WebStart: Browse Button Not Working in WebUtil Forms (Works in FSAL Mode)

Thank you to Rajagopalan Hariharan for the information in this post.

Applies To: Oracle Forms, 14.1.2.0.0

Summary: Clicking the browse button in the Java Web Start deployment of the Oracle Forms application results in the error “oracle.forms.webutil.fileFunction beans not found,” preventing file browsing functionality, while the same operation works correctly when using the File System Access Library mode.

Cause: The root cause of the issue was the absence of the configuration parameter basejnlp=webutil.jnlp in the Webstart configuration section. 

This missing parameter caused the Webutil file function beans to not be found when launching the forms application via Java Webstart, resulting in the error “oracle.forms.webutil.fileFunction beans not found”. 

The issue did not occur in FSAL mode because the configuration there was correctly set.

Solution: Configure the WebStart JNLP file to include the WebUtil JNLP reference to resolve the “oracle.forms.webutil.fileFunction beans not found” error.

1. Open the WebStart configuration files used to launch the Oracle Forms application.

2. Locate the JNLP file used by WebStart.

3. Add or verify the following entry in the JNLP file to include the WebUtil JNLP resource:

basejnlp=webutil.jnlp

4. Ensure that all WebUtil related compiled files (such as WEBUTIL.pll and WEBUTIL.plx) are located only in the custom forms path directory defined in your environment, avoiding duplicates in the Oracle Home forms directory.

5. Recompile the WebUtil PL/SQL library and make sure the compiled files are up to date and placed in the custom forms path.

6. Confirm that all custom JAR files, including application and WebUtil JARs, are properly signed with your certificate and imported into the Java security settings on client machines.

7. Remove any old or duplicate WebUtil files from the Oracle Home forms directory to prevent conflicts.

8. Restart the application and launch the Forms application via WebStart to apply the changes.

Verify that clicking the browse button in the WebStart launched Forms application no longer produces the “oracle.forms.webutil.fileFunction beans not found” error and that the file browse functionality operates as expected.