Impromptu doesn't free memory 1

[juanmgm]

We have a great problem with Impromptu. We develop a Report with a large set of records (it takes 200.000 Kb for one month). If we execute the report 3 times, Impromptu get 200.000 kb for each execution. You can only get free memory when you close Impromptu. I put a Call in Cognos Support and They didn't give me a Solution.

Does anybody know a solution to solve this behaviour??

Thanks in advance

 

[pookeybear]

Did you ever resolve this?? I'm having a similar problem. I have the user version and the impuser.exe process does not close when Impromptu is shut down. Each time it runs, more memory is used, like yours, until the PC locks.

 

[juanmgm]

No, I didn´t. Also, I post the same message in Support Web Cognos. They reply me this is a bug not resolved, in version 7 too. If you are making a report, You should close impromptu for each execution. If you scheduled your report, you should close every Impromptu instance for each report.

 

[vjmanda1]

Any luck with this? I am having same issues. We run about 1000 reports and Impromptu is uing 1GB meory& still going. Just wondering whether you got a solution for this, instead of opening and closing the application each time.

 

[gasman009]

I just noticed this today myself with version 7.0.702.0. It did not initially seem to realease mem when I:
1) closed the report.
2) closed the connection. (you never know...)
3) closed the catalog. (in fact memory usage jumped from 70mb to 81mb b/c of this action!)

I did not notice any mem. release immediately after closing the cat, however when I starting using other apps on the same machine, I did notice mem-usage drop from 81mb to 60~mb. So it seems that it was releasing-sort of. (I didn't have time to investigate further to see if it went into VM or not. Sorry.)

In solidarity,
G

 

[juanmgm]

I think that version 7 don´t resolve this problem yet!!!!
If you use the scheduler you won't get this problem, but You must create a Impromptu App instance for each report (that's great, isn't it?)

You can avoid the problem (only in a scheduled scenario) with the next solution:

Create a Cognos Script where you set a new instance for each report. We store in a table information about a report (catalog, imr file, prompts, ...). We get the info with a Component in Visual Basic (it's work fine). Then we create a Impromptu instance for each report (report no catalog). This action release the memory taken by Impromptu.

I'm afraid that in a developer scenario (day by day) the problem it's imposible to solve.

In solidarity too.
JM

 

[griffindm]

I just wanted to drop in on this thread. I have a number of users that run iterative macros that run hundreds of reports in one session with Impromptu open the entire time. There is a set of four reports run for over a hundred users with different user class filters for each one. I've had no reports of computer instability that would be associated with a cumulative memory effect of repeated use of a single Impromptu session.

Did Cognos indicate this was a problem only with certain unique configurations?

Regards,

Dave Griffin
The Decision Support Group
Reporting Consulting with Cognos BI Tools
"Magic with Data"

http://www.decisionsupportgroup.com

 

[juanmgm]

griffidm, i'm afraid you have this problem in every PC with every OS. I worked with a guy who is a cognos consultant and he confirmed me that there is no solution for it.

Maybe you have to modify the Macro with the solution which I said. Run a report, free impromptu, run another report, ...

 

[griffindm]

Sorry,

I run macros like this all the time and haven't seen an issue with memory leaks (usually on Win2K).

Dave Griffin
The Decision Support Group
Reporting Consulting with Cognos BI Tools
"Magic with Data"

http://www.decisionsupportgroup.com

 

[griffindm]

One other thought on this problem: Are your reports creating multiple SQL statements when they run? If so Impromptu does a LOT of local processing, often to resolve outer-join issues, or to gather detail and aggregate values in separate SQL calls. When this happens the memory usage of Impromptu increases tremendously. I can believe (and have experienced) where running macros on these types of reports can consume all the free memory on the computer.

I generally stage the data for these kinds of complex reports so that they will not generate multiple SQL statments when they run.

Let me know if this is involved in the problems.

HTH,

Dave Griffin
The Decision Support Group
Reporting Consulting with Cognos BI Tools
"Magic with Data"

http://www.decisionsupportgroup.com

 

[juanmgm]

The problem has a relation with the behaviour of impromptu.
Like you said, impromptu takes a lot of disk space for temporal files (yes, we've outer joins and several SQL for each report), in other way if you have a lot of records you'll miss memory in your server.

We noted this problem in w2K too, and if you open the catalog in impromtu like a developer and run 3 or more reports, you'll note with window task manager that impAdmin.exe (or impUser.exe) don't free any resource when you close any report, or catalog.
You must think about a tipical scenario, Marketing Department (without any IT knoledge) need to run some reports every monday. If they note that impromptu only run one report, because at second run it doesn't work, they won't have a great impresion about the tool.

I think if cognos is selling Impromptu like best tool for reporting, they must take care in the developing of it. I haven't any experience with other (serious) reporting tool, but Impromptu gives me a bad impresion. And it's not a great tool like consultants said. And I worked with Cognos Consultant.

 

[griffindm]

Juan,

While you are right that an end user may not have an stellar impression of Impromptu based on your experience, I would point out that it is the very abilities of Impromptu that makes reports such as yours possible. Most other reporting tools (Crystal, Business Objects, etc) cannot support outer-joins beyond the capabilities of the underlying database. The reports you have that are creating multiple SQL statements would probably have to be done as multiple separate reports in other products.

It's a gray area. Impromptu is a double-edged tool. Lots of capability, but some costs involved when you work on the edge of the envelope.

Regards,

Dave Griffin
The Decision Support Group
Reporting Consulting with Cognos BI Tools
"Magic with Data"

http://www.decisionsupportgroup.com

 

[metrok]

We had a similar problem when we ran reports. The solution I worked out was to close and then re-open the Cognos application from within the macro. I realize this should not work but it does for us in version 6. We have been using this solution for several months. Below is sample code. It is important to redefine the printer or no print out occurs.

L1 is the counter for the number of loops through our report package. Our memory problems showed up around the 10th loop.

If L1=10 Then
ImpApp.CloseCatalog
ImpApp.Quit
'Reopen the Application & Catalog
Set ImpApp = CreateObject("Impromptu.Application&quot
ImpApp.OpenCatalog "D:\reporting\sample.cat", "USER"
ImpApp.FileSetPrinter "HP LaserJet Ptr"
L1=1
End If

 

[mutino]

People,

I don´t have so much experience like you. I´m Pre-Sales. Now I´m working in a project.
I think you should use Cognos Series 7.2 or better: Try to use new Cognos´ Reporting Tecnology: ReportNet.

[]´s