Orbix 2.2C01 [on NT] interoperability with VisiBroker or omniORB2?

[Sai-Lai Lo]

It has brought to my attention that omniORB2 client cannot talk to a 
Orbix (2.2C01 on Windows NT) server. The client invokes an operation and blocks
forever waiting for the server to reply.

The same Orbix server works with clients from PowerBroker, OrbixWeb,
OmniBroker, JavaIDL and VisiBroker for Java.

VisiBroker for C++ 3.0 client also exhibits the same behaviour as the omniORB2
client. 

I did some investigation and find that the Orbix server fails to response
to a IIOP LocateRequest message which omniORB2 clients always send before
the first invocation on an object.

This also explains why all other clients except omniORB2 and VisiBroker for
C++ can talk to the server, i.e. they do not issue IIOP LocateRequest
messages.

I should also say that the omniORB2 client can talk to the same server code
running on Orbix 2.2MT for Solaris. That is, the Orbix solaris version does
handle IIOP LocateRequest properly.

I hope this bug in Orbix will be fixed soon.

In the mean time, if you have to use omniORB2 client to talk to an Orbix
server on NT, you have to patch the omniORB2 stub code to tell it not to
issue IIOP LocateRequest message. Just look into the *SK.cc files and
comment out the line:

  assertObjectExistent();


Regards,

Sai-Lai Lo

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