by ·Comments Off on PAW administration is grey for memory and cpu

Product:
Planning Analytics 2.0.8
Planning Analytics Workspace 46
Microsoft Windows 2016 Server

Problem:
When going to Planning Analytics Workspace Administration dialog some of the TM1 instance are grey, in the area for memory and cpu usage.

Error:

On PA Agent version 2.0.47.1220, you can find this kind of error in the file c:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\tm1_64\paa_agent\wlp\usr\servers\kate-agent\logs\messages.log
00000048 SystemErr R ERROR:status.py:Error while getting windows registry details: ERROR: The system was unable to find the specified registry key or value
00000048 SystemErr R ERROR:status.py:error getting the registry details: local variable ‘return_object’ referenced before assignment
00000048 com.ibm.pa.kate.agent.scheduler.ScheduledTask E Error occurred while updating the server info json file
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “kateagent/scripts\status.py”, line 1053, in <module>
logger.exception(
NameError: name ‘data_directory’ is not defined
0000005d com.ibm.pa.kate.agent.service.PAKateAgentService E Exception
java.lang.NullPointerException

 

Solution:
A space have come into the TM1 application name in the TM1S.CFG file, and when registered with Microsoft Service, got a extra space in the name.
The PA Agent can not parse the space in the name, and therefor will not display all values.

Stop the TM1 instance.
Edit the tm1s.cfg file to correct value.
ServerName= proven techniques
should be changed to
ServerName=proven_techniques
Delete the TM1 instance in Cognos Configuration.
Check that the instance is gone – if not, you may need to delete it from a DOS command line.

Enter
sc delete ” proven_techniques”
in the elevated cmd prompt.
Now the windows service should be gone.
Go into Cognos Configuration again,
Add the new TM1 instance and enter a correct name “proven_techniques”
and point out the folder for the configuration file.
Start the service from inside Cognos Configuration.

Surf to PAW and check that the administration page is correct.

by ·Comments Off on Content Manager tool

Product:
Cognos Analytics 11.0.8
Microsoft Windows 2012 server

Problem:
How much memory are the content manager service using?

Solution:
Log on to the CA11 server.
Go with file explorer to folder d:\program files\ibm\cognos\analytics\bin64\utilities\cm\cmtools
Click on CMTools.exe

Login to the Cognos Analytics CM tool, with a user who is system administrator in cognos.
In menu Windows select Open Perspective and select CMtools.
In menu Windows select Show view and select CMTop.
Click on System tab.
Click on Refresh icon on the right side.
Now you see memory usage.

The max memory is adjusted in cognos configuration at “Maximum memory for Websphere Liberty Profile in MB”.

Surf to http://servername.domain.com:9300/p2pd/servlet to see who is active content manager.

More Information:
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/576127

by ·Comments Off on IBM Cognos services components for dedicated content manager server

Product:
Cognos Analytics 11.1.5
Microsoft Windows 2016 Server

Problem:
For a dedicated content manager server, what services should be running?

Solution:
For a CA11 server dedicated to only content manager, this services should be set to true in Cognos configuration tool.

Content Manager service enabled?  True
Event Management service enabled?  True
Job service enabled?  True
Metadata service enabled?  True
Monitor service enabled?  True

More Information:
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSEP7J_10.2.1/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.c8pp_inst.10.2.1.doc/c_installservercompsdistributed.html

by ·Comments Off on How copy files between windows servers

Product:
Planning Analytics 2.0.5
Microsoft Windows 2016 server

Problem:
How do i copy files from one server to another server and keep the NTFS security?

Solution:
Check you have a file share on source server.
Create a file share on destination server.
Give everyone full access to the share.
Ensure that the user running the script is local administrator on both servers
Open notepad
Enter below line (modify it for your server names)
robocopy \\serverSource\ShareA \\serverDestination\ShareA /MIR /COPYALL /DCOPY:T /R:1 /W:1 /NP /TEE /LOG:d:\temp\ShareA-RobocopyResults.log
Save file as d:\temp\robocopyfiles.cmd

Open a command prompt as administrator
move to the folder where the script is
run
robocopyfiles.cmd

Check the log files for errors when it is done.

(solution is from this site https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/3c42061c-d739-4c44-90ec-014b0e08c45c/how-to-copy-file-security-permissions-from-one-server-to-another-one-by-using-robocopy?forum=winserverfiles)
======================
TITLE “Copying ShareA from TestSource to TestDestination”
robocopy \\TestSource\ShareA \\TestDestination\ShareA /MIR /COPYALL /DCOPY:T /R:1 /W:1 /NP /TEE /LOG:C:\Logs\ShareA-RobocopyResults.log
PAUSE
======================

The switch functions are as follows:

/MIR – Creates a mirror copy.

/COPYALL – Copies ALL file attributes

/DCOPY – Copies (ie retains original) Directory Creation/Modified Timestamps. If you don’t include this, all directories will be recreated with NEW timestamps

/R:1 – Retry copy once on failure

/W:1 – Wait 1 second between retries

/NP – No Percentage Completion written to output

/TEE – Output progress to Command Window (I guess TEE = Terminal Emulation)

/LOG – Write out and save to a specified Log File

More information:
https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/278298-move-shared-folders-and-retain-file-and-share-permissions-with-robocopy

by ·Comments Off on Missing colors in TM1 App Web

Product:
Planning Analytics 2.0.8
Microsoft Windows 2016 server

Problem:
When you click on a TM1 application Web link in Cognos Connection (from Cognos Analytics 11) you get a error. You also noted that the SSO did not work to your Cognos Analytics 11 webpage.
You can also get into pmpsvc page, but with wrong colors.

Error:
error, see logs

Solution:
To make a link from CA work to Planning Analytics Web (PMPSVC) you must login correct to Cognos Analytics (CA11) first.
Ensure you surf to http://servername/ibmcognos and not to http://servername:9300/bi/v1/disp

Please also try to, in Internet Explorer change the Compatibility view settings to be blank.

“Display intranet sites in Compatibility View” should be checked off.

More information:
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/how-setup-tm1-web-and-tm1-applications-cam-authentication

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/internet-explorer/ie11-deploy-guide/missing-the-compatibility-view-button

by ·Comments Off on PAW Please try again later

Product:
Planning Analytics Workspace version 36
Microsoft Windows 2016 server

Problem:
After some time use, the user can not access the paw. They can not login.
This happen after the server have rebooted during a Microsoft Windows Patching.
To find out if your PAW installation is damage, check this steps:
When you run a docker ps command, you see services listed as restarting.
When you run a ./paw.ps1 stop command, you see services that does not stop, even after 20 minutes.

Error message:
503 The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to maintenance downtime or capacity problems. Please try again later.

Follow this guide lines to troubleshoot:
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/troubleshooting-planning-analytics-workspace-related-docker-issues
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/how-stop-and-start-planning-analytics-workspace-command-line

If nothing helps do this:
– increase to 8 cpu cores on your Microsoft Windows 2016 box
– turn off your anti virus software (McAfee and Symantec)
– turn off Windows Defender Real-Time Protection
– uninstall latest windows patch applied before last reboot of Windows server
– run paw.ps1 command as is, to repair containers (if they exist with strange names)
– remove paw and install it again
– restore your paw database backup with the ./restore.ps1 script

If you do not have a backup of paw database content, you need to do this steps;
– set docker service to manual
– stop cognos and planning service
– reboot the windows server
– after windows have started fine, manually start the docker service
– in powershell, enter docker ps, to monitor that the containers have started
– enter the command ./paw.ps1 stop
– when all containers is stopped, run the ./backup.ps1 command to get the backup zip files created.

Remove paw
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSD29G_2.0.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.tm1_inst.2.0.0.doc/t_paw_uninstall.html
– copy the configuration files from folder d:\ibm\paw\config to a different temp folder
– copy the backup files from folder d:\ibm\paw\backup to a different temp folder
– run ./paw.ps1 stop to stop all containers
– run ./paw.ps1 down –rmi all -v
– run docker ps -a to list all containers
– run docker rm $(docker ps -a -q) to remove all containers
– run docker images to list all images still there
– run docker rmi <image-id> to remove any Hello-World containers
– run docker network ls to show the docker networks
– rename the d:\ibm\paw\log folder to log-old
– create a new empty d:\ibm\paw\log folder
– copy the config/paw.ps1 file to a temp folder
– remove the d:\ibm\paw\config\paw.ps1 file

In case you need to remove docker, follow the steps last on this page https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/windowscontainers/manage-docker/configure-docker-daemon

To install docker on Windows 2016, follow this steps https://docs.docker.com/ee/docker-ee/windows/docker-ee/

Run below command to test that docker works, before installing PAW.

docker container run hello-world:nanoserver-sac2016

Reinstall paw

– start the IBM Cognos Planning Analytics Services
– run ./Start.ps1 answer Yes to both questions.
– Inside the Administration web page, enter all the values (check in your old paw.ps1 file for values)
– click on validate
– click on update
– you may get a error, open the newly created d:\ibm\paw\config\paw.ps1 file in notepad++
– add manually the configuration values for $env:PAGatewayHTTPPort=”9580″ and $env:ProxyTimeoutSeconds=”600″ to the config/paw.ps1 file. Check from you backup config/paw.ps1 file what values you used last, when it was working.
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSD29G_2.0.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.tm1_inst.2.0.0.doc/c_paw_config_file.html
– Inside the Administration web page, click on restart
– wait for paw containers to start
– surf to your paw page, does it work, but the folders are missing?
– run the ./restore.ps1 d:\temp\backup\yyyy-mm-dd  command to restore from your backup
– surf to your paw page, hopefully all is there.

If you still have issues, please contact IBM Cognos support for better instructions.

There can be new versions of other software that have issues with Docker containers;
https://github.com/docker/for-win/issues/5044
If the system goes down after a few minutes, try to stop the VMware Tools service to see if that helps.

More information:

To prevent this from happening, you must:
Always run the ./paw.ps1 stop script before you restart docker service or reboot the server.
Every week run the ./backup.ps1 script, to make a zip backup of the content inside PAW.
Exclude the docker folders from your anti virus software.
Turn off Real Time Protection.
Set the Docker service to Automatically (Delayed Start)
Ensure there is at least 100 GB free space on the hard disk for docker files.
Add ./shutdown.ps1 script to windows shutdown policy.

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSD29G_2.0.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.tm1_inst.2.0.0.doc/t_paw_shutdown_on_windows_mongo_db.html

More info about Anti-virus software:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/ifs/anti-virus-optimization-for-windows-containers
https://docs.docker.com/engine/security/antivirus
https://success.docker.com/article/endpoint-security-for-windows-containers
https://support.symantec.com/us/en/article.tech183201.html
https://support.symantec.com/us/en/article.tech246815.html
https://kc.mcafee.com/corporate/index?page=content&id=KB90041
https://github.com/Microsoft/hcsshim/issues/437

“We find out with premier support that normally when container starts NET_LUID index for an NDIS loopback interface is allocated from registry key HKLM\SYSTEM\ControlSet001\Services\NDIS\IfTypes\24\IfUsedNetLuidIndices and when container stops it will be released.

But if you restart computer where is running containers then those values will not be released and if you have multiple automatically starting containers and scheduled restarts then eventually that registry key value will run out of free indexes and you are not anymore able to start containers”

by ·Comments Off on Blank page when surf to contributor page

Product:
Planning Analytics 2.0.9
Microsoft Windows 2016 server

Problem:
After upgrade to Planning Analytics 2.0.9, user of TM1 Application web (contributor) get a blank page or below error in web browser when they try to open a link.

Error:

Solution:
Clear the web browser cache before you surf to PMPSVC webpage.

You can also try a script to clean the browser cache, please test the script in your lab first.
Below script will clean Chrome browser cache:

REM echo %username% > C:\ProgramData\user.$$$

ECHO       Clearing Chrome cache
taskkill /F /IM “chrome.exe”

REM Set /p uname=< C:\ProgramData\user.$$$
REM set ChromeDataDir=C:\Users\%uname%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default

set ChromeDataDir=C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
set ChromeCache=%ChromeDataDir%\Cache
del /q /s /f “%ChromeCache%\*.*”
del /q /f “%ChromeDataDir%\*Cookies*.*”

set ChromeDataDir=C:\Users\%USERNAME%\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default
set ChromeCache=%ChromeDataDir%\Cache
del /q /s /f “%ChromeCache%\*.*
del /q /f “%ChromeDataDir%\*Cookies*.*”
ECHO      Clearing Chrome cache DONE

More Information:
https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2018333-help-me-complete-batch-file-script-to-clear-google-chrome-cache-only
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25210330/script-for-clearing-chrome-or-firefox-cache-on-windows

by ·Comments Off on SSO is not working to CA11

Product:
Cognos Analytics 11.0.12
Microsoft Windows 2016 server

Problem:
The users can not login with SSO, they have to enter name and password at the IBMCOGNOS website.
Only a few Cognos CA11 gateway servers are affected.

Suggested solution:
Go into the Cognos Configuration on gateway servers and click save.
Does it help?

Recommend is to on all Cognos Configuration installation change the “common symmetric key lifetime in days” from 365 to a higher value like 1825 (5 years).

Inside Cognos Configuration on the CA11 servers
Go to Local Configuration -> Security -> Cryptography
Modify the value for: Common symmetric key lifetime in days
Also go to Local Configuration -> Security -> Cryptography -> Cognos
Modify the value for: Certificate lifetime in days
Save the configuration and start the services.
You must start the Content Manager first, then the gateway servers last.

The issue can also be caused by changes to IIS setup for the SSO part.

More Information:
By default, the cryptographic keys are valid for 365 days.

This value is configured inside Cognos Configuration
Specifically, browse to “Local Configuration -> Security -> Cryptography” and modify the value for: Common symmetric key lifetime in days

Each time you open Cognos configuration and click the save button, it resets the clock on your 365 days. Therefore, if you installed the software and didn’t save the configuration for 365 days, they would expire and you’d need to manually regenerate them.

You must restart the services every so often to ensure the new keys are actually being used.

If you think you won’t be opening and saving your configuration at any point in the next year or two, you can change the expiration date to 8 years and re-encrypt everything.

If you miss above, you will get in a years time this error;
“The Cognos gateway is unable to connect to the Cognos BI server. The server may be unavailable, or the gateway may not be correctly configured”

https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/how-determine-when-cryptographic-keys-will-expire-and-are-cryptographic-key-and-ca-certificate-lifetime-settings-related
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/cognos-gateway-unable-connect-cognos-bi-server-2
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSEP7J_11.0.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.inst_cr_winux.doc/t_gateway_iis.html

by ·Comments Off on DPR-ERR-2002 Unable to execute the request because there were no connections to the process available

Product:
Cognos Analytics 11.0.13
Microsoft Windows 2016 server

Problem:
When test the data source connection in cognos connection administrative page, you get a error for the JDBC Dynamic connection. The Compatible Query Mode is working. Happens on server with not default temp and data folder.

Error:
Oracle (JDBC) /Dynamic Failed DPR-ERR-2002 Unable to execute the request because there were no connections to the process available within the configured time limit.

Suggested Solution:
Go into Cognos Configuration.
Stop the Cognos service.
Change temp and data locations back to default values.
Save and start the Cognos Service.
Surf into IBMCOGNOS again and test the data sources.

Can be that corrupted files in the temp and data folder does not make the Query/Report service to start correct.

More information:
https://www-01.ibm.com//support/docview.wss?uid=swg1PH15577
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/dpr-err-2002-unable-execute-request-because-there-were-no-connections-process-available-within-configured-timeout

by ·Comments Off on URL Rewrite Module Error

Product:
Cognos Analytics 11.0.13
Microsoft Windows 2016 server

Problem:
Sometimes when user create a report they get a error similar to below, if you clear the users browser cache, you often get the error.

Error:
Message from webpage
Error: Startup Request Failed: The web request failed.:500
URL Rewrite Module Error
URL:../images/Corey_Active.png
at Anonymous function…

Solution:
Check the cognos folders, like C:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\analytics\webcontent\bi\samples\images\ for web.config files that is wrong.
Turn off IIS.
Remove the damage web.config file.
Start IIS.
Check that your BI folder rewrite rules for SSO is correct.
Check that WEBDAV is correct setup on your image folder.

More information:
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/configuring-webdav-view-and-browse-images-ibm-cognos-analytics
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/automate-configuration-microsofts-internet-information-service-support-ibm-cognos-analytics
https://info.motio.com/blog/setting-up-a-gateway-to-enable-sso-for-cognos-11
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSEP7J_11.1.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.inst_cr_winux.doc/c_enabling_single_signon_between_actdirsrv_and_cog_comp.html