Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Suggestions:

• Make sure that other applications can access the OLAP pump
• Make sure the URL is correct
• Make sure the service is running under the appropriate user
• Check the log to see if there are errors coming back from the IIS (typically error 503) Look into FAQ #13
• Make sure the steps used during installation of the msmdpump follow the whitepaper from Microsoft.

Solution:

• Open zenith.properties and change dsp.security.provider to ANON and restart the service.

Solution:

• If dsp.key has a value then there is network connectivity issue with license.performancecanvas.com that needs to be investigated
• If not, create an entry in zenith.properties with the appropriate key and set dsp.security.provider to ANON

Problem: The service has been started but http://localhost:<configuredport> does not give a response

Suggestions:

• Change the value for dsp.port in zenith.properties and restart. If this works the previous port is occupied. Typical culprits include things like Skype. Use netstat to find out who it might be.
• Set dsp.log to 3 in zenith.properties and restart. Examing the log for more information

Problem:

The server stops working due to running out of memory (indicated in the log)

Solution:

• Edit the values for minimum and maximum in <install directory>\bin\service.properties
• For a high traffic installation with a lot of users, be aware that it may require as much as 1024M for maximum, note that this memory is not necessarily used, just reserved.
• This problem is a function of
  • The size of the cube
  • The number of unique users accessing the cube (i.e. if you are using a small number of accounts mapped to user accounts/groups then this is unlikely to happen)
  • In the Kerberos case with delegated credentials and a large cube, memory consumption may require even higher values – good rule of thumb is 30MB*users + 256M for this scenario. (This allows for HUGE cubes as well)

Problem:

A filter never shows it’s members and the browser complains

Solution:

This is very likely a large (>1000) member hierarchy and UNSUITED for filtering.

Problem:

The designer has been used for an extended period of time and now IE is getting slow

Solution:

Restart IE. IE has a rather severe unpatched memory issue and complex web apps makes it leak memory. The slowdown is a signal it is paging or has completely wrecked it’s own memory area. Restart and everything is fine.

Problem:

An object has been deleted by mistake

Solution:

All deleted objects are stored in <installdirectory>\store\deleted\<type> and can be restored from there (Note: this is only relevant for objects that were deleted using the web UI)

Problem:

User A has created an object and wants user B to use it in designer. However user B does not see it.

Solution:

User B is only allowed to see published objects and objects that he/she created. An approval administrator must change the states of the object to PUBLISHED using the administrative UI (Approval tab)

Problem:

Kerberos doesn’t work

Solution:

Read the whitepaper. Follow the instructions to the letter. Unless you are absolutely 100 percent sure of what you are doing do NOT attempt to deviate from that script, Kerberos is very powerful but notoriously sensitive and will bite you if you are not careful.

• When using SET in WITH clause, NEVER use quotes if you want it to be filtered.
• When creating MEMBERs in WITH clause, ALWAYS use quotes
• For examples on how to make a Meter/Gauge, refer to the documentation at www.docu-pc.com
• Write MDX using SQL Management Studio if you are using complex statements

Problem:

After entering your License key you get the message “Registration failed: Check your product key and network connection”

Solution:

1. Check that you have entered correct license key and make sure it has not already been used.
2. Check that you can reach http://license.performancecanvas.com from the server by typing the url in the browser. The response should be a table with heading, but no rows.
3. Check that the user running the Performance Canvas service has write permission in the installation directory.
4. If using a proxy, make sure that the traffic is not stopped by the proxy server. Add the following properties to the zenith.properties file
   1. http.proxyHost (default: <none>)
   2. http.proxyPort (default: 80 if http.proxyHost specified)
   3. http.nonProxyHosts (default: <none>, hosts you want to communicate directly with, i.e. IIS-servers running olappumps)
5. If using an authenticating proxy, make sure that the Performance Canvas service is running by an approved account (i.e. an AD-account) or add the following properties to the zenith.properties file
   1. http.proxyUser (default: the user running the Performance Canvas service)
   2. http.proxyPassword (default: <none>, not needed as long as http.proxyUser is not defined)
6. Restart the Performance Canvas service.
7. Try again to register the license key.

Example of proxy settings in the zenith.properties file:

http.proxyHost=proxyserver.domain.local

http.proxyPort=8080

http.nonProxyHosts=*.mycompany.com|*.mycompany.local|localhost

http.proxyUser=domain\UserName

http.proxyPassword=password

N.B. Make sure that you dont have any spaces around the equal signs.

Problem:

You get a lot of error messages like “Root members not found” or “The call failed on the server”. When examine the log file you find Error 503.

Solution:

Typically this is caused by misconfiguration of the OLAP Pump. Open the IIS Manager where you have the OLAP Pump installed, expand Application Pools, right click on your OLAP Pump and select Properties. Then select the tab “Performance”

1. Idle timeout; typically set the value to 5 minutes (default 20).
2. Request queue limit; typically set the value to max 65535 (default 1000).
3. Web garden, Maximum number of worker processes; typically set the value to your number of cores, but not less than 2.

Problem:

When changing members in a slicer on a canvas, some gems does not change the corresponding values.

Solution:

1. Make sure that the dimension exists in the where clause (or on rows/columns).
2. Make sure that the dimension hierarchy is not locked (on the gems menu in canvas design mode).
3. If using gems from different cubes on the same Canvas, make sure that the slicer is designed as a Shared dimension.
4. If typing your own MDX, make sure that it is possible to parse by the the drag and drop facility in the gems design mode.

Problem:

When trying to save an object (gem or canvas) in Excel- or PDF-format nothing happens.

Solution:

1. Probably it is a security issue. For example; by default it is not allowed to download files in the Internet zone when using IE8.
2. Maybe it is a good idea to add the page to “Trusted sites”.
3. Check your security settings and enable “Automatic prompting for file downloads” and enable “File download” for the zone where you have the canvas.
4. If it still does not work, check all your other security settings.
5. If it still does not work, try another browser (normally it works using the default settings in Chrome).
6. If it works when using Chrome, we are pretty sure it is an issue depending on the security settings. Review them one more time.

Problem:

After restarting the browser and/or the Performance Canvas Service, stored information is changed.

Solution:

1. Make sure that the user that runs the Performance Canvas Service has write permission to the installation directory. When using NTLM/Kerberos security settings that user must be an AD-user.
2. Make sure that you wait long enough after restarting the service. It is possible to open the pages before all information is loaded from the xml-files.

Problem:

After installing Performance Canvas on a Windows Vista or Windows 7 machine the Performance Canvas Service does not appear.

Solution:

1. Open a dos window as administrator
2. Run the bat file InstallService.bat (found in \bin folder) from the dos prompt in this window

Problem:

When trying to start the Performance Canvas service it does not start on the first attempt. On the second or third attempt it starts.

Solution:

1. Some anti virus programs like McAfee takes very long time for scanning the program files.
2. Try to disable your anti virus program while starting the service.
3. If that solves the problem, try to configure your anti virus program and exclude the Performance Canvas folder from being scanned and then enable the anti virus program again.

How to exclude Performance Canvas from being scanned when using McAfee

Problem:

When trying to Install Performance Canvas Planning service you get the message “Install Web Service failed with message “Unknown error (0x80005000)”.

Solution:

1. From Start menu, open Administrative Tools, Server Manager.
2. Select Roles and wait for it to populate
3. Scroll down to Web Server (IIS)
4. In this section under Management Tools look for IIS 6 Management Compatibility.
5. If not Installed, then click Add Role Services link and add it.
6. While there also insure that under Security, Basic Authentication and Windows Authentication are Installed.

In modern browsers it's possible to put objects in different layers, something which could be of good use when designing canvases - ie with a partially colored background behind some grouped canvases. However, this functionality sometimes doesn't work as expected in browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox. If you experience problems - please try to use the Chrome browser instead. It has support for changing layers in while browsing (as opposed to Firefox and Internet Explorer).

Problem:

Within Performance Canvas there is a limitation that makes you can not have more cubes of the same name in a single instance of Performance Canvas.

Solution:

A common situation is that you have a development environment and a production environment where the cubes have the same name. By doing the same with canvas installation you can have a Canvas instance that points to the development environment and one instance that points to the production environment. Technically there is nothing preventing you have multiple instances of the Performance Canvas on the same server as long as they use different port numbers.

Problem:

When opening a canvas you get this error message: “The database did not respond in a timely fashion, you can try reloading the page, if the error persists please contact IT support.”

Solution:

If IIS where the OLAP pump is set up doesn’t work you can get this error message.

But the most common explanation is normally MDX-queries that asks for something that not any longer exists in the cube. If you for example create gems using one data source (cube) and then later change to a slightly different cube you can run into this problem.

To solve the problem, check the MDX for the slicers/gems on the canvas one by one and see where you get the problem.