IBM Support

Images are not displayed when report run as PDF using SSL webserver

Troubleshooting


Problem

In a multi-tier environment with SSL enabled on the webserver, images are not being displayed when report run as PDF. Images are being shown as just a blank box in PDF. Running the report in HTML displays the images.

Cause

Incomplete or missing Chain of Trust for SSL within the IBM Cognos Keystore

Resolving The Problem

There are two options available:

  1. Place the images on the application tier in the Cognos installation directory in the same path they exist on the gateway server. This way the Application Tier can access the image on disk, removing the need to connect to HTTPS

    Example: <cognos install>/webcontent/samples/images/pic.jpg
  2. Import the SSL certificate Chain of Trust on the Application Tier.

Steps to import the SSL Chain of Trust:
  1. Obtain the CA certificate and any Intermediate certificates which is in the chain of the trust that has signed the Web site certificate.
  2. Import the certificate(s) in the IBM Cognos CA keystore by typing the following command (from a command window in the <install dir>/bin directory) where ca.cer is the name of the certificate file:
      ThirdPartyCertificateTool.bat -T -i -r ca.cer -k ../configuration/signkeypair/jCAKeystore -p <keystore_password>

The default password for the KeyStore is NoPassWordSet. For example:
      ThirdPartyCertificateTool.bat -T -i -r ca.cer -k ../configuration/signkeypair/jCAKeystore -p NoPassWordSet

Note: Ensure that the correct gateway URL with "https" at the beginning has been saved in Cognos Configuration for all dispatchers.

[{"Product":{"code":"SSEP7J","label":"Cognos Business Intelligence"},"Business Unit":{"code":"BU059","label":"IBM Software w\/o TPS"},"Component":"Cognos Viewer","Platform":[{"code":"PF002","label":"AIX"},{"code":"PF010","label":"HP-UX"},{"code":"PF016","label":"Linux"},{"code":"PF027","label":"Solaris"},{"code":"PF033","label":"Windows"}],"Version":"10.2.2;10.2.1;10.2;10.1.1;10.1;8.4.1","Edition":"All Editions","Line of Business":{"code":"LOB10","label":"Data and AI"}}]

Document Information

Modified date:
15 June 2018

UID

swg21339916