CogKnowHow

Product:
Cognos BI 10.1.1 office
Windows 2008 R2 server
Microsoft Excel 2007

Symptom:
Error message when you import a report with prompts to excel.

Part of Error message:
Client found response content type of (text/ type / HTML) but expected
(text/xml).
…
DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C/DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN”
…
500 – Internal server error.
…
There is a problem with the resource you are looking for, and it cannot be displayed.
…

Solution:
On you Cognos BI gateway server
Start Internet Information Service Manager
Expand the Default Web Site so you see cgi-bin folder
Click on application cgi-bin
Double-click on icon Error Pages.
Click on the right side on “Edit Feature Settings”
Mark “Detailed errors”
Click OK

Test again – you do not need to restart the IIS to active the change.

The error in GO OFFICE happen when “Detailed errors for local requests and custom error pages for remote requests” is marked in the IIS dialog.

Product:
Cognos BI 10.1.1
Windows 2008 R2 Server
Microsoft SQL database

Symptom:
Error message when test data source in Cognos connection for DQM.

Error Message:
Microsoft SQL Server (JDBC) / Dynamic Query Mode
XQE-GEN-0005 Found an internal error: XQE-JDB-0004 A problem occurred finding the driver class “com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver”.

Solution:
You need to download and put the SQL Server JDBC type 4 (sqljdbc4.jar) drivers in the D:\Program Files (x86)\ibm\cognos\c10_64\v5dataserver\lib directory and restart the BI server.

You can download the SQL Server JDBC driver from here:
http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=21599

Unpack the files in a empty folder.
Copy the sqljdbc4.jar file to all Cognos BI servers
Place the file in the \ibm\cognos\c10_64\v5dataserver\lib folder.
Restart the BI servers.

Then you can configure the JDBC data source in Cognos Connection.

Product:
Cognos BI version 8.4.1

Symptom:
Can not start the Cognos BI service from Cognos Configuration.

Error Message:
09:52:45, ‘AuditDatabaseConnection’, ‘Execute’, ‘Success’.
09:52:45, ‘ContentManager’, ‘getActiveContentManager’, ‘Failure’.
DPR-CMI-4006 Unable to determine the active Content Manager. Will retry periodically.
[ ERROR ] CFG-ERR-0106 IBM Cognos Configuration did not receive a response from the IBM Cognos 8 service in the time allotted.
Check that IBM Cognos 8 service is available and properly configured.

Cause:
A possible cause can be that the port is set to wrong value in Cognos Configuration
Can be when you install two Cognos BI instances on the same server.

Solution:
On Cognos Application server, start Cognos Configuration
Check that port number is correct at:

• the shutdown port number under ‘Cognos 8 Service’
• the 4 port numbers under the “Environment” link (all URI’s except the gateway)
• the portal port number under the ‘Cognos Portal Services’
• the ‘local log server port number’ under the “Environment” and “Logging”.

Change the port numbers to be uniq and not the same as other Cognos installation on same server.

Standard port for Cognos dispatcher is 9300
Standard port for Cognos logging is 9362
Standard port for Cognos shutdown is 9399
Standard port for Cognos Portal is 9300

Standard port for Microsoft SQL is 1433

Product:
Cognos BI 10.1.1 (64 bit)
Oracle 11g
Windows Server 2008 R2

Symptom:
Test of data source give error for Oracle JDBC dynamic query mode.
The oracle compatible query mode works fine.

Error message:
DPR-ERR-2002;Unable to execute the request because there was no process available within the configured time limit. The server may be busy.
or
Handler trace back: [the_dispatcher] com.cognos.pogo.handlers.performance.PerformanceIndicationHandler [the_dispatcher] com.cognos.pogo.handlers.logic.ChainHandler [service_lookup] com.cognos.pogo.handlers.engine.ServiceLookupHandler [load_balancer] com.cognos.pogo.handlers.logic.ChainHandler [lb_forwarder] com.cognos.p2plb.clerver.LoadBalanceHandler….
com.cognos.xqe.cubeingservices.CubingServicesHandler

Cause:
The wrong JAR file is in use.

Solution:
On the Cognos BI server install the Oracle 11g client.
Ensure that you have the tnsnames.ora file in the \oracle\instantclient11g\network\admin folder.

To configure Oracle connectivity for use within IBM Cognos 10
installed on Microsoft Windows 2008 server using a 1.6 version of Java, follow
these instructions:

From the Oracle install directory c:\oracle\instantclient11g\ copy the ojdbc6.jar file.
Paste the ojdbc6.jar file to \program files\ibm\cognos\c10_64\v5dataserver\lib folder in the IBM Cognos 10 server.

The ..\cognos\c10_64\webapps\p2pd\WEB-INF\lib directory is used when the Content Store database is in a Oracle server – then you need to have the ojdbc6.jar file here to.
The ..\v5dataserver\lib directory is only used by the Cognos Dynamic Query Mode.

Do NOT paste the ojdbc6.jar file into the cognos\c10_64\webapps\p2pd\WEB-INF\lib folder.
Copy the ocijdbc11.dll from the Oracle client directory \oracle\instantclient11g\ to the
\program files\ibm\cognos\c10_64\bin64 folder.

In order for the Oracle driver to be picked up by IBM Cognos
10, the IBM Cognos 10 service will need to be stopped and started.

If you place the 32 bit ojdbc6.jar file into the cognos\c10_64\webapps\p2pd\WEB-INF\lib folder, instead of the .. cognos\v5dataserver\lib folder , the DQM will work. But it is not a correct setup.

You must have the path to the Oracle client ,c:\oracle\instantclient11g\bin, in PATH.
You need to create a SYSTEM VARIABLE called TNS_ADMIN that should point to the ora files folder; c:\oracle\instantclient11g\network\admin

You change in Cognos Configuration if you want to use 64 bit DQM.
1) Open IBM Cognos Configuration
2) Under the Environment section set the “Report Server Execution
Mode” to 64 bit.
3) Save the configuration
4) Restart the services.
(you need to have 64 bit oracle client installed)

More Information:
If you get a XQE-GEN-2002 error then you have placed a 64 bit oracle dll in folder \program files\ibm\cognos\c10_64\bin64.

Copy the right 32 bit ocijdbc11.dll from oracle folder in to the c10_64\bin64 folder.

Understanding How IBM Cognos 10 Connects to Oracle :
For this data source, the IBM Cognos 10 Compatible Query Mode requires
the installation of the Oracle client software. The IBM Cognos 10
Dynamic Query Mode on the other hand only requires access to the
Oracle type 4 JDBC driver. The name of the Oracle JDBC driver to use
depends on the version of Java being used within the IBM Cognos 10
install.

Note:
ojdbc6.jar file is 2102 KB in size for 32 bit version
ocijdbc11.dll file is 135 KB in size for 32 bit version

Product:
Cognos BI 8.4.1
Windows 2008 R2 Server

Symptom:
User get a error when they try to surf to Cognos connection using an old shortcut on the desktop.
It have worked the other day.

Error message:
404 – File or directory not found

Cause:
The IIS on Windows 2008 server is stopped to allow CGI.

This is simply done by inside Internet information services manager,
go to the server and click on “ISAPI and CGI Restrictions”
on the right side click on “Edit Feature Settings”
in the dialog Edit ISAPI and CGI Restrictions Settings
uncheck “Allow unspecified CGI modules”
and leave “Allow unspecified ISAPI modules” checked
click OK

This will stop all CGI access to the IIS server, if you not have explicit added exceptions in handler mappings.

Solution:
Ensure the user surf to http://servername/cognos8
instead of http://servername/cognos8/cgi-bin/cognos.cgi

Recommendation is to use cognosisapi.dll instead of cognos.cgi on Microsoft Windows server because they use less windows resources.