Missing LOV buttons in Forms 12

LOVs (List Of Values) is a great feature of Oracle forms and is widely used. Sometimes you might run into an issue with missing screen fields for drop down boxes for the LOVs (List Of Values) , i.e. when you point the cursor on such a text field there is no small button with 3 dots in Forms screen.

This issue can be fixed very easily to by doing some changes using OEM Fusion Middleware Control.

Go to: http://<Weblogic_Admin>:7001/em, Navigate to Forms deployments, after that, into Forms drop down button, click into Font and Icon Mapping.

In the top right corner, acquire lock to edit Weblogic parameters clicking at “Edit Sessions”

Go to Add button and Include the component app.ui.lovButtons setting true value.

Click Apply and Activate Changes into Lock & Edit  panel.

Changes made using OEM console are saved in the Registry.dat file under the domain home.

If you have multiple Managed Servers, verify the Registry.dat since Weblogic might miss out on replicating the changes on the Registry.dat between the Managed Servers.

$ cd $DOMAIN_HOME
$ find . -name Registry.dat|while read line; do sha1sum $line; done
62547e841b7c158b2e3429d1f13426b8cd282895 ./config/fmwconfig/servers/WLS_FORMS/applications/formsapp_12.2.1/config/oracle/forms/registry/Registry.dat
62547e841b7c158b2e3429d1f13426b8cd282895 ./config/fmwconfig/servers/WLS_FORMS1/applications/formsapp_12.2.1/config/oracle/forms/registry/Registry.dat
62547e841b7c158b2e3429d1f13426b8cd282895 ./config/fmwconfig/servers/WLS_FORMS2/applications/formsapp_12.2.1/config/oracle/forms/registry/Registry.dat
62547e841b7c158b2e3429d1f13426b8cd282895 ./config/fmwconfig/servers/WLS_FORMS3/applications/formsapp_12.2.1/config/oracle/forms/registry/Registry.dat
62547e841b7c158b2e3429d1f13426b8cd282895 ./config/fmwconfig/servers/WLS_FORMS4/applications/formsapp_12.2.1/config/oracle/forms/registry/Registry.dat
$ find . -name Registry.dat|while read line; do cat $line|grep lov; done;
app.ui.lovButtons=true
app.ui.lovButtons=true
app.ui.lovButtons=true
app.ui.lovButtons=true

Compare the differences and ensure the configurations have been set into Registry.dat

Reload the Forms screen.

Hope this quick fix helps you out the next time you face this issue!