ORA-20091: Invalid Application ID when importing APEX 4.0 Application

Question

Hi Folks
Anyone got a suggestion on this one?
Scenario:
1. Perform an APEX 4.0 Export of application ID 10132 from one workspace
2. Import the application into another APEX 4.0 workspace and change the application ID whilst doing so.
3a. During the import process, override the application ID to one that exists in the workspace being imported into.
In APEX 3.2 you got a warning that you were overwriting an existing app
In APEX 3.2 this would then complete the exercise with your new app replacing the previous one with the same ID
In APEX 4.0 I received ORA-20091: Invalid Application ID
3b. Delete the pre-existing application (e.g. app_id 999) completely in the workspace we intend to import into
Following successful deletion of the application (app_id 999) attempt to import the application export file from the other workspace
During the import, use the UI to change the application id from 10132 to 999.
Still receive the ORA-20091: Invalid Application ID error despite APP ID 999 having been deleted
4. I got this to work by allowing APEX to simply assign a new application ID
My problem is that, whilst this was not a problem when importing to our UAT environment, our DEV and Production environments share the same APP ID (10132) this is so that when upgrading the production application, users saved Interactive reports are preserved. This was fine in APEX 3.2 but is, as yet, untested by us in 4.0.
As things stand at the moment, we have APEX 4.0 in DEV and UAT but this would appear to be a block for us in terms of upgrading production to 4.0.
Any thoughts, comments and suggestions welcome.
Many thanks
Kind regards
Simon Gadd

Answer 1

We ran into a similar problem. My initial tests showed the following to be a work around.
Assumption: You want to end up with the same ID as the original so you don't have to give a new link to everyone.
1. Before copying the app (lets say it's 333) from 3.2 (3.1 in our case) export it and then import it back, still in 3.x with a different app ID, i.e. 99333.
2. In ApEx 4: Import the app 99333 and install it with app ID 333 (the original app ID). After this process, I was able to make necessary changes to the app on ApEx 4, export it, and then import it again, still as ID 333.
I know this sounds very round-about, and I can't explain why it worked, but it worked.
Disclaimer: I certainly may have missed something that would still make it break. This was the result of a few different test scenarios done in a limited time.
So, it's probably best to wait for 4.0.1 if you can.
By the way, I tried creating a brand new app. in ApEx 4, export it and then import it as itself, and I still got the same error. Like I said, I don't know why it worked, but when I imported an older app with one ID into ApEx 4 with a new ID, I was able to export it and then import it again with that same new ID.
Have a great weekend,
Gregory