Installing a MobileFirst Interim Fix.

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Back in August the Maximo 7.6.2 Interim Fix was released,  this introduced support for Android 7, with the requirement of installing a MobileFirst Interim Fix. The document dates the fix however does not provide any information on how to install a MobileFirst update.  In this blog I will walk through the download and installation of a MobileFirst 7.1 Interim Fix,  specifically the one recommended for the Maximo Anywhere 7.6.2 Interim Fix, dated 7.1.0.00.20170505-1403. 

Lets get started

Installing a Mobile First Interim Fix

1.  The first thing we need to do is ensure we have the right files, for the purpose of Maximo Anywhere there are two files you would want to download,  one for the server  (which we will cover here) and one to update the Mobile First Studio Plugin.  You can download these files from Fix Central under the MobileFirst Platform Foundation application.   The package names will look similar to what you see below,  if you can't find the files on fix central,  you can follow this link.

2.  Once you have downloaded the files, you will want to extract the 7.1.0.0-MFPF-Server-IF201705051403.zip file in to a directory.   Once extracted open up your Installation Manager then go to File - > Preferences and add a new repository.  Point the repository to the MobileFirst_Platform_Server\disk1\diskTag.inf file in the folder you just extracted.

3.  Click ok and you will end up back on the main Installation Manager screen, now click on update then select the folder you are updating,  your MobileFirst Installation folder and click next.  You will see that the Installation Manager is going to update the version you currently have installed.  Once confirmed, click next. 

3.  Click next through the screen that shows you are updating MobileFirst Versoin 7.1 and accept the license agreement,  you will now notice all the fields are read only,  similar to what you see in the screenshot below.  The reason for this is the configuration is all saved during the initial installation.  The update uses the existing configuration to determine what needs to be upgraded and deploy to that configuration.  Click next.

4.  On this screen you will see whether the Application Center is installed or not installed, it's important to note that the update requires that the Application Center exist with the name it was originally deployed with. If this was removed from your WebSphere console or re-named it the update will fail as it tries to update the application with that same name and it will not find it.   The logs will give you a clue of the application name and you can then go through  and manually redeploy the application center wars if you run in to this situation. 

Steps to manual deploy can be found here. 

If you need to manually redeploy, do this then start from the beginning of the update document again.

5.  There is no configuration to change so we will proceed through the panels and continue  until you see the screen that prompts you to click update,  when ready begin the update. 

6.  Once this completes you will have updated the Application Center (If Installed)  as well as updated the files in the MobileFirst Installation folder,  however you still need to update the deploy configuration for the MobileFirst Administration components.   We do this via the Config Tool,  from your C:\IBM\MobileFirst_Platform_Server\WorklightServer\ConfigurationTool\windows-64  folder run the ServerConfigurationTool. 

Once the tool opens select Configurations from the top and choose Upgrade a previous configuration.  

7.  You will now be prompted to choose a configuration to upgrade,  I have chosen the MobileFirst71 configuration below,  this is a MySQL configuration, so I've entered my credentials for MySQL as will as pointed to my Maximo Anywhere run time .  Once ready to update the administration configuration and your run time click ok.  If you are using Oracle, the tool will require you to provide the system user password to check the database configuration.

Once the update completes you will see a successful output in the console on the Configuration Tool,  at this point the applications would of been re-deployed, however the server still needs to be started.   Restart your MobileFirst server and it will now be updated with the version you just installed.  You can confirm this from the about screen on MobileFirst console. 

Other resources

1.  On top of this you will want to follow the document below to ensure the Anywhere Applications are building with the updated MobileFirst jars. 

Installing a MobileFirst Interim Fix? Don't forget to sync up Maximo Anywhere as well.

2.  You can also follow this document to complete the Maximo Anywhere Interim Fix install that goes along with this update. 

Installation instructions for the Maximo Anywhere 7.6.2 interim fix

As always,  post any questions, comments or concerns below.