Product:
Cognos Analytics 11.1.x
Microsoft Windows 2016 server

Problem:
When you enter url http://servername/ibmcognos then you do not get logged into Cognos Analytics, instead you get a blank screen.

Solution:

Add a rule to allow Cognos Analytics pages to load without a trailing slash in URL. Start IIS Manager and go to IBMCOGNOS.

  1. Click the ibmcognos alias.
  2. Double-click URL Rewrite
  3. Click Add Rules > Inbound Rules > Blank Rule
    • Name is Add Trailing Slash
    • Pattern is ^bi$
    • Action type is Redirect
    • Redirect URL is {R:0}/
    • Check Append query string.
    • Redirect type is Permanent (301)
    • Click Apply and Back to Rules.

 

More information:
https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cognos-analytics/11.1.0?topic=services-configuring-iis-in-cognos-analytics

 

Product:
Cognos Controller Web 10.4.2

Issue:
User can not enter the date in a form. See / instead of – for the date format.

Solution:
The date format is controlled by the Windows region settings in your laptop or on your citrix server.
Keep in mind that some date format is in the other order e.g. day-month-year can be month/day/year.

Go to control panel – region, to change the settings to Swedish if you want.

Other information:

https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/5736855

Product:
Cognos Controller 10.4.2

Issue:
After change of SQL server to Cognos Controller, ERO reports does not work.

Error message:

Solution:
Ask the DBA to ensure that the SQL login (frango) you are using to the Controller database have the server roles: bulkadmin and public

You check what SQL login you are using in Cognos Controller Configuration.

 

More information:

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cognos-controller

https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/795804

https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/271267

Product:
Cognos Controller Web 10.4.2

Issue:
When open a period to work with you get this error

Invalid forms
There are invalid forms for Submission 1. Please check the form definition and process the form layouts or contact your administrator

Suggested solution:
Check a other period and company if that works.
Can be that this period contains forms that you do not use, like forms that do not contain any accounts, they will not work in controller web.

More information:

To open a company for submission click on the z icon.

https://www.advectas.com/sv/kunskapsbank/webinar-fa-ut-mer-av-cognos-controller-kom-igang-med-cognos-controller-web/

Product:
Cognos Controller 10.4.2
Cognos Analytics 11.1.7
Microsoft Windows 2019 Server

Issue:
To run a optimization the users need to be out of Cognos Controller – how can i force users off Cognos controller at night?

Suggested Solution:
The Cognos controller code that handles users are inside the IIS application pool, so a restart of the IIS server will force all Cognos controller users out.

Suggestion is to also restart your Cognos Analytics service at the same time. This simple batch script can do it for you, if you run it from a scheduler with desktop access.

REM restart of IIS and then Cognos
REM https://ss64.com/nt/
echo ——– >> d:\temp\restartlog.txt
echo %date% %time% >> d:\temp\restartlog.txt
net stop W3SVC
net start W3SVC

echo Cognos Analytics Restart Begins….. >> d:\temp\restartlog.txt
CALL “d:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\analytics\bin64\cogconfig.bat” -stop
echo Services Stopped >> d:\temp\restartlog.txt
REM rename the cognos server log file for later inspection
rename “d:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\analytics\logs\cognosserver.log” “* %Date:/= % %Time::=.%.txt”

REM wait before start
PING -n 31 127.0.0.1 > nul

CALL “d:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\analytics\bin64\cogconfig.bat” -s

echo %date% %time% >> d:\temp\restartlog.txt
echo Services Started successfully >> d:\temp\restartlog.txt

 

If you have more than one Cognos server, you need to restart the CA11 Content Manager first, then the rest.  Leave at least 15 minutes between the servers restarts.

If users are logged into Cognos Controller Client during restart, they will see this message when they try to do something inside Cognos Controller Client after a restart.
They need to exit there client.

Note: If Cognos Configuration is left open on the Windows server, then this script will not work and Cognos will not start. It is important that you close Cognos Configuration before you exit a Remote Desktop session with the server.

The drawback is that windows event log will have entry like this:

Faulting application name: cogbootstrapservice.exe, version: 11.1.5.2, time stamp: 0x5daf2515
Faulting module name: ntdll.dll, version: 10.0.17763.1728, time stamp: 0x6e7b7e33
Exception code: 0xc0000374
Fault offset: 0x00000000000fa689
Faulting process id: 0x128c

More Information:
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/how-properly-restart-cognos-analytics-services-windows-scheduler 

https://gist.github.com/gazzdev/6c38f067a62cf04a3c72

https://serverfault.com/questions/355207/what-does-iisreset-do-in-addition-to-recycling-all-application-pools

https://ss64.com/nt/syntax-stampme.html

Product:
Cognos Controller 10.4.2
Windows Server 2012
Problem:
When open Data Entry – Reported Values, the field are in wrong order.

Solution:
The normal look of data entry is like this:

The rows can be moved, by you click on them and drag them to new position in the dialog.

The settings are stored in the ccr.config file for your user in her windows profile.

To reset the values, we suggest that the user close cognos controller client and go to folder

C:\Users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Cognos\ccr

and erase file ccr.config.

Then start Cognos Controller client and it should be back to normal layout.

Inside the ccr.config file this lines control above dialog:

<Layout>
<add key=”DE_ROW_ACTUALITY” value=”1″ />
<add key=”DE_ROW_PERIOD” value=”2″ />
<add key=”DE_ROW_COMPANY” value=”3″ />
<add key=”DE_ROW_CONSTYPE” value=”4″ />
<add key=”DE_ROW_GROUP” value=”5″ />
<add key=”DE_ROW_CURRTYPE” value=”6″ />
<add key=”DE_ROW_SUBMISSION” value=”12″ />
<add key=”DE_ROW_FORM” value=”7″ />
<add key=”DE_ROW_CLOVER” value=”8″ />
<add key=”DE_ROW_JOURNALTYPE” value=”9″ />
<add key=”DE_ROW_DIM1″ value=”10″ />
<add key=”DE_ROW_DIM2″ value=”11″ />
<add key=”DE_ROW_DIM3″ value=”13″ />
<add key=”DE_ROW_DIM4″ value=”14″ />
</Layout>

 

More information:
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/how-install-controller-local-client

Product:
BigFix Client
Microsoft Windows 2012

Problem:
How install the Big Fix client/agent on the Windows server?

Solution:
On the ILMT linux server you can search for the client files with find . -name ClientMSI*

Copy the files you need over to your Windows server

Copy BigFixAgent.msi setup, its .mst files and the actionsite.afxm masthead file to a folder of your target computer, for instance C:\install\bigfix. Actionsite.afxm file is in the /var/opt/BESInstallers/Client folder of the Linux server.

Then create a CMD file with following content:

msiexec.exe /i “BigFixAgent.msi” TRANSFORMS=”1033.mst” REBOOT=ReallySuppress MSIRESTARTMANAGERCONTROL=Disable /qn

Start a DOS prompt as administrator and go to the \install\bigfix folder

Run your installagent.cmd file, to install.

If you run the BIGFIXAGENT.MSI it can look like this

You will have a new “BES Client” windows service on your computer after the installation.

You must copy the actionsite.afxm file to the folder C:\Program Files (x86)\BigFix Enterprise\BES Client to make the client start.

Client/Agent can be downloaded from https://support.bigfix.com/bes/release/10.0/patch2/

More information:

https://help.hcltechsw.com/bigfix/9.5/platform/Platform/Installation/c_installing_the_client_with_msi.html

https://help.hcltechsw.com/bigfix/9.5/platform/Platform/Installation/c_using_login_scripts.html

https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/1697611/Events/Webinar.%20Basic%20ILMT%20Skills%20for%20IT%203.16.17.pdf

https://www.ibm.com/software/passportadvantage/subcaplicensing.html

https://exploringtm1.com/tm1-ilmt/

Product:

Microsoft Powershell

Problem:
You are low on disk space, or the Cognos BI have created some large file (dump files or log files) and you want to know where they are.

Solution:
Enter below text in notepad++ and save as checksize.ps1 in your c:\temp folder

$folder = “C:\Program Files\ibm\cognos”
Get-ChildItem $folder -recurse -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue |Sort-Object length -descending| Select-Object -first 27 @{Name=”MegaBytes”;Expression={“{0:F2}” -f ($_.length/1MB)}} , Fullname | Export-Csv c:\temp\LargeFiles_Report.csv

Start Powershell from Start menu
Go to temp folder with command cd /temp
Enter ./checksize.ps1 to run the script


Open the Largefile_report.csv in notepad++

You need to change the first line to your folder for Cognos products e.g. $folder = “D:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\analytics”

Then you check the list to find the files that you do not need, and can remove them, to get more space.

More Information:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/powershell-script-finding-large-size-files-your-windows-milad-mousavi/?articleId=6610936483329257472

http://woshub.com/find-large-files-with-powershell/ 

https://blog.danskingdom.com/find-largest-or-smallest-files-in-a-directory-or-drive-with-powershell/

Product:
Cognos Analytics 11.1.7
Microsoft Windows 2016 server
Problem:
Can i store the Native SQL query the users send to the database for later troubleshooting?

Solution:
Activate logging of the SQL query to the AUDIT database.
Setup the AUDIT database logging in Cognos Configuration.
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/how-configure-audit-reporting-cognos-analytics

Browse to Cognos Analytics (ibmcognos) and go to Manage > Administrative Console > Configuration > Dispatchers and Services. Click on the Set Properties – Configuration icon.
Click the Settings tab, choose logging as category.

Go down to Generate comments in native SQL and mark it.
Click OK.
Run some reports to test the system.
Open SQL Developer and go to your AUDIT database and check the

COGIPF_NATIVEQUERY table.

 

 

More Information:

https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/how-see-which-user-generating-query-cognos-analytics

https://www.envisn.com/envisn-cognos-blog/bid/102418/What-s-Wrong-with-IBM-Cognos-Audit-Data

https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/cognos-ipf-audit-table-descriptions

https://cognoshub.blogspot.com/2015/02/cognos-sql-native-sql-and-pass-through.html

https://www.wisdomjobs.com/e-university/ibm-cognos-tutorial-196/auditing-4398.html

Product:
Cognos Analytics 11.1.7
Microsoft Windows 2019 Server

Problem:
The selection of non-production environment is missing from the installation of CA11, why?

Solution:
New Cognos BI version have that you set the production or non-production from inside the Cognos Connection portal.

After you have done the installation, go into the production environment – go to Manage – Licenses and select Production. Click Apply.

This will make the files in folder C:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\analytics\iso-swid to change names.

You have both a production and non-production file here, CA11 will switch the ending .sample to the file that is not used. It will also keep the file date, so you will not easy notice the switch.

The content of the file does not change, only a smart switch of the file name ending. The ILMT program will pick up this file to report on what type of installation you have.

 

More information:

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSEP7J_11.1.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.ag_manage.doc/c_license_roles.html

What to know before IBM Audits Your IBM Cognos Analytics and Planning Analytics Licenses.

https://www-03.ibm.com/software/sla/sladb.nsf

https://www.softwareone.com/en/blog/all-articles/2020/10/20/ibm-licensing-understanding-the-basics

https://www.middlecon.se/var-nya-ilmt-expert-christer-borg/