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Product:
Cognos Controller 8.5

Symptom:
Cognos Controller can not run an Excel link report, which worked fine last month.
Use of both F9 or F10 will give errors when this excel sheet is updated.
Optimise2 (ERO) is active on the Excel report (name in cell A1).
Excel reports that is smaller works fine, but this large report gives error.

Error in windows event log on Controller client citrx server:

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Cognos Controller
Event Category: None
Event ID: 0
Date: 2010-06-07
Time: 14:23:23
User: N/A
Computer: CITRIXSERVER
Description:
Standard Error
Number: 5
Source: FrangoDirect.ExcelLinkD.FetchValuesBulk#ControllerProxyClient
Description: System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapException: Server was unable to process request. —> System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x800A000E): Out of string space
at Cognos.Controller.Proxy.CCRWS.ExcelLinkB_FetchValuesBulk(String sGuid, String sKeys, String sMcurr, Boolean bLocLang, String sUser, String sRep, Boolean bIsLnk, String sSortOrd, Int32 lOptBitSet)
— End of inner exception stack trace —
at Microsoft.VisualBasic.ErrObject.Raise(Int32 Number, Object Source, Object Description, Object HelpFile, Object HelpContext)
at Cognos.Controller.Common.RaiseErrCli.RaiseError(Int32 lErrNo, String sErrSource, String sErrDesc, String sErrHelpFile, Int32 lErrHelpContext)
at Cognos.Controller.Direct.ExcelLinkD.FetchValuesBulk(String sKeys, String sMcurr, Boolean bLocLang, String sRep, Boolean bIsLnk, String sSortOrd, Int32 lOptBitSet)
at Cognos.Controller.Reports.ExcelLink.RunReportLnkBulk()

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Cognos Controller
Event Category: None
Event ID: 0
Date: 2010-06-07
Time: 14:23:23
User: N/A
Computer: CITRIXSERVER
Description:
Error occured at 6/7/2010 2:23:23 PM in Microsoft Office 2003, Error No=5, Source=FrangoDirect.ExcelLinkD.FetchValuesBulk#ControllerProxyClient, Description=System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapException: Server was unable to process request. —> System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x800A000E): Out of string space
at Cognos.Controller.Proxy.CCRWS.ExcelLinkB_FetchValuesBulk(String sGuid, String sKeys, String sMcurr, Boolean bLocLang, String sUser, String sRep, Boolean bIsLnk, String sSortOrd, Int32 lOptBitSet)
— End of inner exception stack trace —, HelpFile= HelpContext=0

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

Cause:
Some part of the reserved memory used on the Cognos Controller Application server is filled up and the solution for the moment is to restart the Cognos Controller Application server.

Please note that it can be other causes to this issue – like a not so good created Controller Excel report.

Solution:
Schedule a restart of the Cognos Controller Application servers every week, to prevent this from happening again next reporting time. Select a time and date when there are no one in Cognos Controller and working.

You can use a BAT file with this line to restart a Microsoft Windows 2003 server.

SHUTDOWN -R -F -T 3

-R is for restart
-F is for force to shutdown of all programs
-T is for time to wait before restart

Use Microsoft Windows schedule to set a time and date for the batch/script to run.

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Product:
Cognos Controller 8.5

Symptom:
Error when you try to start Microsoft Excel from inside Cognos Controller by click on the excel icon on controller menu, or start a company – data entry session.

Error Message for the user:

Information
The Excel-link is not installed.
OK

Problem:
This can happen both with Excel 2003 and Excel 2007. Only seen on Terminal Servers/Citrix servers there the Cognos Controller client is installed.

If you check inside Excel under the Add-in dialog you see that ControllerXL exist instead for the “IBM Cognos 8 Controller Link”, this may be a sign that you need to reinstall Microsoft Office with all the add ones.

Solution:
(only use this solution after you have tried all the other suggestions you may have found)
(like check excel.exe.config exits, caspol –lg, reinstall of Cognos Controller excel link)

Uninstall the Cognos Controller excel add in from controller panels Add/remove programs.
Uninstall Microsoft Office completely.
Reinstall Microsoft Office (2003) and select all shared options in the Microsoft Office package.
Install the Cognos Controller excel add in from the file controllerclient.msi.

Reboot terminal server and test again.

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Product: Cognos BI 8.4.1

C8BISRVRRS_version=C8-AW32-ML-RTM-8.4.102.18-0
C8BISRVRRS_name=Cognos 8 Business Intelligence Server Application Tier

Symptom:

A error when you run a report on a transformer cube, that have worked before you upgrade Cognos BI to 8.4.1

Some reports work well and other give a error message.
If you validate the report in report Studio you get the error QE-DEF-0459 CCLException.

Error:

OP-ERR-0025

The following OLAPPlanner internal error occurred: OPASSERT(position < m_children.size()) in OPExpressionOperator::GetChild at OLAPPlannerExpression.cpp:4454

Cause:

Upgrade issue from 8.2 to 8.4 :
Negative sign in a expression such as “- ([data item1] – [data
item2])” in a crosstab report will cause an error message in 8.4
but it works in 8.2:
OP-ERR-0025 The following OLAPPlanner internal error occurred:
‘OPASSERT(position < m_children.size()) in
OPExpressionOperator::
GetChild at OLAPPlannerExpression.cpp:4445’.
The workaround is to use “0 – ([data item1] – [data item2])”

Solution:

Change the report to use “0 – ([data item1] – [data item2])” and save it again.

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Product:
Cognos Controller 8.5

Symptom:
When you try to start Cognos Controller from the link in Cognos Connection you get an error inside Internet Explorer:

CGI Error
The specified CGI application misbehaved by not returning a complete set of HTTP headers.

Cause:
The virtual directory’s on the Controller Applications IIS is not correct setup.

Solution:
Go to Internet Information Service on the Controller Application server.
Delete the virtual directory Cognos8

Create a new Cognos8 virtual directory and all the underlying directories needed for Cognos Controller application.

Following virtual directories should be created under the default web site:
/Cognos8 – Read
\Cognos\c8\webcontent
/Cognos8/cgi-bin – Read, Run Scripts & Executables
\Cognos\c8\cgi-bin

/Cognos8/Controllerbin – Read, Run Scripts
\Cognos\c8\WebContent\ccr
/Cognos8/Controllerserver – Read, Run Scripts
\Cognos\c8\ControllerProxyServer
/Cognos8/Controllerhelp – Read
\Cognos\c8\webcontent
/Cognos8/Controller– Read, Run Scripts
\Cognos\c8\WebContent\ccr

(Then redirection virtual directory Controller to /cognos8/controllerbin/ccr.exe)

Restart the Controller Application server and try again.

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Product: Cognos BI 8.4.1
C8BISRVRRS_version=C8-AW32-ML-RTM-8.4.102.18-0
C8BISRVRRS_name=Cognos 8 Business Intelligence Server Application Tier

Symptom:

Can not add a URL in Cognos Connection to direct users to other server or website. In this case we want to add a link to a TM1 server.

The TM1 link to be used by Contributors

http://sekinsvtm1:8080/pmpsvc

The TM1 classic link looks like this

http://sekinsvtm1/tm1web/

Problem: you get a error message, that will be this in Swedish

IBM Cognos 8
Det har uppstått ett fel

DPR-ERR-2079 Brandväggssäkerhet – avvisning. Begärn nekades av brandväggsskyddet

CAF-avvisningsinformation är tillgängliga i loggen. Kontaka administratören.

Cause:

In Cognos BI 8.4 and later if the CAF is active – you must specify all HOST and SITES you are going to access via URL in Cognos Connection.

Solution:

Ensure that every possible valid combination of hostname and port which your gateway requests could come from is specified in theValid domains or hosts property on each application-tier server. Steps:

  1. Open Cognos Configuration.
  2. In the left pane, click on the Cognos Application Firewall node.
  3. Select the Valid domains or hosts property and click the edit button.
  4. Add additional webserver “hostname:port” entries as required.
  5. Repeat for every application-tier server.

In our case we must use FQDN like http://sekinsvtm1.company.com to access the server,

Therefore the values added in Cognos Configuration for CAF are;

Sekinsvtm1.company.com:8080

sekinsvtm1/tm1web

sekinsvtm1

.company.com

And the URL entered for the link are
http://sekinsvtm1.company.com:8080/pmpsvc

(The port number can be different at your site depending on how you set TM1 up)

 

 

 

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This DB2 Error occurs when attempting to run a large report or during a search of the content store.

CM-SYS-5092 Content Manager failed while returning the query results.
[IBM][CLI Driver][DB2/6000] SQL0101N The statement is too long or too complex. SQLSTATE=54001

This is an known issue with the heap size for DB2. To update the heap size.
Steps:

The following is an extract from DB2 documentation:
SQL0101N The statement is too long or too complex.
Explanation: The statement could not be processed because it exceeds a system limit for either length or complexity, or because too many constraints or triggers are involved. The default statement heap size for DB2 is too small to support the complex SQL statements. Try updating the statement heap size to be 8000 or more. To update the heap size, open a DB2 command prompt and type the following: > db2 update db cfg for <database name> using stmtheap 8000

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Wondering how many MB your Cognos JVM (Java Virtual Machine) uses? Type in the following URL in your browser

http://localhost/cognos8/cgi-bin/cognosisapi.dll?b_action=/diagnostics

Provide login credentials if required and the result appears.

<Diagnostics>
<Dispatcher host=”localhost” port=”9300″ capacity=”1.0″ />
<Memory Amount_of_free_memory_in_the_system=”16199.064 KB” Total_memory_in_the_JVM=”130955.776 KB” />
<CM host=”localhost” port=”9300″ />
</Diagnostics>

 

If you use CGI then the link is

[server address]/cognos8/cgi-bin/cognos.cgi?b_action=/diagnostics

 

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In Cognos 8.1 and Reportnet it was possible to delete the group Everyone from the Systemadministrators role in the Cognos namespace. In Cognos 8.2 and higher, it is not possible to delete the group Everyone, before you add another user, group or role to the role Systemadministrators. If you are somehow not able to get Systemadministrator permissions in the content store use the following script:

insert into CMREFORD1 (PROPID, CMID, ORD, REFCMID)
select 27, (select cmid from cmobjprops1 where objid=’::System Administrators’),
coalesce((select max(ord) from CMREFORD1 where propid=27 and cmid=(select cmid from cmobjprops1 where objid=’::System Administrators’)), -1)+1,
CMID
from CMOBJPROPS1 where OBJID=’::Everyone’

This script is called AddSysAdminMember.sql and can be found for SQL, Oracle, DB2, Sybase and Derby in the directory C:\Program Files\COGNOS\c8\configuration\schemas\content\

Run this script in MS SQL Query Analyzer for your Content Store database and you can log in as SystemAdministrator to fix the security.

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The cogserver.log file is a good source of information when troubleshooting. But default the cogserver.log file is a 10 MB file (set in Cognos Configuration Manager) in xml format and hard to read.

127.0.0.1:9300 3048 2009-06-04 09:16:53.218 +1     stopper-logService LOGSV 2015 1 server.Audit.IPF StopService LogService  Success  <parameters><item name=”Port”><![CDATA[9362]]></item><item name=”Mode”><![CDATA[TCP]]></item><item name=”Secure”><![CDATA[FALSE]]></item></parameters>
127.0.0.1:9300 1880 2009-06-05 10:07:53.187 +1     main LOGSV 2015 1 server.Audit.IPF StartService LogService  FAILED Log Server Database error <parameters><item name=”DB URL”><![CDATA[jdbc:JSQLConnect://localhost:1433/Audit]]></item><item name=”DB Error”><![CDATA[Failed Logon:com.jnetdirect.jsql.JSQLException: TCP/IP connection failed to host:localhost java.net.ConnectException: Connection refused: connect url:jdbc:JSQLConnect://localhost:1433/Audit]]></item></parameters>
127.0.0.1:9300 1880 2009-06-05 10:07:53.234 +1     main LOGSV 2015 1 server.Audit.IPF StartService LogService  Success  <parameters><item name=”Port”><![CDATA[9362]]></item><item name=”Mode”><![CDATA[TCP]]></item><item name=”Secure”><![CDATA[FALSE]]></item></parameters>

Since Cognos 8.1 there is a handy tool called LogviewV2.exe and can be found in the c8\bin directory. Start LogviewV2.exe and load the cogserver.log file. Now all the messages and errors are formatted, can be read much better.

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Transformer batch mode switches in Scheduler

Solution Description
Command line switches are required to run transformer in batch mode from Scheduler.

From the On-Line Help:

You can use command-line options to

? run Transformer in batch to create or update PowerCubes,
? run Transformer in batch and update the model with new categories generated during the category generation process,
? change the current date setting so that relative time calculations in batch cube creation are based on a specific date,
? use different preference settings or preference files,
? open or delete checkpoint files,
? supply database signon information, or

? change the degree of detail for log file messages.

The syntax is

trnsfrmr -<option> <model_file>|<MDL_file>

Notes

? The command-line syntax is not case-sensitive for Transformer running under Windows.
? Command-line options that take arguments cannot contain spaces between the switch and the argument. For example:

trnsfrmr -r 2 july.mdl is not valid, whereas
trnsfrmr -r2 july.mdl is valid.

? You can combine command-line options. For example:

trnsfrmr -n -i sales.py?
trnsfrmr -i -t19932 sales.py?

The ? (question mark) in the extension .py? is replaced by the character that is used in your release of Transformer.

? The space character is used to separate multiple command-line options. Therefore, if any of the arguments contain spaces, you must enclose them in double quotes. For example:

trnsfrmr -n -kfield three=CarlosR/pw462 is not valid, whereas
trnsfrmr -n -k”field three=CarlosR/pw462″ is valid.

Related Topics

-d (Set Preference directory!!!)
-f (Set Preference File)
-i (Open Saved Model)
-k (Specify Database Signon)
-n (Run in Batch Mode)
-o (Do Not Create PowerCubes)
-p (Open Checkpoint File)
-r (Log Level Detail)
-s (Save Model)
-t (Set Current Period)
-u (Get Partition Status)
-nologo