Product:
Cognos Controller 10.1.1
Windows 2008 server

Symptom:
Can not send mail from inside Cognos Controller client.

Error message:
Email server reported an error, some or all messages could not be sent. Please check with your local administrator that the email server is operational and that the system configuration is correct (connection details can be found in details and or log file).

java.lang.NullPointerException
com.ibm.cognos.ccr.configproperty.EmailSettings.fromURI(EmailSettings.java:70)

Cause:
The value for General Configuration – Server Preferences are not filled in for
variable name: C4_EMAIL_SERVER
variable value: mailrelay.domain.se:25

http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/cfpm/v10r1m0/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.ctrl_ug.10.1.1.doc%2Fc_syparlist.html

Solution:
Start Cognos Controller client
Log in as administrator
Go to Maintain – General Configuration – Server Preferences
Add new variable name C4_EMAIL_SERVER
Add new variable value to your mail server name (FQDN) and include the port number (:25)
Click Save.
All users need to log off Cognos controller to make the change take affect.

Above is for the new dialog boxes in Cognos controller like Group – Command Center.
Where after you have listed the status for a group/company’s on the right side have a icon to send notification email.
To get this to work, the user you logged in with to Cognos Controller must have a valid email address added to its user account information in Cognos controller.

To add email address to user in Cognos Controller client, go to
Maintain – Rights – Users dialog
Click on the user in the list on left side, and add a email address on the right side for the user.
The email address must be allowed by the company email server to send email, often a address that exist inside the company.

If the sending users email address is wrong, you get a error message like this:
Unable to proceed, please address errors listed below.
Cannot send without email address for sender (ADM). Please check system configuration.

The mail setting inside Maintain – Configuration – General Configuration
tab general 3 is for all the old mail functions in old controller dialogs.
Here you should also specify the mail server at SMTP server line:
mailrelay.company.se
and select the email format you want to use, recommend CSV.

To test this you can go to Transfer – Export Structures.
Mark E-mail and enter an email address to receive the mail on the line at the right.
Mark what to send, for example Country Structure.
Click RUN icon.
Click CLOSE on message that temp file is created.
Enter the message text and click OK to send the email.

You need to logout from Cognos Controller client, to make any changes take affect from the General Configuration dialog.

Product:
Cognos Controller 10.1.1
Windows 2008 R2 server

Symptom:
Limit memory on Cognos Controller server, how do I tune Cognos Controller system to use less RAM ?

Possible Solution:
The Cognos Controller standard reports use the old CQM report engine, so you can turn off the new DQM report engine in the new Cognos BI that is shipped with Cognos Controller.
This will save you one JAVA session.

Go to Cognos Configuration on your Controller Application server.
Go to Environment
Go to IBM Cognos services
Under Component Properties – set “Query Service Enabled?” to false.
Save settings and restart the Cognos BI services.

In windows task manager you should now only see one JAVA.EXE*32 process instead of two that you had before.
Will save around 343 Mb of RAM from the Controller application server.

Product:

Cognos Controller 10.1.x

Windows 2008 R2 Server

Citrix Xenapps

Symptom:

When user run the a standard report in Cognos controller the application seem to hang.

Can be for reports like group – reconcile – Between Accounts/Opening Balances.

 

Error message in preview of report:

please wait, loading the report.

 

Cause:

You  must have Adobe Reader installed on the Citrix server where you have the Cognos Controller client installed.

When you run a standard report in Cognos Controller – it will in the background start Adobe Reader to prepare to show the report in PDF format, and not only HTML format.

Solution:

Install Adobe Reader on Citrix server.

Also ensure that:

Internet explorer enhanced security settings are turned off  (IE ESC)

That the cognos controller web server is in the local intranet zone in Internet explorer

That internet explorer is the default web browser on the Citrix server.

Microsoft Excel on the Citrix server is of the latest Service pack.

 

Check supported version of Excel here:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg27014433

More about reconcile:

http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/infocenter/c8fpm/v8r4m0/index.jsp?topic=/com.ibm.swg.im.cognos.ctrl_ug.8.5.0.doc/ctrl_ug_id14462E1K14_2_ReconcilingbetweenAccountsandOpe.html

Product:
Cognos Controller 10
Excel Link
Windows 2003 Server
Citrix Server

Symptom:
When working in Excel with Cognos Controller link you get an error message.

Error message:
Standard Error
Number: 7
Source: mscorlib
Description: Execption of type ‘System.outOfMemoryException’ was thrown.
At System.IO.MemoryStream.set_Capacity(Int32 value)
At System.IO.MemoryStream.EnsureCapacity(Int32 value)
At System.IO.MemoryStream.Write(Byte[] buffer, Int32 offset, Int32 count)
Xxx

Solution:
The Windows check if there is memory free that the application can use, and at this moment there is not enough memory free on client computer/terminal server, so this error is sent from the Windows Operation system, to not allow the program to access the memory.

In the case of Excel reports, consider to make them smaller with less amount of formulas.
Also ensure the client/citrix server have enough memory.
At least do you need 8 GB of ram on a citrix server, which should handle a few Cognos Controller users.

Run the same excel sheet on a computer/server with a lot of memory and see if the problem is gone.

Product:

IBM Cognos Controller 10.1.1

Excel 2010

Windows 2008 R2 Server

Citrix Server

Symptom:

When you start Microsoft Excel 2010 and open a large xls sheet, you get a error message.

You have changed from Excel 2007 to Excel 2010 recently.

Error message:

Microsoft Excel

Not enough system resources to display completely.

 

Possible Solution:

This strange behavior can be solved sometimes by erase temp files, see below how to do this:

You need to be administrator on the computer, to do many of the steps.

 

Deleted all temp files by:

Go to Start menu

Select Run

Enter %temp% in the box and press Enter

(mostly this is c:\temp)

Delete everything from this folder

 

Cleared Recent Docs List & Lower Number Displaying:

Start Excel 2010

Select File menu

Select Options from menu

Select Advanced

Scroll to Display category

Change number of recent documents.  To clear the list, set this to 0 and save.  Set it to a low value, like 5, to prevent it from happening again.

 

Delete files from the following folders:

Some of the folders may be hidden, so you need to active “show hidden files” in Windows Explorer.

Go to control panel

Select folder options

Select view tab

Mark “show hidden files, folders, or drives.”

Click OK.

Start windows explorer again.

 

Local Service:

%windir%\ServicesProfiles\LocalService\AppData\LocalLow\Microsoft\CryptnetUrlCache\Content

%windir%\ServicesProfiles\LocalService\AppData\LocalLow\Microsoft\CryptnetUrlCache\MetaData

Network Service:

%windir%\ServicesProfiles\NetworkService\AppData\LocalLow\Microsoft\CryptnetUrlCache\Content

%windir%\ServicesProfiles\NetworkService\AppData\LocalLow\Microsoft\CryptnetUrlCache\MetaData

LocalSystem:

%windir%\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\LocalLow\Microsoft\CryptnetUrlCache\Content

%windir%\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\LocalLow\Microsoft\CryptnetUrlCache\MetaData

Above can solve your problem, if there is still problems, check if Microsoft update 2597166 is installed, and if you remove that – it may work.

 

More information:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/excel/thread/878e2e02-8f0f-4740-9b15-5e718725ea2a

After your changes, you can also repair you Microsoft Office installation

Go to Control Panel

Go to Add/Remove Programs

Select Office 2010

Right click and select Change

Run Repair

Test the XLS file again after you have cleaned the system as shown above.

Product:

IBM Cognos Controller 10.1.1

(RTM controller version 10.1.1306)

(Integrated version 10.1.1294)

on

Microsoft Windows 2008 R2

Symptom:

When user starts local installed Cognos Controller (ccr.exe) they get a error message before the login dialog.

An error occurred while trying to access the server

http://localhost/ibmcognos/controllerbin

The request failed with HTTP status 404: Not Found.

 

Solution:

Inside Cognos Controller Configuration under Client Distribution Server Configuration

you can see the correct value for WSSurl

http://localhost/ibmcognos/controllerserver

During install of the Controller Client (ccrlocalclient.msi) you may have enter the wrong value for the WSSUrl.

On the client machine, or the citrix server, go to the folder

C:\Program Files (x86)\ibm\IBM Cognos Controller

open the file CCR.exe.config in notepad

change the line;

<add key=”WSSUrl” value=”http://localhost/ibmcognos/controllerbin”/>

to a correct line like this;

<add key=”WSSUrl” value=”http://localhost/ibmcognos/controllerserver”/>

Save the file and start the Controller client again.

You may need to start the client twice to make the effect work.

 

(you need to replace “localhost” with your server name)

Product:

Cognos Controller 10.1.1

Windows 2008 R2 Server

Symptom:

When you surf to http://localhost/ibmcognos you get a error.

On a newly installed Cognos BI / Cognos Controller setup.

Problem:

HTTP Error 404.2 – Not Found

The page you are requesting cannot be served because of the ISAPI and CGI Restriction list settings on the Web server. Detailed Error Information

Module CgiModule

Notification ExecuteRequestHandler

Handler cgi-bin

Error Code 0x800704ec

Requested URL http://localhost:80/ibmcognos/cgi-bin/cognos.cgi?b_action=xts.run&m=portal/main.xts&startwel=yes

Physical Path C:\Program Files (x86)\ibm\cognos\c10\cgi-bin\cognos.cgi

Logon Method Anonymous

Logon User Anonymous

 

Solution:

Go to Internet Information (IIS) Manager

Mark the server in the list to the left

Click on icon for “ISAPI and CGI Restrictions”

Note that there is no line for cognos.cgi

Click ADD from the right panel

Enter the path to the cognos.cgi file in field ISAPI or CGI path:

C:\Program Files (x86)\ibm\cognos\c10\cgi-bin\cognos.cgi

Enter cognos.cgi as Description

mark “Allow extension path to execute”

Click OK

 

Test again to surf to http://localhost/ibmcognos

Product:

Cognos Controller 10.1.1

Windows 2008 R2 Server

Symptom:

When you surf to http://localhost/ibmcognos you get a error.

On a newly installed Cognos BI / Cognos Controller setup.

Error message:

HTTP Error 500.19 – Internal Server Error

The requested page cannot be accessed because the related configuration data for the page is invalid. Detailed Error Information

Module IIS Web Core

Notification BeginRequest

Handler Not yet determined

Error Code 0x8007000d

Config Error Unrecognized attribute ‘allowpathInfo’

Config File \\?\C:\Program Files (x86)\ibm\cognos\c10\cgi-bin\web.config

Solution:

Change the value inside web.config file to be allowPathInfo  instead of  allowpathInfo

Should look like this:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>

<configuration>

<system.webServer>

<handlers accessPolicy=”Read, Execute, Script”>

<add name=”cgi-bin” path=”*.cgi” verb=”*” modules=”CgiModule” resourceType=”Unspecified” allowPathInfo=”true” />

</handlers>

</system.webServer>

</configuration>

Product:

Cognos Controller 10.1

Windows 2008 R2 Server

Problem:

How do I see the domain and username of the logged in user in a computer ?

Possible Solution:

On the client workstation you can run below script to display username and domain, that the user is logged into.

echo %userdomain% > finduser.txt

echo %username% >> finduser.txt

notepad.exe finduser.txt

Open notepad

enter above text

save as finduser.cmd

in windows explorer ensure the file is ended with cmd and not cmd.txt.

Let the user run the finduser.cmd file,

it will in notepad display

what domain and user is logged in to the computer.

This to ensure that he is logged in to Windows computer with the correct user.

Product:

Cognos Controller 10.1.1  CCR-AW32-ML-RTM-10.1.6235.57-0

FAP 1.0.13.0  CCRFAPCLIENT-AW32-ML-RTM-10.1.6235.57-0

Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 server

Symptom:

When install FAP manager on citrix server, the values are empty when the user starts the program.

Cause:

Default values for IBM Cognos Controller Financial Analytics Publisher are stored in a user.config file for each user in folder C:\Users\Administrator\AppData\Local\IBM_Corp\FAPClient.exe_Url_hizg5pd121eg2yxnq50fgzjzluvgy4wb\1.0.13.0 on the server.

Solution:

Create a batch file, that look something like this:

===================================

@echo off mkdir %userprofile%\AppData\Local\IBM_Corp\FAPClient.exe_Url_hizg5pd121eg2yxnq50fgzjzluvgy4wb\1.0.13.0  copy user.config %userprofile%\AppData\Local\IBM_Corp\FAPClient.exe_Url_hizg5pd121eg2yxnq50fgzjzluvgy4wb\1.0.13.0\user.config

cmd.exe /C start “FAP Manager” “C:\Program Files (x86)\ibm\cognos\c10\webcontent\ccr\FAPClient.exe”

=============================================

Copy a working user.config file and place it in same folder as above batch file.

Add the batch file to the publish FAP manager icon, to be run before the start of the application.

Now the file is in place before the FAP manager starts, and the default values are there.

Then the user only need to type in the SQL login password to the FAP database to work.

 

The user.config should look like this:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>

<configuration>

<userSettings>

<FAPClient.My.MySettings>

<setting name=”DatabaseType” serializeAs=”String”>

<value>MSSqlServer2008</value>

</setting>

<setting name=”Server” serializeAs=”String”>

<value>localhost</value>

</setting>

<setting name=”Database” serializeAs=”String”>

<value>adam</value>

</setting>

<setting name=”User” serializeAs=”String”>

<value>bertil</value>

</setting>

</FAPClient.My.MySettings>

</userSettings>

</configuration>

…………………………………………………………………………….

localhost should be replace with the SQL server name

adam should be replaced with the FAP controller database name

bertil should be replaced with the SQL server login username

 

A easier way is to update the FAPClient.exe.config file in folder c:\program files (x86)\ibm\cognos\c10\webcontent\ccr folder.

This will affect all users that login to the Citrix server.