How reliable Cognos11.0.7?

[haozturk]

I have been working with Cognos since Series 6.1 and I have seen Cognos' evaluation from  version 6 to Series 7, From Series 7 to ReportNET, From ReportNET to Cognos 8, From Cognos8 to Cognos 10. When I compare my experiences to our recent upgrade to Cognos 11, I feel that version 11 has been the buggiest version ever and we are having so many problems especially around icon representation on the portal, portal customization, drill through issues, etc... Some of these issues were listed as KNOWN BUG so we were asked to upgrade to 11.0.7 this weekend. Since the upgrade, we now loose our ability to edit some of our existing reports by using REPORT STUDIO. When we open certain reports for modification (some works some don't), we are getting these page handler error. I am enclosing the screenshot of the error message. In summary, I wanted to seek others feedback and experiences in version 11 to see whether I am the only one complaining. Similarly, if anybody had the same issues we have and had a resolution (especially the error message I am enclosing), that would also be greatly appreciated.

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Error:Startup Request Failed: The Server request failed:500 - Internal Server Error
URL:v1/reports/IB38FAC608497.....
CON-ERR-006 Failed retriving properties of "storeid("i......
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[nichollsvi]

Its not making me happy. I've never had APARs before and I now have 2. Being able to implement something Cognos never gave a thought too, they are not working well with us all the time. I've never had so many problems that need to be fixed.

[haozturk]

We just upgraded to version 11.0.7 this weekend to overcome 2 known bugs. But we now have other issues surfaced primarily around drill through reports.... Not sure whether other people who are on version 11.0.7 had similar issues with their drill through reports. What we are seeing are:

1- Not being able to open existing reports by ReportStudio for modification (seems to be intermittent issue and seems to be related with IE version)
2- Drill through report and definitions sometimes does not call the target report (or if it calls, it takes longer than before)

We are still working with TechServices to resolve these but Cognos11 is raising some questions for us...

[Nimirod]

Well,

I have some problems with Drill through too.

Some workarounds I found, enable the full intercativity on reports that I can. Disable the "Open in a new window" option.

But completelly agree with you both, very interesting release but still too buggy. IBM have still 6 moths to make it works as expected.  >:(

Good luck !  ;D

[dougp]

Can you reproduce the drill-through problems with the sample data so we have an example?

I thought I had a problem with drill-through, but here's what happened.
After installing and configurating, I migrated my data using a deployment export/import.
When I opened one of my favorite reports, I noticed the drill-throughs were not working.
Further investigation showed that the report had a "version".  It works in the other environment probably because the saved output contains a hard-coded URL for every drill-through on the page and it points to the same environment.
Deleting the version from the new environment fixed the problem.

But since I use drill-throughs extensively, I'd like to try to reproduce the problems you are seeing before I move 11.0.7 into a production environment.

[haozturk]

No need to reproduce issue with SAMPLES... We have drill through issues even with the BRAND NEW REPORTS that were created in version 11. No content migration from legacy version....

[dougp]

One reason I'm asking for samples is that I have not yet been able to reproduce this problem.

I plan to upgrade my production environment to 11.0.7 early next month.  If this is a real problem, I need to be able to demonstrate it.  Can you provide a group of report specs between which the drill-throughs do not work?

Is there a way you can categorize which drill-throughs work and which ones don't?  Nimirod lists some examples, but I was hoping you could provide something similar with percent likelihood of failure in each category.

I'm wondering if I'm putting enough effort into testing this upgrade.  How long did you test 11.0.7 before upgrading your production environment?  About how many person-hours were involved in testing?

[dougp]

Maybe my drill-through definitions are not as complex as yours, but I just ran through numerous reports using each of the types of drill-through definitions I use and had no problem.

What process did you use to upgrade to 11.0.7?  Here's mine:

• Backup Content Store and Audit databases.
• Deployment export of entire content store.
• Stop Cognos service.
• Disable Cognos service.
• Reboot (because of locked files).
• Drop Content Store and Audit datbases.
• Create new Content Store and Audit databases.
• Rename the Cognos folder.
• Install 11.0.7.
• Configure 11.0.7.
• Deployment import of entire content store.
• Correct permissions.
• Other customization and configuration items.

If you upgraded by installing 11.0.7 where 11.0.x lived, maybe that's a contributor.

If you just pointed to the same Content Store database, that could also be problematic.  I tested that when I upgraded from 10.2.1 to 11.0.4.  Epic fail.  The deployment route takes much longer, but seems more reliable.

[cognostechie]

I just upgraded 10.2.2 to 11 and one cube doesn't work well in 11. If I try to make a report using a level from one the dimensions then it errors out. The same is working in 10.2.2

I did create brand new DB for the Content store of 11 then did an export and import of the archive from Cognos admin, like is suggested for upgrade.