Page copy error in 4.2.1

Question

Hi all,
just upgraded our Apex server to 4.2.1.00.08 and are now getting the following error when trying to copy a page from development server to production server:
Execution of the statement was unsuccessful. ORA-20001: Error creating page name="Renewals" id="25" ORA-02291: integrity constraint (APEX_040200.WWV_FLOW_STEP_UI_FK) violated - parent key not found
begin
wwv_flow_api.create_page (
  p_flow_id => wwv_flow.g_flow_id
,p_id => 25
,p_user_interface_id => 65830370515616 + wwv_flow_api.g_id_offset
,p_tab_set => 'T_MONITORING'
,p_name => 'Renewals'
,p_step_title => 'Renewals'
,p_allow_duplicate_submissions => 'Y'
,p_step_sub_title => 'Renewals'
,p_step_sub_title_type => 'TEXT_WITH_SUBSTITUTIONS'
,p_first_item => 'AUTO_FIRST_ITEM'
,p_include_apex_css_js_yn => 'Y'
,p_autocomplete_on_off => 'ON'
,p_step_template => 15024619232924512 + wwv_flow_api.g_id_offset
,p_page_is_public_y_n => 'N'
,p_protection_level => 'N'
,p_cache_page_yn => 'N'
,p_cache_timeout_seconds => 21600
,p_cache_by_user_yn => 'N'
,p_help_text =>
'No help is available for this page.'
,p_last_updated_by => 'BIRMAG'
,p_last_upd_yyyymmddhh24miss => '20130114142443'
null;
end;
ORA-20001: Error creating page name="Renewals" id="25" ORA-02291: integrity constraint (APEX_040200.WWV_FLOW_STEP_UI_FK) violated - parent key not found This effectively makes it impossible to distribute application changes from development to production.
I've found doc.ID 1511391.1 on the Oracle support pages that says to manually edit the export file, replacing the p_user_interface_id with a valid id from the target database, but this is of course no good as a permanent solution.
Anyone know if a patch for this in the pipeline?
Kind regards,
-Haakon-

Answer 1

Hi Haakon,
single component export/import is only supported for application which are identical on the source and target system. It relies on the fact that other referenced components (for example user interface, templates, ...) use the same IDs on body systems.
Because of the APEX 4.2 upgrade, that's not the case anymore. As part of the upgrade, several new components had to be created on the fly which do now have different IDs on dev and prod. That's why the single component export/import doesn't work anymore.
If the single component export/import is used to patch applications, it's recommended to do a full export of the app on dev and import it into prod after upgrading to a newer version of APEX to make sure that body systems are using the same component IDs. After that your single component deployment should work as before.
Regards
Patrick
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