When you sign onto a PIA servlet, a new connection is established within the application server. This error can occur occurs when that new connection cannot be established between the Web Server and the Application Server. Some reasons this occurs:
1. In the configuration.properties file for the PIA site the server/jolt port identified is invalid or the web server is unable to communicate to the application server identified in the file. Web Servers are sometimes configured on a separate subnet in what is referred to as a DMZ to protect outside attacks from the backend systems, the firewall rules will sometimes need to be adjusted to allow this specific communication from web to app server to occur.
The configuration.properties file is located: %PS_HOME%\webserv\{DOMAIN}\applications\peoplesoft\PORTAL\WEBINF\psftdocs\{PIA-Site}\
2. In order to make PIA more dynamic and manageable PeopleSoft introduced web-profiles a few years back. Web Profiles allow for PIA to managed online within the PeopleTools. However, in order for the Web Server to access the database to get the web profile settings there needs to be a security user that has access to this information. PeopleSoft by default has the user PTWEBSERVER with a default password of PTWEBSERVER, there is a delivered role: “PeopleTools Web Server”, which is linked to the delivered permission list: “PTPT1500”. You can still log into the site with other user profiles but the defaults from the web profile are not in effect because this user is invalid. In the configuration.properties file there is a line item for the web profile user and password, and typically they are both encrypted. Encrypted values start with {V1.1}. You can enter these values un-encrypted, noting that they are both case sensitive.
In order to encrypt the userid and password, you need to run the PSCipher utility.
3. Make sure the PTWEBSERVER user account is not locked. Check PSOPRDEFN.ACCTLOCK field it should be = 0. (zero).
4. Another reason this can also happen is that the web profile listed in the configuration.properties file is not actually listed in the web profile configuration tables. This happens sometimes during environment refreshing where profiles are renamed/deleted and the reference is no longer there. Change the configuration.properties file to a valid web profile.