Product

Cognos Controller 8

Symptom
The form layout can not be saved unless a selection is made for which file format to use for the form.

Problem
When using Excel 2007, first time the user wants to save a new or updated form layout in Controller a pop up is displayed to select a ‘File format of report’. This selection will determine in which format the Controller form layout is saved.

Cause
As designed.

Solution
Select one of the formats available (depending on which Excel version the Controller users will be running):
.xls – Compatible with Excel 2003.
.xlsx – Excel 2007 format, not compatible with Excel 2003 or earlier.

Product

Cognos Controller 8

Symptom
System.NullreferenceException: Object reference not set to an instance of an object. At cognos.controller.appcontext.initConfig()

Problem
This error occurs when Cognos Controller is executed from Cognos Connection or when the URL http://servername/cognos8/controllerbin/ccr.exe is executed

Cause
.NET component is not correctly registered in IIS

Solution
Register .NET in IIS
Steps:
1. Open a DOS box.
2. Browse to C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727 directory
3. Type aspnet_regiis.exe /i

Product
Cognos Controller 8
Symptom

When opening controller after migration of the controller databases from SQL2000 to SQL2005 the following error occurs after providing login credentials;

“—Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation”

Problem
In the event log of the controller application server the following entry can be found.

The VB Application identified by the event source logged this Application FrMiscST: Thread ID: 6108 ,Logged: Error occured at 9/14/2009 6:15:11 AM in FrMiscST, Error No=-2147217900, Source=Server Sub:Db_PushStruc(..) , Description=Cannot resolve the collation conflict between “Latin1_General_CI_AS” and “SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS” in the equal to operation., HelpFile= HelpContext=0

Cause
The collation settings of the new server is different than the original one. For controller all the collation settings of the temp db and controller databases must be the same collation.

Solution
Create new SQL2005 instance or perform a complete new SQL2005 server installation with the correct collation. In this case “SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS”

Symptom
User launches Cognos Controller. User notices that the quick-link/shortcut icon to launch Excel is grayed out, and they cannot use it to launch Microsoft Excel.

Cause
User(s) belong to a security group which has the selection “Reports – Controller Link” configured. But its “Access Rights” are set to “Not Available”

Solution
1. Click “Maintain – Rights – Security Groups”
2. Select the tab ‘Menus’
3. In the ‘Code’ section, select the group which the user(s) belong to
4. Locate the entry for ‘Reports – Controller Link’
5. Change the setting ‘Access Rights’ from ‘Not Available’ to ‘Normal’.

If a BiBusTKServerMain process terminates unexpectedly, a dump file is created in the ../bin directory.  In order to troubleshoot the termination of these processes, follow the steps below to use the Windows Debug (Windbg) tool available from Microsoft.

Use the Windbg tool to open the dump file to help determine the cause of the BiBusTKServerMain crash.

Steps:
Download and Install Windbg from Microsoft here

1. From the Start menu, launch Windbg.
2. From the File menu, choose Symbols File Path
3. In the Symbol Search Path dialog box, enter \\localhost\Symbols\dbg
4. Click Ok
5. From the File menu, choose Open Crash Dump
6. Navigate to the dmp file and click Open
7. Click Yes to the Save Workspace dialog
You may see an error such as:

*** ERROR: Symbol file could not be found.  Defaulted to export symbols for ntdll.dll –
This dump file has an exception of interest stored in it
The stored exception information can be accessed via .exr

8. On the white line at the bottom of the Command window type .exr -1 and hit enter
9. In the command line at the bottom of the Command window, type  k 20 and hit enter (This will show the to 20 lines of the stack trace)
10. Click on “View” in the top menu bar and select “Call Stack” – A new window will open
11. Click on “View” in the top menu bar and select “command” – a new window will open
12. Click on “View” in the top menu bar and select “locals” – a new window will open
13. Click on “View” in the top menu bar and select “processes and threads” – a new window will open
14. Click on “Window” in the top menu bar and select “Undock all”.
15. Click on “Window” in the top menu bar and select “Vertically tile floating windows” – The screen should show four windows
16. In the call stack window (“Calls”), click on the button “More” at the top until you get to the bottom of the stack
17. We need to locate an entry similar to the following:  RSReportService!RSASyncExecutionThread::run+0x606
18. Double click on this entry. Then move to the “Locals” Window and look for the following thread: “this”
19. Expand the plus sign next to “this” and you should see the following: m_pPrimaryRequest
20. Expand the thread m_pPrimaryRequest and you should see the following: m__objectPath
21. Expand the thread m__objectPath and you should see the following: m__value
22. Note down the value corresponding to the entry. It could be or it could indicate a particular report name.

If the value shows , it could be that the system did not have enough resources but is not conclusive.

Product:
Cognos Controller 10.3
Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 server

Symptom:
After installation of Cognos Controller you get an error message when you start Cognos Controller Configuration

Error message in Controller:
Web Service, ControllerProxyServer, could not be found. Section is disabled.
The type initializer for ‘Cognos.Controller.Configuration.CRN’ threw an exception.

Cause:
The IIS installation is damage.

Check by start the IIS manager and expand the Application pool or the site list. You will get error like below:
There was an error while performing this operation
Details:
Filename:
\\?\c:\windows\microsoft.net\framework64\v2.0.50727\CONFIG\web.config
Line number: 13
Error: The configuration section “system.web” cannot be read because it is missing a section declaration.
or
Configuration system failed to initialize.

Possible Solution:
Uninstall IIS from windows and reinstall it from add/remove roles.

Product:
Cognos Controller 10.3
Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 server
Oracle Database 12c

Symptom:
Error when you do optimize of the database inside Cognos Controller 10.3 in a new installation.

Error message:
Number: 5
Source: System.Web.Services
Description: System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapException: Server was unable to process request. —> System.ArgumentException: ORA-12516: TNS:listener could not find available handler with matching protocol stack
at Microsoft.VisualBasic.

Cause:
The Cognos controller use more connections to the database server than the database server is setup for.

Solution:
Increase the max Connections value for the Oracle server from 500 to max 1000.

The Cognos Controller 10.3 can create 300 inactive connections to the database during some heavy processes. If the oracle database use around 90 connections for internal use, then you soon hit the limit of 500 on the Oracle database.

Product:

Cognos Controller 10.3

Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 server

Oracle 12c database

Symptom:

Error when you try to start Cognos controller client for the first time to new Cognos Controller server.

If you try to surf to this http://controllerservername/ibmcognos/controllerserver/ccrws.asmx

You also get an error message like;

Server Error in ‘/ibmcognos/controllerserver’ application

Could not load type ‘System.ServiceModel.Activation.HttpModule’ from assembly…..

 

Error message in Controller Client details:

Client found response content type of ‘text/html; charset=utf-8’, but expected ‘text/xml’.

The request failed with the error message:

<!DOCTYPE html>

<html>

<head>

<title>Could not load type ‘System.ServiceModel.Activation.HttpModule’ from assembly ‘System.ServiceModel, Version=3.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089’.</title>

<meta name=”viewport” content=”width=device-width” />

<style>

body {font-family:”Verdana”;font-weight:normal;font-size: .7em;color:black;}

p {font-family:”Verdana”;font-weight:normal;color:black;margin-top: -5px}

b {font-family:”Verdana”;font-weight:bold;color:black;margin-top: -5px}

H1 { font-family:”Verdana”;font-weight:normal;font-size:18pt;color:red }

H2 { font-family:”Verdana”;font-weight:normal;font-size:14pt;color:maroon }

pre {font-family:”Consolas”,”Lucida Console”,Monospace;font-size:11pt;margin:0;padding:0.5em;line-height:14pt}

.marker {font-weight: bold; color: black;text-decoration: none;}

.version {color: gray;}

Solution:

You need to register the ASPNET with IIS on the Microsoft Windows server.

Start a CMD prompt as an administrator on the Controller servers.

  1. In a command window, go to the c:/Windows/Microsoft.NET/Framework64/v4.0.30319/ directory.
  2. Enter the following command:

aspnet_regiis.exe /i

Repeat on all Cognos Controller servers, and for Cognos Controller 10.2 and 10.3 you need to use NET framework 4.5.6 that is in folder /Framework64/v4.0.30319/.

This is the response you should get from the command:

C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319>aspnet_regiis /i

Microsoft (R) ASP.NET RegIIS version 4.0.30319.0

Administration utility to install and uninstall ASP.NET on the local machine.

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

Start installing ASP.NET (4.0.30319.0).

……..

Finished installing ASP.NET (4.0.30319.0).

More information:

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SS9S6B_10.2.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.qrc_ctrl_inst.10.2.0.doc/t_qsg_ctrl_cnfgaspnet.html

Product:

Cognos Controller 10.3

Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 server

Oracle 12c database

Symptom:

Error when you try to start Cognos controller client for the first time to new Cognos Controller server.

Error message in Controller Client details:

Client found response content type of ‘text/html’, but expected ‘text/xml’.

The request failed with the error message:

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd”>

<html xmlns=”http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml”>

<head>

<meta http-equiv=”Content-Type” content=”text/html; charset=iso-8859-1″/>

<title>500 – Internal server error.</title>

<style type=”text/css”>

<!–

body{margin:0;font-size:.7em;font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;background:#EEEEEE;}

fieldset{padding:0 15px 10px 15px;}

h1{font-size:2.4em;margin:0;color:#FFF;}

h2{font-size:1.7em;margin:0;color:#CC0000;}

h3{font-size:1.2em;margin:10px 0 0 0;color:#000000;}

#header{width:96%;margin:0 0 0 0;padding:6px 2% 6px 2%;font-family:”trebuchet MS”, Verdana, sans-serif;color:#FFF;

background-color:#555555;}

#content{margin:0 0 0 2%;position:relative;}

.content-container{background:#FFF;width:96%;margin-top:8px;padding:10px;position:relative;}

–>

</style>

</head>

Solution:

The WEB.CONFIG file is not correct in the cgi-bin folder on the IIS for the Cognos Controller installation.

It can have been edit and a > character is missing or the “ is not of the correct type.

Open the file in notepad and enter the value manually

Do not copy and paste it from the website. That will give errors.

Using Windows Explorer, open the cgi-bin folder (default = C:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\ccr_64\cgi-bin)

  • Launch NOTEPAD.EXE and edit the file ‘web.config’

TIP: From Windows 2012 onwards, it is not possible to edit files directly unless logged on as the user ‘Administrator’. One easy workaround is to launch a Command Prompt ‘As Administrator’ and (inside there) type: NOTEPAD.EXE.

  • Add the text allowPathInfo=”true” after the entry: resourceType=”xxxxx”

The text should look similar like this inside the web.config file:

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

<configuration>

<system.webServer>

<handlers>

<add name=”IBMCOGNOSISAPI” path=”cognosisapi.dll” verb=”*” modules=”IsapiModule” scriptProcessor=”C:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\ccr_64\cgi-bin\cognosisapi.dll” resourceType=”Unspecified” preCondition=”bitness64″ allowPathInfo=”true” />

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

</handlers>

</system.webServer>

</configuration>

After the update enter IISRESET to restart the web service on the Windows server.

Then test to start the Cognos Controller client again.

More information:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21653338

Product:

Cognos Controller 10.3

Microsoft Windows 2008 R2 server

Oracle 12c database

Symptom:

Error when you try to check oracle database connection inside Cognos controller configuration on a new Cognos controller installation.

You have entered the values:

Database type: Oracle

Name: default

Provider: OraOLEDB.Oracle.1

User ID:  (the schema name)

Password:  (the password to the schema user in oracle)

Data source: (the oracle SERVICE_NAME)

Error message:

The ‘OraOLEDB.Oracle.1’ provider is not registered on the local machine.

Solution:

  1. Launch a Command Prompt (CMD) as the user ‘Administrator’
  2. Type the following command (or go to the folder where your oracle driver is installed)

CD C:\orarun\ora12102\client\BIN

  1. Type the following commend:

c:\Windows\system32\regsvr32.exe OraOLEDB12.dll

 

C:\orarun\ora12102\Client\BIN>dir oraole*.*

Volume in drive C is SYSTEM

Volume Serial Number is FC7D-6E96

 

Directory of C:\orarun\ora12102\Client\BIN

 

2014-07-31  21:40           744 448 OraOLEDB12.dll

2014-07-31  21:38             1 712 OraOLEDB12.tlb

2014-07-31  21:34             9 728 OraOLEDB12d.dll

2014-07-31  21:33             9 728 OraOLEDB12e.dll

2014-07-31  21:33             9 728 OraOLEDB12f.dll

2014-07-31  21:33             9 728 OraOLEDB12i.dll

2014-07-31  21:34             9 216 OraOLEDB12ja.dll

2014-07-31  21:33             9 216 OraOLEDB12ko.dll

2014-07-31  21:33             9 728 OraOLEDB12ptb.dll

2014-07-31  21:38             9 728 OraOLEDB12us.dll

2014-07-31  21:33             9 216 OraOLEDB12zhs.dll

2014-07-31  21:34             9 216 OraOLEDB12zht.dll

2014-07-31  21:38           139 776 OraOLEDBgmr12.dll

2014-07-31  21:38            15 360 OraOLEDBpus12.dll

2014-07-31  21:34            11 776 OraOLEDBrfc12.dll

2014-07-31  21:33             9 728 OraOLEDBrmc12.dll

2014-07-31  21:38           177 664 OraOLEDBrst12.dll

2014-07-31  21:33            19 968 OraOLEDButl12.dll

18 File(s)      1 215 664 bytes

0 Dir(s)  59 198 668 800 bytes free

C:\orarun\ora12102\Client\BIN>c:\windows\system32\regsvr32.exe OraOLEDB12.dll

C:\orarun\ora12102\Client\BIN>

Then start the Cognos Controller Configuration and test the connection to database again.

If above does not work, then you need to reinstall the Oracle drivers in a correct manner.

More information:

http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg21694296