Product:
Cognos BI 10.1.1
Windows 2008 R2 Server
IIS

Symptom:
User get a login dialog from the web server (IIS) when they surf to Cognos Connection.
You can not get past the login dialog, even if you enter correct username and password.
This happens after you activated Kerberos to access Cognos BI.

Login Dialog:
User name:
Password:

Cause:
There is duplicated SPN values to the web server (Cognos bi server) in Microsoft Active Directory.
The web server can not handle Kerberos if there are two different user accounts that have the same web server address.

Solution:
Login to a workstation in the network.
Run the command SETSPN -X to list all duplicated addresses.
Check to ensure that the servername is not listed twice for different user accounts.

Enter following command to remove one entry
setspn.exe -D HTTP/Servername.domain.com DOMAIN\useraccount

Replace servername.domain.com and DOMAIN\useraccount with yours values.

You can use the command SETSPN -L USERNAME to find the values for that account in the Active Directory.

Product:
Cognos BI 10.1.1
Windows 2008 R2 server
Oracle 11

Symptom:
Error message when test the connection for the data source.
Oracle / Compatible = Succeeded.
Oracle (JDBC) / Dynamic Failed XQE-DS-0006 Unable to logon to the data source

Error message:
XQE-DS-0006 Unable to logon to the data source
Listener refused the connection with the following error:
ORA-12514 TNS:listener does not currently know of service
requested in connect descriptor

Listener refused the connection with the following error:
ORA-12514 TNS:listener does not currently know of service
requested in connect descriptor

Cause:
When the ORACLE DATABASE have more than one “node” to connect to you may experience similar issues. If you use Service ID in Connection string can give this issue.

Solution:
Change the why you connect to the ORACLE server in JDBC.
In Cognos Connection – Administration – Data Source Connections.
Click on the data link you have issues with.
Click on more (in the right side of Cognos connection)
Click on Set properties
Click on Connection tab
Click on icon right of connection string.
Click on JDBC
Change from Service ID to TNS name alias as Connection type.
Enter TNSname e.g. ORACLENAME.WORLD
Click on Test connection again.
Click TEST button

You should get
Oracle (JDBC) / Dynamic = Succeeded

Click Close

Product:
Cognos BI 10.1.1 64 bits
Windows 2008 R2 server

Symptom:
Get error when test the audit database in Cognos Configuration.
Access to the Content Store on the Microsoft SQL database server works.

Error message:
[Logging]
[ ERROR ] IPTTEST-006 Logging failed to connect to database:jdbc:JSQLConnect://servername:1433/databasename

Cause:
The database does not exit on the Microsoft SQL 2005 server

Solution:
Ask the SQL DBA to create the AUDIT database, before you try to connect to it.

Product:
Cognos BI 10.1.1
IBM HTTPServer 7
AIX

Symptom:
Error when surf to cognos connection on a AIX server with HTTPServer and Kerberos configured.

Error message:
Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, you@your.address and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
——————————————————————————–
IBM_HTTP_Server at servername.domain.com Port 80

Possible solution:
The file http.keytab is missing from the /opt/IBM/HTTPServer/conf folder.
This file should contain the kerberos keytab information for that domain account that is set for the Webserver.

Use Putty to access the AIX server.
Go to the /opt/IBM/HTTPServer folder (with command cd /opt/IBM/HTTPServer)
List the contains of the folder (with command ls -l )

Check the http.keytab file is there.
Check the owner of the file, it should in most cases be root.
Check the access rights to the file, in most cases it should be -r–r–r–

Product:
Cognos BI 10.1.1
Internet Explorer

Symptom:
Error when you try to surf to Cognos Connection in Internet Explorer

Error message:
DPR-ERR-2107
The User Capabilities Cache cookie cannot be decoded.

Solution:
Close all Internet Explorer windows and start again.

You are logged into a other Cognos BI server Cognos Connection in other Internet Explorer window, that make it not possible to login to a new Cognos BI server.

Workaround is to use one Internet Explorer for your development Cognos Connection, and Firefox for access to your Production Cognos Connection.

Product:

Cognos BI 10.1.1

Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 server

Symptom:

Does the anti virus program affect my performance in Cognos BI?

Result:

Yes – you should disable any local active scanning on Cognos BI folders and subfolders.

If you have rules in the Anti virus program – you should test to turn them off, this can increase performance in Cognos BI reporting. Cognos BI use a lot of temp files for report processing.

You must have all antivirus software turned off during install of Cognos BI products, or the installation may fail.

More Information:

<c10_location> refers to the installation directory of each Cognos BI Instance.

Configuration files

<c10_location>\configuration\

Example c:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\c10_64\configuration\

Exclude files of type:

*.ini

*.xml

*.xsd

*.xslt

The configuration folder is a tree structure with several levels. Exclusions should apply to the flder levels and any other subfolder level below.

Temporary files

<c10_location>\temp\

Example c:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\c10_64\temp\

The temp folder is used by Cognos BI to store temporary files used for local operations or cached data.

Files in this folder don’t have any extensions. Files can be differentiated based on their prefix, fx: ‘uda*’. The recommendation is that the entire folder and subfolder structure is excluded from access scanning.

You can inside Cognos Configuration set the environment value for TEMP files to something else than default – if you set to d:\temp you must exclude that folder also from the anti virus scan software.

 

Transformer Cubes

Example c:\Cubes\Current\

File types to exclude: *.mdc

The cubes folder is divided into various subfolders with different levels. Exclusion should apply all folder levels below.

 

Log files

<c10_location>\logs\

Example c:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\c10_64\ logs\

File types to exclude:

*.log

*.xml

*.lck

*.pid

*.service

cbs*  (Note: exclude on prefix, the ‘cbs*’ files does not have extensions)

The logs folder is also a tree structure with different levels below. Exclusions should apply to all levels below.

 

Runtime-models

<c10_location> data\

Example c:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\c10_64\data\

File types to exclude:

*.rtm

*.lck

The runtime models folder is a tree structure with sublevels. Exclusions should apply to all levels below.

 

DEP

Please also do not forget to turn DEP off in Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 servers.

Go to controller panel – system – advanced system settings

Go to system properties – advanced – system performance.

Go to Data Execution Prevention tab and select to top value only.

Click OK.

 

Data Execution Prevention (DEP) is a security feature that can help prevent damage to your computer from viruses and other security threats. Harmful programs can try to attack Windows by attempting to run (also known as execute) code from your computer’s memory reserved for Windows and other authorized programs. These types of attacks can harm your programs and files.

DEP can help protect your computer by monitoring your programs to make sure that they use computer memory safely. If DEP notices a program on your computer using memory incorrectly, it closes the program and notifies you.

Product:
Cognos BI 10.1.1 64 bit version
AIX
Oracle 11.2.0
Java version 1.5

Symptom:
When testing the connection to a oracle data source, the Compatible Query Mode is successful, but you get a error message for Dynamic Query Mode (JDBC).

Error message:
XQE-GEN-0002 An unexpected exception occurred: ocijdbc11 (A file or directory in the path name does not exist.)

Background:
You have installed 32 Bit Oracle client on your Cognos Aix server.
You have set the LIBPATH to /IBM/cognos/oracle/product/11.2.0/client32/lib
You have added oracle path to the PATH variable.
You have copied the ojdbc5.jar file to the /IBM/cognos/c10_64/webapps/p2pd/WEB-INF/lib folder.

Under Dynamic/JDBC connection setting, you can
choose “Service ID”, “TNS Names Alias” and ‘Oracle Net Descriptor”.
This error only occurs on “TNS Names Alias” (OCI driver type only), and ‘Oracle Net
Descriptor” (With OCI driver type).
“Service ID” option and Oracle Net Descriptor (Thin driver type) don’t have this issue.

Solution:
Cognos BI 10.1.1 needs to call 64 Bit Oracle libraries when you use a JAVA OCI driver.
But Compatible Query Mode only supports 32 Bit Oracle client (SQLNET).

Recommendation is to use SERVICE ID to access the Oracle database with JDBC.
Enter the server name to the oracle server using FQDN name.
Enter the port number e.g. 1521.
Enter the oracle service ID, that is the database name.

In previous OCI configuration you set the user name to the schema name
and also enter the password for the user name.

Then test the connection again.

Otherwise you need to install both 32bit and 64bit oracle client and update the LIBPATH accordingly, to maybe get it to work.

Product:
Cognos BI 10.1.1
AIX
Java 1.5

Problem:

How do I set Cognos BI Service to start automatic on a AIX server after a reboot of the AIX server ?

Background:

AIX will run scripts that are placed in folder /etc/rc.d/rc2.d

The name of the script tells AIX when to run it.

S scripts are executed with ‘start’ option during the boot of the machine in the order of next 2 digits (00 to 99).
K scripts are executed during shutdown with ‘stop’ parameter added automatically.

It is simpler to have one script that you copy and name it S99Cognos.sh and K99Cognos.sh.

Solution:

Open notepad or other text editor

Enter below into the text editor…………………………………………………….

#!/bin/bash

##################################################
# name: S99Cognos
# purpose: script that will start or stop the cognos application.
##################################################

case “$1” in
start )

su – cogservice -c ‘/opt/IBM/cognos/c10_64/bin64/cogconfig.sh -s’

;;

stop )

su – cogservice -c ‘/opt/IBM/cognos/c10_64/bin64/cogconfig.sh -stop’

;;* )
echo “Usage: $0 (start | stop)”
exit 1
esac

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Save the file as S99Cognos.sh and

Save the file as K99Cognos.sh

You need to update the path in above file to reflect your installations paths.

You need to replace cogservice with your account that run the Cognos service.

Ensure the files are saved in folder /etc/rc.d/rc2.d

as the root user (the folder to use depends on the AIX setup).

 

To start IBM HTTPServer:

Open vi or other AIX text editor

Enter below into the text editor…………………………………………………….

#!/bin/bash

##################################################
# name: S99HTTPServer
# purpose: script that will start or stop the apache application.
##################################################
start )
export LIBPATH=/opt/IBM/cognos/c10_64/cgi-bin:$LIBPATH
/opt/IBM/HTTPServer/bin/apachectl -k start
;;
stop )
export LIBPATH=/opt/IBM/cognos/c10_64/cgi-bin:$LIBPATH
/opt/IBM/HTTPServer/bin/apachectl -k stop
;;

* )
echo “Usage: $0 (start | stop)”
exit 1
esac

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Save the file as S99HTTPServer.sh and

Save the file as K99HTTPServer.sh

Ensure the files are saved in folder /etc/rc.d/rc2.d

as the root user.

Test the scripts carefully before you use them on your production AIX server.

Product:
Cognos BI 10.1.1
AIX server

Symptom:
After you have applied Cognos BI fix pack 1 the Cognos BI service does not start.

More information:
Instlog folder show version tl-BISRVR-10.1-6235.144
cmplst.txt file contain line:
C8BISRVR_version=C8BISRVR-AX64-ML-RTM-10.1.6235.144-0

You have installed from media bisrvr_aix64h_10.1.1_ml.tar.gz

The fixpack you have downloaded and try to install on AIX is
file CBI_10.1.1_AIX64_FP001.tar.gz from
http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg24033004

Solution:
Copy the file bootstrap_aix64.xml from a clean RTM installation of Cognos BI 10.1.1
and replace the new file in the server where you have installed the fix pack.

The file are in folder /opt/IBM/cognos/c10_64/bin64

After you have replaced the bootstrap_aix64.xml file with the old one, then the Cognos BI service should start.

The bootstrap_aix64.xml you should use are 2971 bytes in size.

This is only a issue on AIX, on Microsoft Windows the Cognos BI fix pack works.

Product:
CDM version 10.2.4
Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 server

Symptom:
Can not log on to CDM, the user get this error after selection of server
“Säkerhetsförhandlingsfel”

Error message in log file:
2016-10-19 14:19:03,628 [4] ERROR Ibm.CognosDM.Api.PluginsManager – CDCGN00500E (null) Plugin DashboardPlugIn was loaded. ErrorFormat 0
2016-10-19 14:19:03,675 [4] ERROR Ibm.CognosDM.Api.PluginsManager – CDCGN00500E (null) Plugin Filing was loaded. ErrorFormat 0
2016-10-19 14:19:03,675 [4] ERROR Ibm.CognosDM.Api.PluginsManager – CDCGN00500E (null) Plugin TasksPlugIn was loaded. ErrorFormat 0
2016-10-19 14:19:20,993 [1] ERROR Ibm.CognosDM.App – CDCGN00025E ExceptionToken: Unknown [LayoutPersistErrorException] Error 0 System.NullReferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.
at Ibm.CognosDM.Storage.Bases.UserDataSetBase..ctor(String storageLocation, String user)
at Ibm.CognosDM.Storage.DataSetInstances.get_UserSettings()
at Ibm.CognosDM.App.ApplicationExit(Object sender, ExitEventArgs e)

Check this as first step:
Can you also reset the IIS to see if it helps? Type “iisreset” in a Command Prompt window.

If the issue still persist, can you check whether the SSL certificate for CDM is still valid in IIS?

1. From the Start Menu, launch “Administrative Tools – Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager”
2. Highlight ‘Default Web Site’ or the Server name in IIS.
3. Click ‘Bindings’ or click on ‘Server Certificates’ – there you see Expiration Date direct.
4. Highlight your entry for ‘https’ and choose ‘Edit’
5. Click ‘View’
6. Check the Valid from/to dates

In this case the Certificate on the IIS for the default web site had expiry.

Solution:
Insert a new valid Certificate on the IIS server.

1. In the Internet Information Services (IIS) Manager console, under
Connections, select your server name.
2. Double-click Server Certificates.
3. Click Import.
4. Browse to and select the SSL certificate.
5. Enter the password for the certificate, and click OK.
6. Under Connections, select the website where the CognosDM-Server virtual directory is located. For example, select default.
7. Click Bindings. Select the https type, and click Edit.
9. In the SSL certificate window, select the certificate you imported, and click OK.
10. Close the Site Bindings window.
11. Select the CognosDM-Server website application.
12. Double-click SSL Settings.
13. Ensure that Require SSL is selected, and select Ignore in the Client certificates section.
14. Click Apply.

More information:
http://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSQK59_10.2.3/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.cdm_ig.10.2.3.doc/c_cdm_ig_ssl_certificates.html