15 Replies Latest reply on May 9, 2017 11:25 AM by prawij

PDF Reports displaying Orion logon screen after upgrade.

nglynn Apr 4, 2017 3:52 PM

I was wondering if anyone else has experienced an issue where legacy report writer reports that were emailed out as PDFs are no longer working after upgrading? We recently upgraded to NPM 12.0.1 and SAM 6.3 and I am now finding that reports emailed in PDF format when opened only display the Orion Logon screen. If I run the report manually, or click on the links within the scheduler everything works fine.

I've tried re-specifying the account in the scheduler, I've tried using the DirectLink account, I've tried using different accounts/reports. It doesn't seem to matter, if it's emailed out as a PDF its only grabbing the logon screen. Has anyone else seen this issue since upgrading?

Re: PDF Reports displaying Orion logon screen after upgrade.

nglynn Apr 5, 2017 11:26 AM (in response to nglynn)

I should also note, that I also tried attaching a newer web based report to the schedule and the PDF comes out the same way.
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- Re: PDF Reports displaying Orion logon screen after upgrade.
  
  dbriden Apr 6, 2017 5:24 AM (in response to nglynn)
  
  Had the same issue and logged a ticket with support ticket #1146341.
  
  The response was
  
  "
  I have seen this issue before and a quick workaround is to create a new Orion account named DirectLink to bypass the login screen. Refer to the link below.
  
  https://support.solarwinds.com/Success_Center/Network_Configuration_Manager_(NCM)/NCM_Administrator_Guide/180_Configure_automatic_login/030_Using_the_DirectLink_account
  "
  
  After running a scheduled report manually using "Run Now" option under Schdule Manager the PDF appeared ok.
  
  Checking with support the DirectLink user was then deleted and the reports have been fine since.
  1 of 2 people found this helpful
  
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  - Re: PDF Reports displaying Orion logon screen after upgrade.
    
    nglynn Apr 6, 2017 8:52 AM (in response to dbriden)
    
    Thanks for the response. I too opened a ticket and got the same response. Unfortunately the DirectLink account didn't work for me. I'm curious are you using automatic login and/or single sign-on? I'm wondering if that has anything to do with this at all. I did hear yesterday that this is a known issue and that there is a hot fix for v12.1 I have a couple of other thing support recommended that I try but ultimately it sounds like moving to v12.1 and applying the hotfix may be my fix.
    
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    - Re: PDF Reports displaying Orion logon screen after upgrade.
      
      neomatrix1217 Apr 6, 2017 11:21 AM (in response to nglynn)
      
      nglynn what was your support ticket number?
      
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      - Re: PDF Reports displaying Orion logon screen after upgrade.
        
        nglynn Apr 6, 2017 1:00 PM (in response to neomatrix1217)
        
        Case #1147479
        
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        Re: PDF Reports displaying Orion logon screen after upgrade.
        
        neomatrix1217 Apr 6, 2017 1:17 PM (in response to nglynn)
        
        Do workaround #2 that should solve the issue.
        
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    - Re: PDF Reports displaying Orion logon screen after upgrade.
      
      prawij Apr 10, 2017 3:15 PM (in response to nglynn)
      
      Orion 2017.1 HF1 didn't fix my issue where any scheduled PDF reports show a login screen instead. I've only seen this behavior with NPM 12.1, NPM 12.0.1 didn't have this problem.
      
      Workaround for me was to deselect PDF as an output option and stick with .xls and .csv for now.
      
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      - Re: PDF Reports displaying Orion logon screen after upgrade.
        
        neomatrix1217 Apr 10, 2017 4:31 PM (in response to prawij)
        
        prawij have you opened a case with support?
        
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        Re: PDF Reports displaying Orion logon screen after upgrade.
        
        prawij Apr 20, 2017 1:09 PM (in response to neomatrix1217)
        
        neo, I didn't open a ticket for this. I ended up doing workaround #2: Creating and deleting an account called "DirectLink" to get my PDFs working again:
        
        NPM Scheduled report export to PDF shows login page - SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC. Help and Support
        
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        Re: PDF Reports displaying Orion logon screen after upgrade.
        
        foonly May 9, 2017 9:15 AM (in response to prawij)
        
        I would add that the DirectLink account creates other complications.
        
        If you enable Automatic Windows Account logins, users who either have no account, or whose browser misbehaves will be logged in automatically as DirectLink. This often creates a help desk call. Without DirectLink, a misbehaving browser shows the login page, and the user intuitively knows what to do (generally ... there are some .... nevermind).
        
        If you don't properly limit rights to the DirectLink account, you may be creating a security problem at your organization, depending on their policies.
        
        =Foon=
        
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        Re: PDF Reports displaying Orion logon screen after upgrade.
        
        prawij May 9, 2017 11:25 AM (in response to foonly)
        
        Thanks for the info. My concern is if the reporting starts working after creating then deleting the DirectLink account, does that mean that the DirectLink account is still active somewhere in the backend?
        
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      - Re: PDF Reports displaying Orion logon screen after upgrade.
        
        nglynn Apr 20, 2017 1:20 PM (in response to prawij)
        
        Yeah, I've tried all three workarounds now and am still having issues. Maybe slightly different now. I have a call scheduled to troubleshoot this a bit futher. One thing support had mentioned was to enable form based logon which I need to try yet. I believe by default that is enabled in IIS with Windows Auth. But I was running into authentication issues for some of my users. We use automatic logon and SSO tied to AD. If for some reason that didn't work, users could never manually sign in until I disabled the form based logon. It will be disappointing if that fixes the problem only to reintroduce another.
        
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        Re: PDF Reports displaying Orion logon screen after upgrade.
        
        neomatrix1217 Apr 20, 2017 2:34 PM (in response to nglynn)
        
        What issues are still having?
        
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        Re: PDF Reports displaying Orion logon screen after upgrade.
        
        nglynn Apr 20, 2017 2:43 PM (in response to neomatrix1217)
        
        The PDF consists of an IIS error page.
        
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        Re: PDF Reports displaying Orion logon screen after upgrade.
        
        nglynn Apr 20, 2017 2:43 PM (in response to nglynn)
        
        Worth noting the reports pull up just fine within the web console. I only have this issue with the PDF reports.
        
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