Problems with external archive viewer and OLE automation

[Peter Keller]

Hi all,
 
we implemented an order processing scenario on a 4.6B System using an
external viewer to display archived orders.
 
During the workflow process the archived document is repeatedly displayed in
each dialogue step via a method before workitem execution. The archive
viewer is closed automatically by a method after workitem excecution.
 
We applied the function module ARCHIV_DISPLAY_META to display the archived
image and ARCHIVWINDOW_CLOSE to close the diplayed image in the viewer
window.
 
After a number of processed documents (usually after about 2 to 3 hrs of
continuous processing) where the viewer is opened and closed repeatedly,
problems occur on the frontend PC. Then, the archived documents cannot be
displayed anymore in the viewer window. The frontend PC needs to be
restarted before the archived documents can be displayed again in the viewer
window.
 
OSS note 78318 seems to refer to this problem. According to that OSS note
memory problems can occur on the frontend PC when repeatedly opening and
closing external viewers via OLE automation. It is stated that the memory is
only released after rebooting the machine. Source code corrections are
included in the note to solve the problem.
 
However, the suggested source code corrections are valid for SAP releases
3.x. When checking the coding I found that these corrections are of course
already implemented in release 4.6B.
 
Further, it is suggested in the above mentioned OSS note to set the "release
generated object flag" in the OLE customizing of the application and
protocols in transaction OAA4. However, this has not lead to a significant
change with the problem.
 
Has anyone experienced similar problems? Any hints are highly appreciated.
 
Thanks,
 
Peter