C8 Audit Package - Status "NULL"?

[beerguy82]

Hey all -

I'm trying to troubleshoot some seemingly random report failures and ran into something I don't quite understand.  We have a pretty number of reports failing with the DPR-ERR-2056 The Report Server is not responding error.  Since I haven't been able to figure out why, I set up an Event Studio alert to email me when this happens.  I noticed today that I wasn't always getting the alert, so I dug in.  I'm using the Report Name, Status, and Time Stamp in Event Studio, and am triggering the event on new occurrences where the status = 'Failure'.  Much to my surprise, on a good deal of these DPR-ERR-2056 errors, the status comes back as NULL. 

Any ideas as to why this would be happening?

I know this DPR-ERR-2056 has been a source of a lot of discussion, have there been any definite cures found?

We are running 8.4.1 in a distributed environment.

Tim

[AussiePete2011]

Hi there,

That error is fairly generic so you'd need to turn on a specific tracing
Under the ../<coginstall>/configuration folder there is a file called ipfdispclientconfig.xml.sample.  What you need to do is to make a copy of this file then rename the copy to ipfclientconfig.xml.  This trace file will active after about a minute and create a separate file in the logs folder called crnclient.log
If you open this file on the next occassion, you should actually get more information on pre error, during error and post error.
You are attempting to find out what error occurred before the DPR error and thats what you need to investigate.

Let me know how you get on
Cheers
Peter B

[beerguy82]

Thanks Peter.  I'll definitely activate the trace.  Any insight on the NULL status?  I actually had an instance this morning where the status through Cognos Administration was Succeeded, but in the audit log it was showing as NULL.  It's making it very hard for me to create an Event to let me know when there is an actual failure!

Tim

[AussiePete2011]

Hi Tim,

out of interest, did you implement the audit extension?
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/data/library/cognos/development/utilities/page509.html?ca=dat-

It would also be interesting to see what is seen in the cogserver and pogo logs at the time of a
1.  Status returning "Failure" and
2.  Status returning "NULL"

its possible that the record in the Audit table was not completed due to an earlier failure.  At this stage its hard to determine a cause without a bit more information.

What we are trying to look for is a pattern or difference between the two conditions.  Tracing of the dispatcher will help
Is it the same reports that always fail, or is it at the same period of the day?
Look for
* when the failures occur
* what reports are failing
* Are these reports the same consistently
* Who owns the reports
* what type of reports they are - prompt, complex etc

the more this is narrowed down the more likely (hopefully) we'll be able to nut out the root cause.

Hope this will help a little
Cheers
Peter B