Problem

Unlike the earlier version of the adapters shipped with BizTalk Server, the SAP adapter shipped with BizTalk Adapter Pack does not show up in the list of adapters in the BizTalk Server Administration console.

Cause

The latest SAP adapter is a WCF custom binding. So, while the BizTalk Server Administration console displays the WCF-Custom adapter, it does not display the WCF custom bindings and hence, does not display the WCF based SAP adapter.

Problem

When you try to start the Add Adapter Service Reference Visual Studio Plug-in or the Consume Adapter Service BizTalk Project Add-in, the GUI gives the following error:

There was an error loading the binding, <binding name>, from your system configuration.
ConfigurationErrorsException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation.

Cause

When you start the Add Adapter Service Reference Plug-in or the Consume Adapter Service Add-in, Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) loads the adapter bindings for all the installed adapters. In turn, the adapter bindings are dependent on the specific client software for the enterprise application. You might face this issue for one or both of the following reasons:

• The required LOB client software is not installed on the computer where you installed the adapter.
  
  
• You did a Typical or Complete installation of the adapter, which installs all three adapters contained in the BizTalk Adapter Pack. However, the LOB client libraries might be installed for only one enterprise application. As a result, the GUI fails to load the bindings for the other two adapters.
  
  

Resolution

• Make sure you do a Custom installation of the adapters to install only the adapter you need.
  
  
• Make sure the required LOB client versions are installed on the computer where you installed the BizTalk Adapter Pack. The BizTalk Adapter Pack supports SAP RFC SDK 6.4 UNICODE, SAP RFC SDK 7.0 UNICODE, and SAP RFC SDK 7.1 UNICODE. The BizTalk Adapter Pack also requires certain DLLs to interface with the SAP system. For more information about the DLLs required by the adapter, see “What client libraries must be present on the computer where the SAP adapter is installed?” in Frequently Asked Questions.
  
  

Problem

When you try to open a connection to the SAP system using the SAP adapter, a dialog box appears in the SAP system, informing that some DLLs are missing.

Cause

The SAP adapter uses librfc32u.dll to establish a connection with the SAP system. The librfc32u.dll, in turn, requires a set of DLLs to function. You get this error if these supporting DLLs are not added to the PATH variable on the computer where the SAP adapter is installed.

Resolution

Refer to the table provided as a resolution to the Error in loading the adapter bindings issue. The table lists the supporting DLLs required to interface with the SAP system using the SAP adapter.

Problem

The adapter gives the following error while retrieving XML output that has more than 65,536 nodes.

Maximum number of items that can be serialized or deserialized in an object graph is '65536'.
Change the object graph or increase the MaxItemsInObjectGraph quota.

Cause

The adapter cannot serialize and deserialize an object with more than 65,536 items.

Resolution

You can fix this issue by setting the maxItemsInObjectGraph parameter in either of the following two ways:

• Set this parameter by changing the maxItemsInObjectGraph parameter in the ServiceBehavior attribute on your service class.
  
  
• Add the following to your application's app.config file.
  
  
  <behaviors>
    <endpointBehaviors>
      <behavior name="NewBehavior">
        <dataContractSerializer maxItemsInObjectGraph="65536000" />
      </behavior>
    </endpointBehaviors>
  </behaviors>

A sample app.config will look like the following.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
  <system.serviceModel>
    <behaviors>
      <endpointBehaviors>
        <behavior name="NewBehavior">
         <dataContractSerializer maxItemsInObjectGraph="65536000" />
        </behavior>
      </endpointBehaviors>
    </behaviors>
    <client>
      <endpoint   behaviorConfiguration="NewBehavior" binding="sapBinding"
       contract="IOutboundContract" name="sap_ICalculator" />
    </client>
  </system.serviceModel>
</configuration>

Problem

BizTalk Server 2006 R2 gives the following error when you specify a connection URI to connect to the SAP system.

Error saving properties.
(System.ArgumentException) The specified address is invalid.
(System.ArgumentException) Invalid address;
"<connection URI>" is not a well-formed absolute uri.

Cause

The connection URI does not adhere to the standard encoding format. For example, the value for a parameter might contain a space.

Resolution

Make sure the connection URI you specify adheres to the standard encoding format. For example, a blank space must be replaced by "%20".

Problem

The adapter gives the following error when performing any operation on the SAP system.

Microsoft.ServiceModel.Channels.Common.UnsupportedOperationException: The request message cannot have an 'Action' that is empty

Cause

The WCF action for the message is not specified. WCF requires a SOAP action to be specified for every operation, which informs the adapter about the operation to be performed on the LOB application.

Resolution

Specify the SOAP action for the messages sent by the adapter:

• For BizTalk projects, specify the SOAP action in the send port or as a message context property in a BizTalk orchestration. For instructions, see Specifying SOAP Action.
  
  
• For the WCF channel model, specify the SOAP action when you create the WCF message instance. For example:
  
  
  Message.CreateMessage(MessageVersion.Default, action, readerIn);

• For the WCF service model, SOAP actions do not have to be explicitly specified. They are automatically generated in the proxy at design-time as .NET method attributes.
  
  

See Technical Reference to see a list of actions for each operation.

Problem

The BizTalk Server Administration Console gives the following error when sending messages to an SAP system:

Microsoft.ServiceModel.Channels.Common.XmlReaderParsingException: Invalid argument:
<BtsActionMapping xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <Operation Name="<operation_name>" Action="<action>" />
</BtsActionMapping>

Cause

If you configure a WCF-Custom port by importing the port binding file created by the Consume Adapter Service BizTalk Project Add-in, the action in the port is specified in the following format:

<BtsActionMapping>
  <Operation Name="Op1" Action="http://MyService/Svc/Op1" />
</BtsActionMapping>

In the above format, the operation name is governed by the operation you chose while generating the schema. For example, if you generated schema for RFC_CUSTOMER_GET, the operation name in the action will be "RFC_CUSTOMER_GET". However, the operation name in the logical port created in the BizTalk orchestration in Visual Studio might be different.

Resolution

Make sure the operation names in both the logical port (in the BizTalk orchestration in Visual Studio) and the physical port (in BizTalk Server Administration Console) are same.

Problem

The adapter throws the following exception when opening more than 100 connections to the SAP system.

Microsoft.ServiceModel.Channels.Common.ConnectionException: ErrorCode=RFC_OK. ErrorGroup=RFC_ERROR_COMMUNICATION. SapErrorMessage=Connect to SAP gateway failed
Connect_PM  GWHOST=<gw_host>, GWSERV=<gw_serv>, SYSNR=<sys_number>
LOCATION    CPIC (TCP/IP) on local host with Unicode
ERROR       max no of 100 conversations exceeded

Cause

By default, SAP does not enable more than 100 connections into the system.

Resolution

To increase the maximum number of connections, you must create an environment variable on the computer that has the SAP client libraries installed and set it to a numeric value. The value you specify for this environment variable is the maximum number of connections that can be made into the SAP system. Create the environment variable with the following details:

• Variable name: CPIC_MAX_CONV
  
  
• Variable value: any positive numeric value. For example, to enable 200 connections into the SAP system, specify the value as 200.
  
  

For instructions on creating an environment variable, see "How To Create System Variables in Windows 2000" at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=95020.

Problem

While generating metadata for the Receive operation for an IDOC in an SAP system, the SAP adapter gives the following error.

Error while retrieving or generating the WSDL. Adapter message: Details: ErrorCode=RFC_EXCEPTION. ErrorGroup=RFC_ERROR_APPLICATION_EXCEPTION. SapErrorMessage= OBJECT_UNKNOWN. AdapterErrorMessage=Error returned by RfcCallReceiveEx while calling RFC: IDOCTYPE_READ_COMPLETE.

Cause

The SAP adapter uses the IDOCTYPE_READ_COMPLETE RFC to retrieve the metadata for the Receive operation for an IDOC. Invoking this RFC requires specific user permissions in the SAP system. To generate metadata, if you have connected to the SAP system using a credential that does not have permission to invoke the IDOCTYPE_READ_COMPLETE RFC, the SAP adapter gives an error.

Resolution

Generate schema for the ReceiveIdoc operation instead of the Receive operation. In such a case, the SAP adapter does not use the IDOCTYPE_READ_COMPLETE and hence, does not throw any error.

Problem

The SAP adapter gives an XmlReaderParsingException while sending IDOCs (using Send operation) or receiving IDOCs (using Receive operation) that have unreleased segments.

Cause

IDOCs are constituted of segments. While generating metadata, the SAP adapter retrieves all the released segments that are present in the SAP system. However, when the adapter client uses the metadata to perform an operation such as receiving an IDOC, the SAP adapter gives an XmlReaderParsingException. This occurs because when the IDOC is received, the SAP system might have sent some unreleased segments as well, the metadata for which was not generated by the adapter.

Resolution

Do any of the following:

• Upgrade your SAP system by applying appropriate patches for the unreleased segments.
  
  
• Use SendIdoc or ReceiveIdoc operations to send and receive IDOCs respectively. For more information about these operations, see Operations on IDOCs.
  
  

Problem

If you try to send (using Send operation) a flat-file IDOC to an SAP system that was generated using an SAP FilePort, the flat-file parser in the BizTalk orchestration fails to convert the flatf-file to an XML format, thereby failing the IDOC Send operation.

Cause

When the SAP system generates an IDOC using a FilePort, it trims off all the empty spaces at the end of a segment. However, the flat-file parser expects the data of the last field in the segment to be present to successfully convert the flat-file to XML. Because the empty spaces are not present in the segment, the flat-file parser fails to parse the flat-file to XML.

Resolution

For such flat-file IDOCs generated using the SAP FilePort, use the SendIdoc operation instead. For more information about this operation, see Operations on IDOCs.

Problem

The following exception is encountered while receiving an IDOC with the EnableBizTalkCompatibilityMode binding property set to true:

System.Exception: Loading property information list by namespace failed or property not found in the list. Verify that the schema is deployed properly.

Cause

If the binding property EnableBizTalkCompatibilityMode is set to true, you must add the BizTalk property schema DLL for the SAP adapter as a resource in your BizTalk application, that is, the application in which your project is deployed.

Resolution

The name for the BizTalk property schema for the SAP adapter is Microsoft.Adapters.SAP.BiztalkPropertySchema.dll. This is installed by the BizTalk Adapter Pack setup under <installation drive>:\ Program Files\Microsoft BizTalk Adapter Pack\bin. Perform the following tasks to add this assembly as a resource in your BizTalk application.

Problem

An IDOC received from an SAP system fails validation with an error similar to the following:

There was a failure executing the receive pipeline: "Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines.XMLReceive, Microsoft.BizTalk.DefaultPipelines, Version=3.0.1.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=<token>" Source: "Pipeline " Receive Port: "ReceiveIdoc" URI: "<connection uri>" Reason: The document failed to validate because of the following error:"The 'http://Microsoft.LobServices.Sap/2007/03/Types/Idoc/3/CREMAS03//620:TAXBS' element has an invalid value according to its data type."

Cause

The metadata generated for receiving an IDOC contains the permissible values that can be received for a particular column as part of the receive operation. These values are exposed as enumeration in the generated metadata. However, when the IDOC is actually received, the value received could be different from the enumerated values. Hence the receive operation fails while validating the values. For example, in the above error message validation fails for the TAXBS column.

Resolution

You must manually edit the enumeration in schema (for BizTalk projects) or the client proxy (for .NET projects using WCF service model) to include the value received from the SAP system.

Problem

If you use a flat file parser to convert a flat-file IDOC to an XML using the schema, and then convert the XML back to a flat-file IDOC through a pipeline using the schema, the two flat-file IDOCs are not identical.

Cause

When generating the XML from a flat-file IDOC, the flat file parser does not generate the XML nodes with blank values. When this XML is converted back to a flat-file, the nodes missing from the XML are not reflected in the flat-file IDOC. Hence the flat-file IDOCs are not identical.

Resolution

In the schema used to convert the flat-file to XML and vice-versa, within the "Send" or "Receive" node definition, do the following:

1. Set the suppress_empty_nodes property to false and set the generate_empty_nodes property to true. By default, the suppress_empty_nodes property is set to true and the generate_empty_nodes property is set to false, and hence all empty nodes are not reflected in the XML.
   
   
2. The flat-file may contain an extra carriage return at the end. You can set the suppress_trailing_delimiters property to Yes to avoid this extra carriage return. This property is also exposed as the Suppress Trailing Delimiters property if you open the schema in Visual Studio.
   
   

Problem

After you use the Consume Adapter Service Add-in to generate schema for a specific operation on the SAP system, the add-in also creates a port binding file. You can import this binding file using the BizTalk Server Administration console to create physical ports in BizTalk Server. However, when you send messages to the SAP system using such ports, the adapter fails to understand the action specified on the port and gives an error similar to the following:

Microsoft.ServiceModel.Channels.Common.UnsupportedOperationException: Incorrect Action 
<BtsActionMapping xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <Operation Name="<op_name>" Action="<action>" />
</BtsActionMapping>. Correct the specified Action, or refer to the documentation on the allowed formats for the Actions.

Cause

When you create logical ports in a BizTalk orchestration, you specify certain names for the operations on those ports or you just use the default names like Operation_1, Operation_2, etc. However, in the binding file generated by the Consume Adapter Service Add-in, the operation name is same as the name of the operation for which you generate metadata. For example, if you generate metadata for RFC_CUSTOMER_GET, the action will be set to the following:

<Operation Name="RFC_CUSTOMER_GET" Action="http://Microsoft.LobServices.Sap/2007/03/Rfc/RFC_CUSTOMER_GET" />

When you import the binding file, the same action is set on physical port. So, the operation names on the logical port (Operation_1, Operation_2, etc.) do not match the operation names specified in the action on the physical port, resulting in an error.

Resolution

Make sure the operation name in the logical port is the same as the operation name specified as part of the action in the physical port. Do one of the following:

• Change the operation name in the logical port in BizTalk orchestration from Operation_1, etc. to the operation for which you generate metadata, for example RFC_CUSTOMER_GET.
  
  
• Change the operation name in the action on the physical port to the operation name in the logical port. For example, you could change the action in the physical port to resemble the following:
  
  
  <Operation Name="Operation_1" Action="http://Microsoft.LobServices.Sap/2007/03/Rfc/RFC_CUSTOMER_GET" />

Cause

If you use the SAP adapter to execute an operation on the SAP system that returns a large number of tables, and each table has a large number of records, that will amount to a large dataset being returned as part of the response message from the SAP system. So, by default, the SAP adapter does not return any table parameters as part of the response message.

Resolution

You can request the tables that you want SAP adapter to return as part of the response. You can do so by providing an empty table parameter as part of the request message that you send to the SAP system. For example, <table_parameter_name />.

Problem

When using the adapters with BizTalk Server, if the credentials on the WCF-custom send port are incorrect, the request messages are not processed. After you specify the correct credentials, the message is sent to the SAP system and a response is received. However, the response message is not available to the out port.

Resolution

Restart the BizTalk host instance.

Problem

While receiving an IDOC from an SAP system, if there is a failure in the receive pipeline, all subsequent IDOCs sent from SAP system after the failure are not received using BizTalk Server. The failure in the receive pipeline could be for various reasons such as the receive pipeline receives a message for which there is no schema deployed in BizTalk, or the receive pipeline receives a message that has no subscriber.

Resolution

Install the hotfix that fixes this issue. To download the hotfix, refer to the associated KB article at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=125612.

Problem

You get the following error only while receiving an inbound message from the SAP server using a WCF-Custom receive port for the SAP adapter.

The Messaging Engine failed to add a receive location "<location_name>" with URL "<connection URI>" to the adapter "WCF-Custom".
Reason: "Microsoft.Adapters.SAP.RFCException: Details: ErrorCode=RFC_OK. ErrorGroup=RFC_ERROR_COMMUNICATION. SapErrorMessage=Connect to SAP gateway failed
Connect_PM  TPNAME=<name>, GWHOST=<host>, GWSERV=<server>

However, you are successfully able to send messages to the SAP system using a WCF-Custom send port.

Resolution

Install the SAP GUI on the same computer where you are running the adapter client and try receiving the inbound message again. For more information about how to install the SAP GUI, refer to SAP documentation.

Problem

In a BizTalk project in Visual Studio, if the schemas generated from the Consume Adapter Service Add-in contains invalid characters or reserved words for the RootNode TypeName property, the following error will occur while compiling the project:

Node <node reference> - Specify a valid .NET type name for this root node.
The current .NET type name of this root node is invalid (it is a reserved BizTalk Keyword or is an invalid C# identifier).

Resolution

1. Right-click the rood node referenced in the error and select Properties.
   
   
2. For the RootNode TypeName property, remove any illegal characters or reserved words, for example, dot (.).