New cognos 8.4 install can't connect to Content Store

[Ricky@MDPD]

I can't get my new cognos 8.4 install to connect to the Content store (oracle). I get the error below when I test the connection...


[ ERROR ] The database connection failed.
[ ERROR ] Content Manager failed to connect to the content store. The connection string is "jdbc:oracle:thin:@dwdev.mdpd.net:1521:TCOG84".

I can connect to the content store from sqlplus with no problems, and i made sure the username used to login has permissions to insert/update/delete.
Attached is also the screenshot of the error msg I get when starting the services.

Any help is greatly apreciated...

[smiley]

Did you copy the oracle client jdbc driver to the Cognos 8 lib directory?

[Ricky@MDPD]

Hi Smiley,

Yes i did.... i tried with ojdbc14.jar and I copied it to ...\webapps\p2pd\WEB-INF\lib

and when that did not work, i even tried classes12.jar.. still niether worked

Any other ideas?

[kolonell]

I'd make sure that the directory where TNSNAMES resides is the first in the environment variables. In case of multiple It might just pick up another one. Or you can try an Advanced oracle connection to the Content Store and provide the full "Oracle Connection String" (from the TNSNAMES).

[Ricky@MDPD]

Kolonel,


I followed you advice and tried the "Advance Oracle Connection"... looks like it worked..

Thanks

[kolonell]

good to hear ...  ;)  ... it all points now to the TNSNAMES now, somehow the hostnames aren't resolving correctly when using the default config

[cogswell]

I still have this issue. My environment consists of the following:
1. Oracle 11g (64-bit client install) with an empty DB called 'CCS' for the Cognos Content Store
2. Cognos 8.4 32-bit on Windows Server 2008 64-bit
3. JRE 6.0 update 14 (latest; both 32 and 64-bit versions installed in their default locations).

Note that I am using Java version 6.

If I copy the file ojdbc6.jar from C:\Oracle\Administrator\product\11.1.0\jdbc\lib to C:\Program Files (x86)\cognos\c8\webapps\p2pd\WEB-INF\lib, testing the connection in Cognos Configuration Manager throws up the following error:

Code Select Expand

[ ERROR ] The database connection failed.
[ ERROR ] Content Manager failed to start because it could not load driver "oracle.jdbc.OracleDriver".

If I copy the file ojdbc5.jar to the above location, the following error is shown instead:

Code Select Expand

[ ERROR ] The database connection failed.
[ ERROR ] Content Manager failed to connect to the content store. The connection string is "jdbc:oracle:@hostname:1521:CCS".

HELP!

[SomeClown]

A test of tnsping resolves to the oracle instance?  If not, check your tnsnames.ora setup

[cogswell]

I forgot to mention that I am trying to establish this setup on a single computer. Once I resolve this ContentStore connection issue I will install XAMPP, map localhost to the cognos directory(ies), etc.

I remember now that when I was installing ODb11g on this computer, an error had popped up saying that there could be problems because the IP address on this computer was DHCP-assigned.

1. Is setting up the tnsnames.ora file mandatory in a Windows-based ODb11g+Cognos setup? The identical thread that the OP created at developerworks mentions that editing the tnsnames.ora file is not required.
2. If I am using Java version 6, why does the connection not work with ojdbc6.jar? I thought if we didn't set the JAVA_HOME variable, it would use the system installation of Java (v6) and not the version that comes with ODb (v1.5)

Thanks again.

[cogswell]

A test of tnsping resolves to the oracle instance?  If not, check your tnsnames.ora setup

I get the 'TNS-12541: TNS:no listener' error when issuing 'tnsping localhost 1521' command. Is there something wrong with tnsnames.ora file that you mentioned? How do I fix it?

Also, there were multiple files with the same name; is the one I want to modify in 'C:\Oracle\product\11.1.0\db_1\owb\network\admin'?

[SomeClown]

It may be that tnsnames.ora is not being used, but it seems reasonable that if you cannot ping it with tnsping (with correct info), then a jdbc connection isn't going to find it either. 

As to directory, don't know - depends on what else is/was there - network\admin is the correct subdirectory though.

java 6 - you mean, 1.6.xx/6.xx?  Not supported.  Not surprised if it doesn't work.

If you don't set java_home, Cognos uses it's JRE that is in the install directory

[vasadikiran]

Hi Smiley,

Yes i did.... i tried with ojdbc14.jar and I copied it to ...\webapps\p2pd\WEB-INF\lib

and when that did not work, i even tried classes12.jar.. still niether worked

Any other ideas?

[cogswell]

It may be that tnsnames.ora is not being used, but it seems reasonable that if you cannot ping it with tnsping (with correct info), then a jdbc connection isn't going to find it either. 

As to directory, don't know - depends on what else is/was there - network\admin is the correct subdirectory though.

java 6 - you mean, 1.6.xx/6.xx?  Not supported.  Not surprised if it doesn't work.

If you don't set java_home, Cognos uses it's JRE that is in the install directory

You sure java 1.6 is not supported? I've seen (but don't have access to (anymore)) a test environment with JDK 1.6 installed.

[SomeClown]

Just went off what's on the website for support.  1.6 might work but that does not mean it's supported.

[Hallheim]

Not sure if this applies to your problem, but I've experienced problems connecting to CS on 11g on a Windows Server 2008 environment. It seems that the Tomcat application server shipping with 8.4 JVM has problems detecting locale settings, and thus fails to contact the content store. Cognos Support hasn't been able to resolve it so far, but the client found a workaround - at least on Windows Server 2008 32-bit.

1. First you have to make sure that you've copied the .jar driver corresponding to your Oracle release into ...\webapps\p2pd\WEB-INF\lib. This is a prerequisite as all Content Store communication will be conducted with the thin java driver, and thus it won't matter if you're able to contact Oracle using SQLplus or tnsping as they both use the native client and tnsnames.ora - the java client doesn't read any of these settings.

2. Edit bootstrap_win32.xml and add the following lines:
        <param>-Duser.language=en</param>
   <param>-Duser.country=US></param>
3. Re-test connection in Cognos Configuration - should work allright now, if not - your problem is probably elsewhere...

[Kleber]

I get the 'TNS-12541: TNS:no listener' error when issuing 'tnsping localhost 1521' command. Is there something wrong with tnsnames.ora file that you mentioned? How do I fix it?

Also, there were multiple files with the same name; is the one I want to modify in 'C:\Oracle\product\11.1.0\db_1\owb\network\admin'?

If you're getting the TNS No listener then your problem is with the database. Make sure the database is up and running, and that a listener is configued, once you fix the tns no listener and you actually get a time meausure in miliseconds to indicate that your database is reachable, then proceed to test the content manager connection with cognos configuration.

Regards,
Kleber