I recently had the pleasure of evaluating Quality Center 9.0. Our department uses QuickTest Pro 8.2 for our automation suite and have used Quality Center extensively for managing and maintaining our scripts. I installed the QC Connectivity add-in and the QTP for QualityCenter Add-in and proceeded to test out the demonstration system. Well, I quickly noticed that we were unable to get a list of projects from Quality Center when connecting from QTP. I took the time to read through the documentation… found nothing. It was time to contact support… and the response was as follows:

When connecting to Quality Center 9.0 from previous version of testing tools (WinRunner 8.2, QuickTest Professional 8.2.1, LoadRunner 8.0 Athena, or earlier), the “Failed create list of projects” error message displays. This is due to the new login method introduced in Quality Center 9.0.

Workaround: In the Site Configuration tab in Site Administration, add the parameter BACKWARD_SUPPORT_ALL_DOMAINS_PROJECTS and set its value to “Y”.

This solved our issue… let the evaluation continue.

Over the past couple of weeks, I have seen an increase of searches pertaining to TestDirector/Quality Center and blank pages. I’ve addressed this at one point with a TestDirector post last year. However, there are a few other things I have tried in order to fix this.

Let me first put out this disclaimer, these are steps that I have followed and I do not guarantee this will work for you and this advice is provided as-is. Proceed at your own risk. Now with that out of the way…

If you log into your Quality Center (QC) or TestDirector (TD) site and are greeted with a blank page, chances are, your local installation has been compromised. At least, that’s been the case for me. With earlier versions of TD, I’ve found that uninstalling your local copy of the ActiveX controls, removing the Spider.OCX file, and launching the TD site again has proven effective at getting back into TD.

With the onset of QC, I’ve noticed that the uninstallation package is not readily available. What I’ve tried however, is to manually delete the local copy of the QC interface. This is typically found at the following location: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Mercury Interactive\. Within this folder, there will be one or more of the following directories: TD2000, TD2000_80, and TDAPIClient. On my machine, I deleted all three of these folders and then launched the QC site again. QC detected that I did not have the current installation and reinstalled the interface; allowing me to again access the application.

I hope you find this useful.

If you ever find yourself confronted with a blank page when attempting to hit the TestDirector site, follow these steps in order to get back into TestDirector.

1) Execute this file: C:\Program Files\Common Files\Mercury Interactive\Uninstall TestDirector 8.0\uninstall.exe

2) Scan your machine for a file called “spider.ocx.” When you find this file, delete it.

3) Attempt to access the TestDirector site again. The website should attempt to reinstall itself correctly.

The cause for this error is a possible corruption of the spider.ocx file.