Corrupted dimension?

[MarioRubbo]

Hello:
I have a dimension called "Products" that I am trying to manipulate. I created and recreated successfully. Suddenly, when I try to access it via TI or even the Subset Editor, my Perspectives client freezes and I have to kill the client and start over again. I plan to bring down the server and delete the files but I was wondering if anyone has ever had this experience before? Does it happen often? If so, then backing up the Data Directory often sounds like a good idea - deleting a dimension and consequently losing data in a cube is not a great situation.

[paulsimon]

Mario

I have experienced a corrupt dimension before, back on 9.1. When I edited the dimension, I could see that some element names just had control characters in them.

I would try the following:

a) Can you export the dimension to a file? If it lets you do this, then use the export file to build the dimension on an empty local server (ie no other cubes or dimensions). Review the dimension to make sure that it is OK.

b) If you cannot do (a), are you able to build the dimension from a source system, again on a local server with just the dimension and the process needed to build it?

c) If you cannot do (b), then do you have a backup copy of the .dim file? If so, review this on an empty local server to make sure that it is not corrupt. Add in any elements that you know are missing compared to the live system.

Whichever dimension you get, you should then shutdown you main server, and, while the server is shutdown, make a copy of the corrupt .dim, and then copy the non-corrupt version of the file over the top of it. Re-start the server. You should then be able to use the server OK. In the worst case of option (c) , you might lose data that was stored against any elements that you did not realise existed in the dimension at the time that it became corrupt.

I would also report this to Cognos and send them the corrupt dim file along with details of what version you are on, etc.

Regards

Paul Simon

[MarioRubbo]

I still occasionally have this problem with my installation of TM1 on AIX. I had the problem today on a dimension called "goc_function". I ran a TI process against it to update it from the database (set to Recreate) and populate attributes. The TI process froze during the Data Procedure. I had to kill my Perspectives client and try to logon to the Server Explorer. However, every time I tried to touch that dimension after that, the client would freeze. I tried to right-click on the server and select "Save Data" but that froze as well. I stopped the server with the intention to delete the dimension file and noticed that there were 2 files: goc function.dim and goc function.dim$. Does anyone know what the $ version of the file is? I am going to try to delete it and restart the server to see if that resolved the problem.

Does anyone else have this problem on Windows TM1? Could this be a bug in the platform implementation (AIX)?

[lotsaram]

The "$" objects (.cub$, .dim$) represent temporary objects created during a save. During normal server operations and while the server is not running these files should not be there. If the server is down, delete them prior to restarting.