Whoops -deploying MDB in weblogic

I was quite happily using my MDB in webLogic, but when I changed its configuration, it did not pick up the new changes.  It took a day to find out why,  and I have learned much more about deploying MDBS.

My connection factory was using SYSTEM.DEF.SVRCONN, I changed it to use a different client channel. I stopped SYSTEM.DEF.SVRCONN, ( so I could check the change had worked), and restarted the webLogic instance.  I was surprised when my MDB failed to start, because the channel was stopped.   The MDB was trying to use that channel.  It took a lot of head scratching to get it to work as I expected.

• I had messages like <BEA-015073>  Message-Driven Bean …  is configured with unknown activation-config-property name failIfQuiesce.  This message is wrong, failIfQuiesce is supported by the IBM Resource adapter.
• I had the same message with activation-config-property name cfLookup.   This was my problem.  I should have specified connectionFactoryLookup.
• If you have <activation-config-property-name>connectionFactoryLookup… (specified in the ejb-jar) any other parameters you specify in the ejb-jar.xml file are ignored.
• If you do not specify a connectionFactoryLookup, nor properties in the ejb-jar.xml file, defaults are provided, see Configuring the resource adapter for inbound communication.  In my case I had not specified  activation-config-property-name channel, and this defaulted to SYSTEM.DEF.SVRCONN, which is why it continued to use that channel.
• It worth putting <activation-config-property-name>applicationName … in your definitions so you can see what you are using.
  • dis qstatus(JMSQ3) type(handle) gave me APPLTAG(CF3Name) so I can tell which definitions are being used.
  • If you get APPLTAG(weblogic.Server) then you are taking the defaults.
• The Oracle documentation  says the precedence order is as below.    I do not think this is 100% accurate. (I could not specify some of the parameters on the weblogic-ejb-jar.xml file).  I didnt try the java program.
  1. properties set in the weblogic-ejb-jar.xml deployment descriptor
  2. activation-config-property properties set in the ejb-jar.xml deployment descriptor
  3. activationConfigProperty annotation properties in the java program.

What do I need to specify?

As a minimum you need to use connectionFactoryLookup or  specify

1. applicationName – so you can identify which definitions are being used
2. channel – which channel to use
3. failIfQuiesce
4. hostName
5. port

The ejb-jar.xml file is in the META-INF directory.  Change  the ejb-jar.xml or  weblogic-ejb-jar.xml file. IUpdate the jar file using a command like jar -uvf MDB4.jar  META-INF/ejb-jar.xml,   and redeploy it.