benbotektips
MIS
There are times when an error message from a Cognos application is like a call from a telemarketer: it harasses you at the worst time, and is equally unintelligible. In case an error message is useless (i.e. 'logon error connecting to database', when your logon is defined and you're able to logon otherwise), forget Cognos and go to the server event viewer. A typical case would be IWR running on a server, and the above error message doesn't come close to pointing to the source of the problem. Look in the Event viewer (remote connect to the IWR server, then go to administrative tools- event viewer). It's a log file, and the offending error will be timestamped, with a bright red 'x' next to it. Looking in here revealed what was NOT AT ALL shown in the Cognos error message, that the problem was an ORA-00020, Oracle error of # of allowed processes too small. Needless to say, there was no trace of ORA-00020 in the Cognos error message, nor even of an Oracle issue. Their documentation simply doesn't document. The Mircosoft event viewer is more helpful.