Issue with TM1 Package Connector not populating any Cognos Namespaces.

[ekice]

Hello,

I'm having an issue with getting a TI process to use a Cognos Package as a data source. I'm setting up a brand new Windows 7 64 bit VM with TM1 10.2.2 FP5 and Cognos 10.2.2 (no fix pack), both 32 bit. I installed Package Connector in the same directory as my Cognos 10 instance. When I go to create a new TI process, the "IBM Cognos Package" radio button is enabled, but when I click on it and try the dropdown for Authentication namespace, I get an empty container:

emptyDropdown.png (156.69 KiB) Viewed 5446 times

I've been working on this for a day or so, so I'll try to list all of the solutions I've tried (with no luck yet).

I started out with both Cognos 10.2.2 and TM1 10.2.2 FP5 64 bit versions and had this issue. I could not find a 64 bit version of Package Connector for Cognos 10.2.2, so it installed to a different directory (which a coworker said was perfectly fine), but I had this same issue. There were a few other stability issues I was having with using 64 bit, so I started from scratch with 32 bit installations of both, but the issue persisted.

I have a working gateway on Cognos using IIS ISAPI, and have ensured that the gateway is updated in both Cognos' and TM1's Cognos Configuration programs.

I'm currently only using the IBM Cognos Content Store, but since Package Connector seems to be failing at the namespace level, I assume this isn't an issue.

I have one namespace that's a CAP that our company uses to test namespaces - it just has a few test users in a flat properties file. I can connect through the gateway to the namespace using one of the user credentials, so that all works.

I've tried going into qfs_config.xml and setting <logCommands value="2"/> and checking every .log file in the Cognos logs folder, and only saw one exception being thrown when I tried making a TI process:

Code: Select all

Failure	Transformer	CM-CAM-4005 Unable to authenticate. Check your security directory server connection and confirm the credentials entered at login. Error during login [Requried Configuration Property not found [nouser.password]]

A google search on this didn't return anything.

I set another logging level to DEBUG at one point (can't remember where, but it was on the Cognos side), and got this error message when I tried the namespace dropdown: (Googling it didn't get me very far either.)

errorMessage.png (13 KiB) Viewed 5446 times

I've updated the SSL certs in TM1 according to this: http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.w ... wg21991546 article. I couldn't find anywhere in Cognos to update certs, even after installing Package Manager.

I tried upgrading my Cognos 10.2.2 instance to FP5, but found that now the IBM Cognos Package radio button in TI is disabled. I tried re-installing Package Connector (in the same directory as Cognos again), but the option remained disabled.

I reverted the FP5 upgrade (via snapshot) and tried instead to upgrade to Cognos 10.2.2 IF11. I had the same problem as with FP5, the option was diabled.

And now I am fresh out of ideas. I'll post a couple of screens of my Cognos Configs below if it will help. Any ideas on this would be greatly, greatly appreciated.


Screenshot of my Cognos Config Environment:

cognosConfig.png (75.16 KiB) Viewed 5446 times

Thanks,
Evan

[ekice]

Screenshot of TM1 Config Environment:

tm1Config.png (46.31 KiB) Viewed 5445 times

[dr.nybble]

If you put http://localhost:9300 in your browser does it work?

The error shown above is WSAECONNREFUSED; 10061 which usually means that nothing is listening on that port number (or it is blocked by a firewall).

Also there is no 64-bit version of TM1 Package Connector; it uses the C++ ("classic") BI query stack which is only 32-bit. Since its DLLs are loaded into Architect it can only work with a 32-bit Architect.

If you run a Command Prompt as Administrator, use the netstat -nab command to see whether a process is listening on port 9300 (e.g., bound to 0.0.0.0).

On the server side it runs as a separate process so it can work with a 64-bit TM1 Server.

[dr.nybble]

Actually this problem sounds familiar....is this a custom Java authentication provider? There was an issue with extracting namespaces from CJAP providers because they structured their response differently than other providers. What TM1 Package Connector kit did you install? I would suggest updating your TM1 Package Connector install to the latest fix pack.

[ekice]

Thanks for the quick response!

If you put http://localhost:9300 in your browser does it work?

It goes to a page titled "Welcome to the WebSphere Application Server V8.5 Liberty Profile"

If you run a Command Prompt as Administrator, use the netstat -nab command to see whether a process is listening on port 9300 (e.g., bound to 0.0.0.0).

It looks like the only thing listening to 9300 is one tomcat6.exe

Actually this problem sounds familiar....is this a custom Java authentication provider? There was an issue with extracting namespaces from CJAP providers because they structured their response differently than other providers.

Yes, it's a custom provider, so that makes sense. I might try setting up a local LDAP namespace or something instead of using this cap then if it's going to be trouble.

What TM1 Package Connector kit did you install? I would suggest updating your TM1 Package Connector install to the latest fix pack.

I could only find one Package Connector download for Cognos 10.2.2 from the software access catalog. It looks like the version on the installer is 10.2.6100.60. Where would I get fix packs for package connector?


Thanks again, I will try changing the namespace today and will let you know how it works.

Evan

[dr.nybble]

TM1 Package Connector is updated using the standard fix packs or updaters for BI. Its tarballs are in there along with everything else. That updater is confusingly called "up_bisrvr" or something like that.

[ekice]

For anyone reading this with a similar issue, I did finally find a solution. After installing an Active Directory namespace to my Cognos instance, I went back and opened a new TI process with the Cognos Package datasource, and the namespaces populated just fine. In fact, once I added the AD namespace, both the AD namespace and the CAP namespace showed up in the TI namespace list. So package connector was most likely never broken in any of the configurations I had.

If someone has this problem in the future, especially if you see a the dropdown box that should have namespaces but is empty, your namespaces are most likely the problem, not package connector.