LiveCompare displays a dialog asking whether you would like to open or save the Excel file. If you click ‘Open’ Excel displays the following warning message:

The file you are trying to open is in a different format than specified by the file extension. Verify that the file is not corrupted and is from a trusted source before opening the file. Do you want to open the file?

This warning occurs because the table contents are exported in HTML format, tagged to be opened using Excel. To display the table contents in Excel, choose ‘Save’ in the initial dialog, and save the file with an .xls extension. When opening the .xls file, click ‘Yes’ when the warning message is shown to display the table contents.

Reset complex workflows

If a workflow takes longer than three seconds to reset, the hourglass cursor that is displayed during the reset operation is replaced with an arrow cursor. This suggests that the operation has finished, however the workflow renderer will remain unresponsive until the reset has completed. This problem may occur for workflows that call a large number of sub workflows.

IMG Select List Property Editor

When working with an IMG that has been downloaded from an SAP system it is possible that you’ll see items in the hierarchy with indecipherable names. The items may be selected and used in an IMG selection, and are being returned from SAP when we query for the IMG hierarchy. We expect to filter or transform these items in a future release.

User interface

Configuration - Impact Analysis screen using Internet Explorer

If Internet Explorer is used, and the check boxes on the Configuration - Impact Analysis screen are adjusted, clicking the screen’s ‘Save’ button clears the screen’s check boxes, so they do not match what is configured in LiveCompare. Additionally, clicking the screen’s ‘Save’ button adds a vertical scrollbar to the right-hand side, and the screen’s description is scrolled out of view. This behavior is due to Internet Explorer's lack of support for the JavaScript libraries used throughout LiveCompare's client code, in particular jQuery 3.5.1.

Cannot select a dataset in a scrolled workflow using Internet Explorer

In Internet Explorer 11, if a workflow is scrolled vertically using the scrollbar, selecting a node at the bottom of the workflow has the effect of scrolling to the top of the workflow. There are a number of workarounds for this problem:

  • Use the mouse wheel instead of the scrollbar to scroll the workflow.
  • Click the workflow background before selecting the node.
  • Zoom out so that no scrolling is required.

Display tabs in Hierarchy datasets

In some cases using Internet Explorer 8, the tabs shown for Hierarchy datasets may not be displayed correctly. If this occurs, select ‘Compatibility View Settings’ from the Internet Explorer ‘Tools’ menu, and deselect the ‘Display intranet sites in Compatibility View’ check box.

Miscellaneous

Multiple LiveCompare sessions using Internet Explorer

If you start a second LiveCompare browser window or tab (for example, to log in using the ‘admin’ account), the new browser window or tab shares the same session information as the first one. This means that if you log in to LiveCompare using the second browser window or tab, then the first session will be lost. It also means that logging out from one LiveCompare session will log out the other session. To start a new session for a second LiveCompare login, choose ‘New session’ from Internet Explorer’s File menu.

Non-Western European Language Text

LiveCompare uses Unicode internally to read, write and store text, and therefore supports all major languages. However, the display of Unicode text may require some additional client configuration steps.

See http://www.unicode.org/help/display_problems.html for information on setting up Internet Explorer to view Unicode characters.

Grid control

In LiveCompare, the grid control that is used to display tabular data requires additional configuration in order to display non-Western European language text:

  1. The LiveCompare client must have a font on it that supports the desired language. See http://support.microsoft.com/kb/287247 for information about the Arial Unicode MS font, which covers a large subset of Unicode.
  2. The LiveCompare server must be configured to specify the use of this font as the default font for the grid control. This can be done by carrying out the following steps:
    1. Log in to LiveCompare using an account with Administrator privileges.
    2. Expand the ‘Administration’ folder in the LiveCompare hierarchy, and select the ‘Configuration’ node.
    3. In the right-hand pane, scroll down to find the key named ‘GridDefaultFont’, in the ‘General’ category.
    4. Enter the font name, and click the ‘Add’ button.
  3. The LiveCompare client must have the desired language set as the default. This can be configured using the Regional Settings applet in the Windows Control Panel.

Invalid root in registry key

When IIS is configured to accept only authenticated access to LiveCompare, you may see this error message:

Invalid root in registry key

"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Tricentis\LiveCompare\5.3\Settings\RootUrl"

This error occurs because the authenticated user has insufficient privileges to write to the Windows registry. The solution is to use REGEDIT and grant the authenticated user account ‘Full Access’ to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Tricentis\LiveCompare\5.3 registry key.

Export Table datasets to Excel 2007

The following message may be displayed if you try to export a table dataset to Microsoft Excel 2007 using the ‘Export to Excel’ button in the Details window. It may also be displayed if you use the ‘Export Header to Excel’ or ‘Export Attributes to Excel’ links and try to view the resulting spreadsheet.

The file you are trying to open ‘[Filename.xls]’ is in a different format than specified by the file extension. Verify that the file is not corrupted and is from a trusted source before opening the file.

Files exported from LiveCompare are safe to open. The message is displayed because LiveCompare data is exported in HTML format, and we are using an ‘.xls’ file extension. Excel 2007 uses a security measure called ‘extension hardening’ which requires that the format of a file’s contents matches its extension. To prevent the message from being shown, set the following registry value on your LiveCompare client machine:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Excel\Security]

"ExtensionHardening"=dword:00000000

Generic RFC Call actions

Generic RFC Call actions may not work in some 700 kernel release systems for functions that have tables with numbers on odd-byte boundaries.

'Access is denied' Error During Deconfiguration

If the Deconfiguration Wizard Summary screen reports an ‘Access is denied’ error for any DLLs, please contact Tricentis Technical support for assistance.

Contents

Welcome to LiveCompare