We’re running Oracle Application Server 10g Release 2 on Windows.

More than one Reports Server (RS from now on) can be run at the same time. Each RS is identified by name. Open a DOS window, change directory to the one where reports templates/resources are, then launch:

RS named “rstest” will get its own log directory and configuration file, under the Application Server “HOME”:

Quite convenient: you’ll leave the production RS alone, be able to activate debug tracing, restart at will, …

Here’s how tu run a test report on the “rstest” RS:

Back to our issues. First step, I’d say, is to find out the exact name of the font we’d like to embed. Did you know you can convert Report Developer “source” files (.rdf) to XML, then peek in them? Use:

“Cooper Black” is the name:

Install the font in Windows. Oddly, things didn’t seem to work for me when I just copied the .ttf file in the C:\WINDOWS\Fonts directory. I had to use the “Install New Font” menu item. I thought both methods were equivalent, maybe I was wrong, maybe I’m talking junk now.

Modify the uifont.ali file (tools\common), telling the Report Server to subset “Cooper Black” into the generated PDF files. Just add a line under the PDF:Subset section, equating the font name to the TTF file name, both enclosed in double quotes.

The fnchk.exe program (ran without arguments) displays the full path of uifont.ali and tells if everything is fine or the file contains any syntax error.

Installing the font in Windows is not enough, you should also put it in one of the REPORTS_PATH directories. The value of this variable can be found in the registry, I chose: C:\Oracle\Products\FRHome\reports\templates. FileMon is essential when trying to see which files can’t be found by a process.

Time to restart the Reports Service, generate a PDF report and check if fonts are good (in Acrobat Reader: CTRL-D, “Fonts” tab). Ours is listed as “Embedded Subset”; we’re done.

See also: Oracle Support Note.350971.1 “Troubleshooting Guide for Font Aliasing / Font Subsetting / Font Embedding Issues”.

Similar behaviour when attempting to start it:

Peeking into the emdctl.trc logfile, I found something that definitely smelled of expired certificates:

This thread on Oracle forums seems to confirm my suspicion.

And here’s what you do to fix the issue:

Ready your environment ($ORACLE_SID, $ORACLE_HOME, …). I “source” a script for that, each instance has its own.

As I said, if the certificate is expired, dbconsole won’t shutdown cleanly. Fetch its pid and kill it manually.

Run emctl secure dbconsole, it will generate the new certificates. Provide Oracle SYSMAN’s password and the hostname you’ll use (without domain name, in my case).
The URL displayed (the port number) will also tell you if you’re on the right instance and got the intended environment.

Try and start dbconsole.

Be prepared to handle the same situation in a few months. To see the new certificate expiry date, open any HTTPS URL served by dbconsole (i.e.: https://racnode1:5500/em/console/aboutApplication) and click on the lock icon your web browser should show somewhere.