Report with "Manage External Data" Package Failing Intermittently

[adam_mc]

CA 11.1.7 FP4

We have a new report that contains a package created using the "Manage External Data" option.
When it does fail, it is failing intermittently with the same error every time:

• CCL-BIT-0005 A socket reported a communication error. CAM_Send=0x82000098 <errorDetail><errorCode>-2113929064</errorCode><errorMessage>CAM-CRP-0321 The GSKit function 'gsk_secure_soc_write' failed with the error code 'GSK_ERROR_IO'.</errorMessage></errorDetail>

It does not appear to be server/dispatcher related as we see successes and failures using the same server/dispatcher.
It also does not seem to permissions based as the external file location is accessible from all application servers.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Adam.

[MFGF]

CA 11.1.7 FP4

We have a new report that contains a package created using the "Manage External Data" option.
When it does fail, it is failing intermittently with the same error every time:

• CCL-BIT-0005 A socket reported a communication error. CAM_Send=0x82000098 <errorDetail><errorCode>-2113929064</errorCode><errorMessage>CAM-CRP-0321 The GSKit function 'gsk_secure_soc_write' failed with the error code 'GSK_ERROR_IO'.</errorMessage></errorDetail>

It does not appear to be server/dispatcher related as we see successes and failures using the same server/dispatcher.
It also does not seem to permissions based as the external file location is accessible from all application servers.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks in advance,
Adam.

As it's a package with an external data file hanging off it, my guess is that the data file might be unreadable at times. Have you determined when the file gets updated/replaced, and is it being left locked during/after the process?

Cheers!

MF.

[adam_mc]

We thought this might be the problem, but we have no indication that the file is locked unless Cognos is doing some internal locking itself.
We are able to open the external data from Windows Explorer without any issues.
However, could Cognos caching be causing the problem?

Also, I found this note:

• Making your Reports Public:
  After you create a report that uses your external data, you may want to make it public to share it with coworkers. They can run your report using your external data file that you made available on a shared drive that the Cognos server can access, or use their own version of the file. If they use their own version, the file must contain the same columns as your original external data file that you used to import the data and create the report. In addition, you must clear the Allow server to automatically load file check box in the Select Data page of the Manage External Data wizard.

We have not cleared the checkbox - Our assumption is that this is needed so as to pickup any changes that were made to the external data.
Is this assumption correct?
What is the purpose of clearing the checkbox?
The external data is on a shared directory not a local drive on a developers machine.

Thanks again,
Adam.

[MFGF]

We thought this might be the problem, but we have no indication that the file is locked unless Cognos is doing some internal locking itself.
We are able to open the external data from Windows Explorer without any issues.
However, could Cognos caching be causing the problem?

Also, I found this note:

• Making your Reports Public:
  After you create a report that uses your external data, you may want to make it public to share it with coworkers. They can run your report using your external data file that you made available on a shared drive that the Cognos server can access, or use their own version of the file. If they use their own version, the file must contain the same columns as your original external data file that you used to import the data and create the report. In addition, you must clear the Allow server to automatically load file check box in the Select Data page of the Manage External Data wizard.

We have not cleared the checkbox - Our assumption is that this is needed so as to pickup any changes that were made to the external data.
Is this assumption correct?
What is the purpose of clearing the checkbox?
The external data is on a shared directory not a local drive on a developers machine.

Thanks again,
Adam.

It has been a million years since I did anything with external data packages, so my memory here is somewhat hazy. If you uncheck the checkbox, I *think* the server prompts you for the file when you run a report that uses the package.

That being said, these days I would replace the external data package with a data module that links a regular package and an uploaded file together. The newer technology for excel/csv files seems a lot more robust, and performs so much better too. Is this an option for you?

Cheers!

MF.

[adam_mc]

Thanks MFGF...

I too would rather use a solution involving a data module and an uploaded file.
This technology is indeed a more robust and performant solution.
We do use this for other static external source data.

However, in this use case, it is missing one key element - It still requires manual intervention (or for us to introduce Jupyter Notebooks and Python scripting into our environment) to refresh the external data before running the report.

Our roadmap may include Jupyter Notebooks and Python scripting at some point, but we are not there now.
For some reason, IBM seems reluctant to add this refresh uploaded data functionality to Cognos Analytics - I have been repeatedly asking this at every opportunity going back many years.
Ideally, I want to schedule a job that executes the upload/refresh, then runs a data set refresh, and then, finally, runs the report.

Therefore, as we do not want either our BI developers or the business users being manually responsible for manually uploading files prior to running reports, our best solution seems to be to use the "Manage External Data" option even if this an old solution.

On the bright side. with a modification in the Cognos Query as below:

• Use Local Cache = No
• Execution Method = Sequential

We are now seeing far fewer failures - this may just be coincidence, but our sample size would indicate otherwise.
This is now manageable to a point where we believe that this can be handled by simply rerunning the report if necessary on failures.
It is, after all, a periodic report where the problem of Cognos locking the file itself will not be an issue.

Thanks again,
Adam.