[2009-12 update: Please see ./MOS.html for My Oracle Support tips]
This is not about cracking Metalink. This is a list of tips that help you use Oracle's Metalink website
more efficiently.
* How to Restore Indentation of Text in Metalink Documents
Some Metalink pages are hard to read because there's no text indentation, as in an execution plan
or TNS errors in listener.log. This is definitely a problem for forum messages regardless what
browser you use, and a problem for bug reports if you don't use IE. (It's easy to restore indentations
in bug reports viewed in IE. You can simply copy the execution plan into Notepad for proper view.).
When you read the text that requires indentation in a Metalink forum message, you can view source in the
browser, cope the text from View Source and paste into notepad and delete
tags.
But this doesn't work in SRs (TARs). In SRs, you have to replace each HTML
tag with a newline to
restore indentation and separate jumbled one-line into multiple lines. This can be done in
UltraEdit or vi but not Notepad.
* How to Search in Long Drop-Down List
When you open an SR, after you pick a profile you saved before, the Product drop-down is shown.
It's a long list of products. A few selection boxes down, Type of Problem is another long list.
Although phrases are alphabetically sorted letter by letter, it's not always easy to find the one
you want. For instance, you want to see all EBusiness related problems. If you only see entries
starting with "Oracle E-Business..." or "Oracle EBusiness...", you're missing a few starting with
"E-Business" and "EBusiness" without "Oracle" prepended. It would be nice if you could do a text
search for all these options. The way to do it is to use Firefox (or Netscape), highlight an area
*including* the selection box (drop-down box), right click and pick View Selection Source. Once
you're in the view source window, you can search for the text you want.
* How to Not Download Flash
The new Metalink requires Flash to be installed, a silly decision made by the Metalink team. At least
for now, you can login from http://metalink2.oracle.com and use the old Metalink interface.
Alternatively, you can click "Classic Metalink" radio button. Once the Classic Metalink is retired, I'll
see if I can find
* How to Get an Account without Buying Support
There's no free lunch under the sun. But Oracle Metalink allows you to use somebody else's account as
long as you're working with him (her) to solve a problem. This means a lot to independent consultants.
You can ask the person you're helping to solve a problem that his company add you to their Metalink
account list. Technically, once you're done with the help or consulting work, your account should be
removed. But they may be willing to keep you on the list either for being nice or expecting your help
soon.
* How to Copy a Short URL to a document
When you read a document, the browser address is shown as
https://metalink.oracle.com/metalink/plsql/f?p=130:14:[a big number]::::p14_database_id,p14_docid,p14_show_header,p14_show_help,p14_black_frame,p14_font:NOT,[doc ID],1,1,1,helvetica
You could use tinyurl.com's service to shorten the URL. But a better way is to find the article in the
Search result page, where the URL is
https://metalink.oracle.com/metalink/plsql/ml2_documents.showDocument?p_database_id=NOT&p_id=[doc ID]
Here "NOT" is for note. Other "database id"'s are FOR for forum message, BUG for bug reports.
* What do 130 and 14 mean in the URL /metalink/plsql/f?p=130:14?
130 is Application ID, and 14 is Page number. Some useful pages of App 130 are:
9: your previous searches (search keywords and time you searched)
1: classic search home page
2: bug database search with a great number of options
8: monitor bug
16: Oracle Enterprise Search (not permitted to use)
Other pages are: 117 related to the new MyOracleSupport, 110 for SR, etc. Most can be accessed by
visible links on the web page, so there's no need to manually change the numbers in the URL.
* What are all the status codes for bugs?
There're many web sites documenting it:
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22Development+is+requesting+more+information%22
This may be more complete as of this writing:
http://www.oaug.org/listservers/oaugnetdb/msg06873.html
* What is Metalink3? Are there other numbered metalink?.oracle.com sites?
There're only metalink, metalink2, and metalink3.oracle.com. Metalink3 is the support site for Oracle
Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (BIEE) or Hyperion.
* How to Download Metalink SRs Programmatically
See a separate article ./MetalinkSRs.txt
* Tips to escalate SR
See Robert Freeman's excellent posting:
http://www.freelists.org/post/oracle-l/Metalink-response-time-Using-Metalink-to-get-the-right-Severity-code-assigned-to-your-SR