Forms, SSO, and a 500 Internal Server Error

After reinstalling OAS 10g 10.1.2, I was getting a 500 Internal Server Error when trying to use SSO with Forms.

The OC4J~OC4J_BI_Forms~default_island~1 log file contained this info:

07/04/12 15:25:32 Error: Unable to connect to OID
07/04/12 15:25:32 oracle.ias.repository.schema.SchemaException: Unable to connect to Oracle Internet Directory Server. Please verify that the correct Oracle Internet Directory Server parameters are specified in c:\oracle\mid1012\config\ias.properties. Make sure that the Oracle Internet Directory Server specified in OIDhost, OIDport is up and running. Base Exception : javax.naming.NamingException: [LDAP: error code 1 - User does not exist in directory for Proxy Switch]

. . . blah blah blah.

Found Note 279707.1 in Metalink, which states this error is caused by a mis-match between the oid_formsid and formsid_group_dn parameters in the formsweb.cfg file and the orclapplicationcommonname attribute for Forms in OID. After I corrected the mismatch, Forms and SSO began playing nice again.

How did this mismatch occur? I was guilty of copying a formsweb.cfg file from a previous installation into the current installation. I do this with several configuration files, including httpd.conf and tnsnames.ora to save time. But you have to be careful with Oracle because nothing is ever as simple as it seems.

At least I now know a little bit more of the mysterious internal workings of the Oracle Application Server. . .