This Readme document contains late-breaking information about Cognos Visualizer and Cognos Visualizer Web Edition.
Note: The Visualizer components are not used with Cognos 8.
Look here for readme information about closely-related components:
The Readme document also contains information about Features No Longer Supported in this release and those that will not be supported in subsequent releases.
To see readme updates and information about deploying Cognos Enterprise Business Intelligence products, go to the Cognos support site (http://support.cognos.com).
Having a mixed install of Series 7 Version 3 (7.3) MR2 BI products and/or Cognos Planning or Cognos Finance 7.3 SP3 on the same computer as earlier releases of these 7.3 products may cause these earlier releases to fail. The problems occur due to backwards compatibility issues found in the following components: UDA, XALAN and Cognos Web Services (CWS) with Cognos Visualizer.
Note that you will not have these problems if the products on the same computer are all at 7.3 MR2 and SP3 level, or if you install 7.3 MR2/SP3 products on one computer and have other products running 7.3 pre-MR2 or pre-SP3 on a different computer. For example, having Upfront and PowerPlay 7.3 MR2 on MyServerA, drilling through or launching an IWR 7.3 MR1 report on MyServerB will not cause a problem.
If you cannot follow the corrective actions described below, then you must revert all products on the computer to their previous state by restoring them from the backup you made before installing the MR2 maintenance release or SP3 service pack.
The UDA problem may be experienced by the products in Table A, when only a subset of the installed products is upgraded to MR2 or SP3.
The symptoms experienced are varied - there is no common message that identifies the problem. Before working with Customer Support to isolate your specific problem you must eliminate this known UDA issue as being the root cause. Examples of symptoms that have been encountered with 7.3 pre-MR2 products include, but are not limited to:
The build numbers of the UDA component causing the problem are in the range 7.8.23148 to 7.8.24101. To check build numbers, review the contents of your cmplst.txt file located in the <install_location>\cognos\cer4 directory. UDA component build numbers can be found in the [Services] section of cmplst.txt. Note that this is only an issue if there are any products or components in the file that have a 7.3 pre-MR2 or pre-SP3 version.
To resolve this issue you must:
The XALAN problem will be experienced by the products in Table B1, when any of the products in Table B2 are upgraded to MR2 on the specified platforms.
The symptoms experienced depend on the upgrade scenario.
If PowerPlay Enterprise Server 7.3 is kept at the Initial or MR1 level, and any of the previously listed products in Table B2 is upgraded to MR2, then accessing a cube from Cognos PowerPlay Web Explorer using the Enhanced UI may either result in a blank screen or the following message:
Internal error - request failed.
Please contact your administrator
If Cognos Visualizer Server 7.3 is kept at the Initial or MR1 level, and any of the previously listed products in Table B2 is upgraded to MR2, then a Visualizer message is displayed:
Web Browser:
There was an error in the XSL Parse engine.
The return code was: -1
The data returned was:
The error occurred during loading the stylesheet (/viz/templates/en/ZFPIndexPage.xsl), please ensure the stylesheet is valid
Please contact your administrator
Table of Content:
There was an error in the XSL Parse engine.
The return code was: -1
The data returned was:
The error occurred during loading the stylesheet (TOC.xsl), please ensure the stylesheet is valid
Please contact your administrator
The build numbers of the XALAN component causing the problem are in the range 1.2.659 to 1.2.868. To check build numbers, review the contents of your cmplst.txt file located in the <install_location>\cognos\cer4 directory. XALAN component build numbers can be found in the [Third Party] section of cmplst.txt. Note that this is only an issue if the file also contains a pre-MR2 7.3 version of PowerPlay Enterprise Server or Cognos Visualizer Authoring or Server.
To resolve this issue you must request from Customer support a new post-MR2 hot site build for all the products in Table B2 that you want to upgrade to MR2.
The CWS problem will be experienced by the products in Table C1, when any of the products in Table C2 are upgraded to MR2 on the specified platforms.
Cognos Web Services, only when used with Cognos Visualizer Server |
The symptoms are experienced when Cognos Visualizer Server 7.3 is kept at the Initial or MR1 level, and any of the previously listed products in Table C2 is upgraded to MR2. The error messages displayed are dependent on the platform as follows:
On HP-UX the following message is displayed when you configure:
configcp ->/usr/lib/dld.sl: Unresolved symbol: XML_ParserCreateNS (code) from ./libvizxml.sl core file from 'vizwebcws' - received SIGABRT configcp ->/usr/lib/dld.sl: Unresolved symbol: XML_ParserCreateNS (code) from ./libvizxml.sl core file from 'vizwebcws' - received SIGABRT
On Solaris the following message is displayed when you run some CWS requests:
Application Error
The following error has occurred:
The request failed because the server timed out. No Query Processor was available to handle the request.
The build numbers of the Visualizer Server Dispatcher or Query and Report Processor components causing the problem is in the range 600 to 1005. To check build numbers, review the contents of your cmplst.txt file located in the <install_location>\cognos\cer4 directory. Visualizer Server component build numbers can be found in the [Main Applications] section of cmplst.txt.
To resolve this issue you must request from Customer support:
You will not experience this problem if you have a mixed install of RTM/MR1 and MR3 or MR2 and MR3.
Installing a 7.3 MR2 hot site of certain BI products on the same computer where PowerPlay Enterprise Server or Visualizer 7.3 MR2 is also installed may cause PowerPlay or Visualizer to fail. The problems occur due to backwards compatibility issues found in the XALAN component.
Note that you will not have these problems if the products on the same computer are all at any 7.3 MR2 hot site level, or if you install 7.3 MR2 products on one computer and have other products running at the 7.3 MR2 hot site level on a different computer. For example, having Visualizer Server 7.3 MR2 on MyServerA drilling through to PowerPlay Enterprise Server 7.3 MR2 hot site on MyServerB will not cause a problem.
If you cannot follow the corrective actions described below, then you must revert all products on the computer to their previous state by restoring from the backup you made before installing the MR2 hot site.
The XALAN problem will be experienced by the products in Table A1, when any of the products in Table A2 are upgraded to an MR2 hot site on the specified platforms.
The symptoms experienced depend on the upgrade scenario.
If PowerPlay Enterprise Server 7.3 is kept at the MR2 level, and any of the previously listed products in Table A2 is upgraded to an MR2 hot site, then accessing a cube from Cognos PowerPlay Web Explorer using the Enhanced UI may either result in a blank screen or the following message:
Cognos PowerPlay Web Explorer
The PowerPlay server is busy and cannot complete the request. Please try again.
Please try again or contact your administrator
If Cognos Visualizer Server 7.3 is kept at the MR2 level, and any of the previously listed products in Table A2 is upgraded to an MR2 hot site, then the Visualizer application server may fail to start. The message displayed to the user on the web browser may be:
Application Error
The following error has occurred:
The Cognos Visualizer Web server is not available.
The build numbers of the products in Table A1 impacted by the problem are in the range 7.3.1200 to 7.3.1299. To check build numbers, review the contents of your cmplst.txt file located in the <install_location>\cognos\cer4 directory. Product build numbers can be found in the [Main Applications] section of cmplst.txt. Note that this is only an issue if the file also contains a 7.3 MR2 hot site version of any of the products listed in Table A2 with build numbers in the range 7.3.1300 to 7.3.1399.
To resolve this issue you must request new post-MR2 hot site builds from Customer support for all of the products listed in Table A1, if they are also installed on this same computer.
You will not experience this problem if you install MR3 or a post MR3 hot site.
A number of sample charts now contain labels that are inconsistent with the accompanying documentation. For example, labels show Sales Staff instead of Territory, and Products instead of Product Line. This is due to correction of a problem involving the mapping of a filter category to a by-level category. The sample charts are correct but the documentation will not be aligned with these samples until the next major release of the product.
Currently, information about mirroring and mapping visualizations in high-availability, multiple-dispatcher installations is missing. The following new topic will be added to the "Distributing Visualizations" chapter when the Visualizer Web Administrator's Guide is next reissued.
To set up dispatcher failover for high-availability applications, begin by configuring two or more dispatchers, as explained in your installation documentation.
Next, for local data sources, ensure that data is accessible from each dispatcher in the group. For remote PowerCubes, ensure that each dispatcher is properly configured to access PowerPlay Enterprise Server.
Finally, verify that your visualizations are identically mirrored on each dispatcher. Specifically,
Note: If you upgrade a visualization on one dispatcher, remember to upgrade it on all dispatchers in the group.
For more information, see your Visualizer installation documentation.
If you switch between displaying the Cognos Visualizer Web Edition Client inside and outside of a browser window, the Client may take several seconds to respond.
This problem is due to difficulties with the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) version 1.4x.
To resolve this problem, do one of the following:
When you try to open a Visualization NewsItem in Upfront, an error message may tell you that the data source cannot be opened. This message can occur after you use Cognos Deployment Manager to unpack a package of visualizations, and then use the autofill option in the mapping editor. If the autofilled data source is incorrect, Cognos Deployment Manager does not generate an error message.
There are several options to work around this problem:
If you use Internet Explorer and your list of user classes is long, you may not see the logon page when you try to access your visualization.
To resolve this problem, open your visualization from Upfront, reduce the number of user classes, or use Netscape.
If you use Firefox 1.0.4 as your Web browser and you have not already installed the Java run-time environment plug-in, when you select the Client link for a visualization on the Cognos Visualizer Web Edition Table of Contents, Firefox launches a Java run-time environment plug-in download. If you proceed with this download, you will install the most recent version of the Java run-time environment.
We recommend that you not proceed with this download. We recommend instead that you install the Sun Java Plug-in included with your Cognos Visualizer Web Edition installation.
In the Configuration Manager User Guide, under "Change the Apache Web Server Settings for Apache Module Gateways", the gateway configuration for multiple server groups is documented as "<XX>GroupGatewayDirectory", where <XX> is the prefix of the Cognos product you are configuring.
If you configure the Cognos Visualizer Server or the PowerPlay Enterprise Server using this parameter, you will receive the following error message:
Invalid command '<XX>GroupGatewayDirectory', perhaps mis-spelled or defined by a module not included in the server configuration
To resolve this situation, use the parameter "GatewayDirectory " instead of "<XX>GroupGatewayDirectory" when configuring the Apache Module gateways for the Cognos Visualizer Server and PowerPlay Enterprise Server for multiple server groups.
The map data currently provided as part of the Cognos Visualizer product may not always represent the most up-to-date geo-political boundaries as those currently provided by MapInfo.