Why can't I create a friendship between Rational ClearQuest and CLM applications, such as Rational Quality Manager, Rational Team Concert, and Rational Requirements Composer?

Authors: IntegrationsTroubleshootingTeam
Build basis: The Rational solution for Collaborative Lifecycle Management (CLM) 4.x, Rational ClearQuest 7.1.2.x

This page covers things to check if errors occur when you create the friendship and project association between IBM Rational ClearQuest (CQ) and the Jazz products for Open Services for Lifecycle Collaboration (OSLC) based integrations, such as Rational Team Concert (RTC) or Rational Quality Manager (RQM).

Initial assessment

Symptoms

• You are following the instructions to create a friendship between the Rational Collaborative Lifecycle Management (CLM) applications and Rational ClearQuest (CQ) and are getting errors.

There are two parts to the setup, establishing an OSLC relationship between the CLM application and CQ Web (application-wide settings) and associating a CLM project area with a CQ connection (for example: a specific instance of a schema and user database; in CQ terms, a dbset).

Impact/scope

• The friendship is done as an initial setup. Project area associations with CQ artifact containers can be made as these projects are created.

Before you begin

When creating a friendship between Jazz and CQ, there are specific requirements that must be adhered to or the setup can fail. These are listed in the setup instructions in the information centers, yet frequently are the cause when errors occur:

1. Browser pop-ups are not enabled.

• If browser pop-ups are not enabled, the integration will fail. Explore your browser's Help on the topic of pop-ups since there can be more than one type of configuration.

Note: If you began the setup configuration process and at some later point discovered popups were disabled, clear your browser cache and begin the process again. Bogus information might have been stored, and some browsers may not display any subsequent message or the message may be unclear. Similarly, if you discover that you have tried to enter the wrong administrative user name or password (for example: you entered the CQ user for Jazz or the Jazz admin for CQ), clear the cache and start again.

2. Stable URLs for CQ Web and Jazz.

• You must use the Jazz public URL.
• You should be using public host names rather than aliases or proxies. Note that although URLs may resolve, they may not be the stable URL.
• Any attempt to change the CQ Web URL at some point after the integration is setup and data is created will require a server rename operation.
• There are specific requirements for matching http/https between the servers depending on your CQ version. The integration will fail if the requirements are not met, so this is an important check. See A new security feature in CQ Web may restrict HTML content from displaying correctly and other technotes linked within this topic for complete details.

3. Ensure clocks of all hosts are synchronized.

• They can be no more than a few minutes apart or the integration will fail.
• While the Jazz Team Server (JTS) has a setting to configure a Network Time Protocol (NTP) server, CQ does not. You must check that these are synchronized manually.

4. Connectivity

• Ensure that you can browse to CQ Web by using a browser installed on the Jazz Server using the stable URL. Similarly, ensure you can browse to the CLM application by using a browser installed on CQ Web.

5. Correct configuration entries.

• The discovery URL format must be followed exactly as described in the information center. You should be clear on exactly which Jazz instance, CQ Web, and dbset you are configuring. The format is: https://<cq-hostname>/cqweb/oslc/repo/<schema-repository>/discovery, where <cq-hostname> is the name of your CQ Web server and <schema-repository> is the name of your CQ schema repository.

• Use the following URL to view the connection profiles (dbset names) on the CQ Web Server: http://<cq-hostname>/cqweb/oslc/repo
  The resulting XML file will list all the possible dbsets registered on the CQ Web Server under the tag Repository and then the ServiceProviderCatalog title tag, for example: 7.0.0.
  These strings are case sensitive.
  

6. Other considerations

• Are you using load balancing with CQ Web?

Make sure that every CQ Web is using a consistent configuration for the Jazz Server. Refer to ClearQuest Web server in a load-balanced deployment should not be used as an OSLC provider and Configuring OSLC Cross-Server Communication links in a load balanced ClearQuest Web environment for additional configuration details

Possible errors and causes:

• Failed to read matching artifact container catalog resource:
  

  Unable to load URL: /qm/proxy?uri=http://Mycqweb/oslc/repo/<connection>&dojo.preventCache =xxxx Status 500

  Variation:

  Unable to load URL: /qm/proxy?uri=http://Mycqweb/oslc/repo/<connection> Status 500 

  
  Cause: the clocks between ClearQuest and the Jazz Server are not synchronized.
  

• Failed to read friends resource:
  

  Unable to load URL: /jazz/proxy?uri=https://xxxx:xxxx/jazz/friends, Status: 0 

  Cause: the user is accessing the Jazz server with an URL that does not start with what is specified in the Public URI Root.
  

Related topics: None

External links:

• None

Additional contributors: AntoinetteIacobo