CogKnowHow

Product:
Cognos Analytics 11.1.7 fix pack 2
Microsoft Windows 2019 server

Problem:

When run some reports after a upgrade from previous version you get a error like this:

XQE–GEN–0002 An unexpected exception occurred: java.lang.StackOverflowError.

Report validation is OK but when you try to run it as HTML report you get a error.

Possible solution:

Check the report specification for any item or function that is common for the reports that does not work.

Can be that you have a filter in the Query parameters that you need to remove from the report to make it work.

You need to remove one part of the report at a time to find what part of the report specification that can give you the issue.

More information:

https://www.njit.edu/finance/sites/njit.edu.finance/files/finance-innovations/Cognos%20Analytics%20Reporting.pdf

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSEP7J_11.1.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.ug_ca_dshb.doc/ug_ca_dshb.pdf

https://reports.nycenet.edu/Cognos84sdk/documentation/en/ug_cr_rptstd.pdf

standard-deviation From the old Cognos 8
Returns the standard deviation of selected data items. The keyword “distinct” is available for
backward compatibility of expressions used in previous versions of the product.
Syntax
standard-deviation ( [ distinct ] expr [ auto ] )
standard-deviation ( [ distinct ] expr for [ all | any ] expr {
, expr } )
standard-deviation ( [ distinct ] expr for report )
Example
standard-deviation ( ProductCost )
Result: A value indicating the deviation between product costs and the average product cost.

Product:
Cognos Analytics 11.1.7
Microsoft Windows 2019 server

Problem:
Can not add url or use link to tm1web or other web site.

When you try to add a URL you get below error:

Your URL uses an invalid domain. Click ‘View acceptable domains’ to see a list of domains you can use.

Solution:
On all Cognos BI (CA11) servers, go into Cognos Configuration
Expand Security
Select IBM Cognos Application Firewall
Under “Enable CAF Validation?” = True, click on pen icon to add more servernames for Valid domains and hosts.

Enter the company domain name with a wildcard as *.company.com
Enter all the server names for your Cognos Analytics servers
Enter all the TM1 servers you have in your environment
Enter the TM1WEB servers with port number like tm1webservername:9510 (you must enter the port number for all servers Cognos will communicate with if it is not port 80)

Click OK
Click SAVE in Cognos Configuration.
You need then click on RESTART to make this changes take effect.
Restart the primary content manager service first, when that is up again, then restart the other CA11 servers in your environment.

How add a URL link in CA11:

Click on + in the folder where you want the link to be and select URL

Enter a name and enter the URL to your server including port number 9510 for tm1web. Recommended is to use full names includeing domain part.

Click OK.

Test the link.

“Cannot open URL” can also be becouse the website does not exist.

More information:

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSEP7J_10.2.2/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.inst_cr_winux.10.2.2.doc/t_inst_cnfg_caf_steps.html%23inst_cnfg_caf_steps

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

Product:
Cognos Analytics 11.1.7
Microsoft Windows 2019

Problem:
How find out who is Active Content Manager without logging in to the CA11 server?

Solution:

From a web browser enter following URL to server on port 9300 to check CM:
http://cognosanalyticsservername:9300/p2pd/servlet

State is Running if it is the active CM in a multiserver environment of cognos bi.

To find java memory usage, enter this URL:

http://servername.domain.com:9300/bi/v1/disp?b_action=/diagnostics

Get Dispatcher version with this URL:
http://servername.domain.com:9300/p2pd/servlet/gc

Verify the configuration of an install with URL:

http://servername.domain.com:9300/bi/v1/disp/p2plbDiag

Find XML parser with URL:
http://servername.domain.com:9300/p2pd/servlet/dispatch/xts.diag

To check if POGO is alive enter URL:
http://servername.domain.com:9300/bi/v1/disp?b_action=/dbg

If you see this message pogo is alive

https://www.accelebrate.com/blog/call-pogo-name

In future use REST API to find out more:
https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSEP7J_11.1.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.ca_api.doc/c_ca_api_rest.html

https://community.ibm.com/community/user/businessanalytics/blogs/jason-tavoularis1/2020/07/30/connecting-to-rest-api-data

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSD29G_2.0.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.tm1_rest_api.2.0.0.doc/tm1_rest_api.pdf

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/SSD29G_2.0.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.tm1_nfg.2.0.0.doc/c_nfg_tm1_rest_api_2_0_5.html

Product:
Cognos Analytics 11.0.12
kit_version=11.0.12.18062512
kit_name=IBM Cognos Analytics
Microsoft Windows 2016 server

Problem:
After restart of servers the Cognos BI system does not respond. The users see this message:

The IBM Cognos gateway is unable to connect to the IBM Cognos BI server. The server may be unavailable or the gateway may not be correctly configured.

Error in cognosserver.log file:

com.cognos.accman.jcam.crypto.CAMCryptoException: CAM-CRP-1093 Unable to read the contents of the keystore ‘D:/Program Files/ibm/cognos/analytics/configuration/certs\CAMKeystore’. Reason: java.io.IOException: stream does not represent a PKCS12 key store

Solution:

First, try to restart the IIS server on the Cognos Gateway with the dos command: IISRESET

If that does not help, create new cryptographic keys;
“C:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\analytics\bin64\cogconfigw.exe” open to start cognos configuration.

Stop the running of Cognos BI in Cognos Configuration.

From inside Cognos Configuration, click ‘File > Export As’.

Choose ‘Yes’ at the prompt and save the file.  Name it ‘cogstartup backup.xml’ which will be stored in the analytics\configuration folder.

Close Cognos Configuration.

Moving this files to a different, secure location e.g. c:\temp\backup (they should during the cryptographic keys regeneration process be re-created):

· analytics/configuration/cogstartup.xml

· analytics/configuration/caSerial

· analytics/configuration/certs/CAMCrypto.status

· analytics/configuration/certs/CAMKeystore

· analytics/configuration/certs/CAMKeystore.lock

· analytics/temp/cam/freshness

Moving this folder to a different, secure location e.g. c:\temp\backup

· analytics/configuration/csk

In the analytics\configuration folder, rename ‘cogstartup backup.xml’ to ‘cogstartup.xml’.

Go in to Cognos Configuration and click SAVE, and then start.

To test, you can browse to http://ca11servername:9300/p2pd/servlet

Repeat all the above steps on all the Cognos servers, starting with the Content Manager server and take the Cognos Gateway servers last.

If you see the message “CM-CFG-5069 A serious error occurred while committing a delete operation” when starting up the Cognos Analytics service, it can be a temporary error when CA11 try to clean up its own cache.  Restart the CA11 server again and see if the error goes away.

Misleading Error in cognosserver.log at first logon of any user after a Cognos restart:
“/v1/identity bi-service Can not retrieve the password from configuration.”
Solved in later versions of CA11.

More information:

https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/how-regenerate-cryptographic-keys-cognos-analytics-11

https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/cognos-gateway-unable-connect-cognos-bi-server-2

https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/cognos-gateway-unable-connect-cognos-bi-server-while-trying-logon-cam-namespace-solved-iisreset

By default, the cryptographic keys are valid for 365 days.

• This value is configured inside Cognos Configuration
• Specifically, browse to “Local Configuration -> Security -> Cryptography” and modify the value for: Common symmetric key lifetime in days

Each time you open Cognos configuration and click the save button, it resets the clock on your 365 days. Therefore, if you installed the software and didn’t save the configuration for 365 days, they would expire and you’d need to manually regenerate them.

You must restart the services every so often to ensure the new keys are actually being used.

• If you think you won’t be opening and saving your configuration at any point in the next year or two, you can change the expiration date to 8 years and re-encrypt everything.

https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/apar/PI94141

Product:
Cognos Analytics 11.1.7
Microsoft Windows 2019 server
Problem:
In a multi-server environment, when the second CA11 service is started, then not all the java processes needed for DQM reports is running. There should be 3 java process on a Cognos Analytics server.

The Cognos Configuration say that CA11 is up and running, but if you look into the Cognos Administration you find that the QueryService is not working (as its java process is not started).

Solution:
Check the cognosserver.log file to find out that the xqe.config.com file is damage.

Error you find in the cognosserver.log file are:

ERROR com.cognos.pogo.services.DefaultHandlerService [pool-79-thread-19] NA problem reconfiguring handler queryServiceHandler
com.cognos.xqe.config.ConfigFileException: XQE-CFG-0003 Failed to load configuration file file:/D:/Program%20Files/ibm/cognos/analytics/configuration/xqe.config.xml.
at com.cognos.xqe.config.XQEConfiguration.loadConfiguration(XQEConfiguration.java:907) ~[xqeService.jar:?]

Stop the IBM Cognos service from inside Cognos Configuration.
Copy the file xqe.config.xml from the working CA11 server to the none-working CA11 server.
Start the IBM Cognos service from inside Cognos Configuration.

Wait 8 minutes until it starts up. Test to run the reports now.
If no other working Cognos installation is around, you may need to reinstall Cognos to get correct files.

More information:
https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/cleaning-temporary-java-workarea-cognos-analytics

1. Stop Dispatcher (that in turn will stop Query service).
2. Assuming <cognos_home> is home directory of that specific dispatcher delete everything from <cognos_home>\wlp\usr\servers\dataset-service\workarea\*  (i.e. keep the workarea directory, but delete everything in it, including subdirectories)
3. Delete everything from <cognos_home>\wlp\usr\servers\cognosserver\workarea\*
4. Delete everything from <cognos_home>\javasharedresources\*
5. Start Dispatcher (Query service will start automatically)

https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/queryservice-status-displays-unknown-within-ibm-cognos-administration