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We are consuming TM1 cubes with Report Studio through Framework Manager. Quite often when I am trying to come up with new solutions to my challenges in Report Studio, I get an error when I run the report, and then the server goes down. Then I have to restart the dispatchers (Cognos Administration -> Status -> System -> Right Click on the server -> Test Dispatchers -> Right Click on the server -> Start Dispatchers). The error message that I get is:

The connection closed before the request is processed. If you are using WebSphere Application Server, to reduce the frequency of this error, increase the Persistent Timeout parameter for the Web container transport chains in the administrative console. Increase the time in 10-15 second intervals until the error no longer or rarely occurs.

We are not using WebSphere, but Tomcat (default with the installation).
-> Increasing connection timout interval on WebSphere thus not applicable
-> The timeout interval in the Tomcat config seems to be 60 seconds (60000 ms)

More importantly: The error message shows immediately (after 1 second) when I run the report
-> Indicates to me that this is regardless of any timeout interval setting

Additional info: The error message comes almost always when I manually and dynamically attempt to build MUNs. However, sometimes (dunno when and why) it shows the MUN that I've created and tells me that it is invalid. Which is WAY much better for debugging.

Any suggestions on why this is happening and how to fix it would be greatly appreciated!

Edit 1: http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Product-Cognos-BI-1011-Cognos-3917273.S.143157206 This post states (almost at the bottom) that

When the Cognos BI report ask for a field that does not exist, the TM1 Application disconnects the connection. And the Cognos BI Report will timeout.

Is this true? If so; why am I sometimes told that my MUN is invalid, whereas other times the connection is closed and the server shut down? Is it because even Report Studio thinks that my MUN is valid and tries to get it from the TM1 Server?

And additionally: Is it possible to change this behavior for the TM1 server?

Edit 2: Or change the BI server behavior so that it does not shut down when the TM1 connection is disconnected, but rather show an error of some kind? Thanks again!

Edit 3: Okay, so I did some checking with the TM1 top utility (http://pic.dhe.ibm.com/infocenter/ctm1/v9r5m0/index.jsp?topic=%2Fcom.ibm.swg.im.cognos.tm1_op.9.5.1.doc%2Ftm1_op_id6961UsingtheTM1TopUtility_N160F47.html). When a normal report is run, a new thread is shown in the monitoring list. This thread then disappears when I stop the BI server dispatchers, or automatically after approximately 5 minutes of idle time without any reports being run (according to the TM1 Top log dump).

Likewise, when the error occurs, a new thread is shown in the list. However, it disappears after a short second (probably because the BI server dispatchers are shut down).

I have therefore concluded that it is safe to assume (?) that the request seems to reach the TM1 server, and that TM1 returns something back (or simply closes the connection as suggested in the linkedin-post that I referenced in my first edit) . And hence, that it is safe to assume that this is something that have to be fixed on the BI server side(?).

The question is therefore more likely: Is it possible to change the BI server behavior so that it does not shut down when the TM1 server returns something invalid or closes the connection, and rather show some kind of error message instead?

Thanks for any input!

Skovly
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  • Can you clarify "the server goes down" do you mean The IBM Cognos BI Service, the TM1 service or the server itself? – Nick.Mc Dec 02 '13 at 04:01
  • The IBM Cognos BI Service would be the correct as far as I can tell. I have to restart the BI dispatchers as described, before any more reports can be run. The error message that I get if I try to run a report before restarting the dispatchers are: "XQE error encountered: DPR-ERR-2059 The requested service has been stopped. The request cannot be completed." – Skovly Dec 02 '13 at 07:48
  • So no service stops, but you find that you need to restart the IBM Cognos service from the services applet? – Nick.Mc Dec 02 '13 at 09:00
  • Not completely sure whether any service stops, as I don't really know what service(s) are related to the BI server (not really an architecture expert). Searched the services list on the (Windows) server that is running BI, and were not able to identify any specific services related to the BI instance. However, I can confirm that the BI server with Cognos Connection, etc. is still running. Did that help? – Skovly Dec 02 '13 at 09:43
  • So when you say 'restart the dispatchers' it looks like you mean you are restarting them from within Cognos Connection. Do you find that no TM1 reports work until after you restart the dispatchers from within Cognos Connection? What is the result of a dispatcher test from here? Is there any indication of whether they are running or not? – Nick.Mc Dec 02 '13 at 23:38
  • Yes, as stated in the first paragraph of my original post I am starting the dispatchers from within Cognos Connection (Cognos Administration). Not sure what you mean by TM1 reports, but if you mean reports on TM1 cubes, the answer is yes, no reports against TM1 work before the dispatchers are restarted. The dispatchers is shown as "down" (dont remember the exact words) when tested in Cognos Connection. Thanks for following up, @ElectricLlama – Skovly Dec 04 '13 at 13:55
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    Well I can't solve your issue, but can I suggest that instead of trying to build MUN's dynamically, you filter a property of a memberset against a string. See halfway down this page "Time filtering: from and to" for an example. http://unofficialcognostraining.blogspot.com.au/search/label/prompt. In this way you are not building MUNs dynamically, you are searching for an existing MUN based on a string. – Nick.Mc Dec 08 '13 at 09:09
  • Thanks @ElectricLlama! Still haven't been able to solve the actual issue. However, your suggestion to search for elements using the filter function turned out to be a quite nice substitute. At least the dispatchers are not shut down when something is wrong, the set is just empty. – Skovly Dec 20 '13 at 14:21

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