Import/Export App Overwrite Timing Out

Question

We are about to begin testing an application we've created, and need a testing environment. I have been able to successfully export an application from one server and import it to HTML DB on another, but every time I get to the screen (on the new server) where it asks me to confirm that I want to replace the already existing application, I hit the button to confirm, I wait forever as the blue bar creeps across the status bar of my browser, then I get a "Page Cannot be Displayed" error, like it's timing out or something.
When I go back, the application appears to have installed normally and seems to work, but I am worried that because of what seemed to be the installation timing out, that there may be things that didn't quite transfer. Is this a valid concern, or should I assume that everything transferred normally?

Answer 1

Murali,
The process is actually pretty simple. In our case we had two servers, both w/ HTML DB installed. The way it basically works is that you go into the application you want to export, and you click the Export/Import link on the page. You will be taken through a simple step-by-step process by which you will ultimately just save the application somewhere as a .sql file. You will then go into HTML DB on the server where you would like the copied application to be, and click the same link, and go through a similar step-by-step process to import the application by browsing for it where it was saved when you exported it.
A few suggestions:
Any tables that are associated with the application will need to be recreated in your new environment. A simple way to do this is to use:
CREATE TABLE table_name AS (
SELECT * FROM table_name@oldserver
for each of your tables, if there are only a few. If it is larger, you may just want to copy the entire schema over to the new server, which is what we ended up having to do. But our DBA did that, so I'm not as familiar w/ that process.
However, if the tables have sequences associated with them they will need to be recreated on the new server as well, unless there is a way to copy them along w/ the table all at once, but as I said, we are not as familiar w/ that actual process. (You can find information on how to recreate the sequences here: https://cwisdb.cc.kuleuven.ac.be/ora10doc/server.101/b10759/statements_9001.htm)
Of course you can simply truncate the tables if you don't want any of you previous data on your new tables.
Another thing we noticed when we imported a new application, is that when a Named LOV was used in a column of an updatable report, it didn't transfer over, so we had to go back to that select list and reset it as that particular Named LOV.
One thing you will want to be careful for if you're planning on importing/exporting applications frequently, for new versions and releases, is to make sure you don't hardcode any schema names in with your SQL in the application. This caused us some headaches because when we would import the new application, the new schema on which the tables existed was not the same as the one from the old app, and we kept getting errors until we went back and deleted every instance of the schema name in the SQL.
There may very well be better and more efficient ways to do these things than how I have suggested, but these are methods we used and we have been successful so far.
Hope this helps.