Cognos Oracle Content Store Creation

Cognos "Quick" Start Installation and Configuration Guide transcript

Error: Cognos Configuration error creating new data store

Database connection failed
Content Manager failed to start because it could not load driver "oracle.jdbc.driver.OracleDriver"

This went away when I copied classes12.jar from ORACLE_HOME\jdbc\lib to c8_location\webapps\p2pd\WEB-INF\lib

Error: Cognos Configuration error creating new data store #2

Content Manager is unable to initialize the content store by using the initialization file "C:\Program Files\cognos\c8\configuration\schemas\content\oracle\dbInitTest_oracle.sql"

It appears the Schema user has insufficient privileges. I have given the following:

Roles

• Connect

System Privileges

• Alter any procedure, sequence, table, trigger
• Create any procedure, sequence, table, trigger, view
• Delete any table
• Drop any procedure, sequence, table, trigger, view
• Insert any table
• Update any table

When I execute the script in SqlPlus the error is ORA-01950: no privileges on tablespace 'X'. Apparently this means no quota has been allocated for this user.

I attempted to grant unlimited quota on all tablespaces but got an error ORA-30041: Cannot grant quota on the tablespace. I forgot that the temp table space doesn't have a quota, so I was a bit more specific in my selection.

Error: Cognos Configuration error creating new data store #3

Content Manager cannot start because the database character set for the content store is not supported. Before you restart Content Manager, you may need to recreate the content store database or clean it using dbClean_*.sql.

Following the instructions regarding character set, I found NLS_NCHAR_CHARACTERSET = AL16UTF16. Unfortunately this doesn't appear to be sufficient. SELECT NLS_CHARACTERSET FROM NLS_DATABASE_PARAMETERS returned WE8MSWIN1252. Some guidance on changing character set is that it's safest to export-create new db-import.

My steps for export are:

• Bring up Database Control
• Select Maintenance tab
• Select Export to Export Files
• Select Database and enter OS admin user and password
• (Create the export folder before doing the next step)
• Create Directory Object, enter name and folder path and select OK
• Select the name of the newly created dir object from Directory Object dropdown and select Next
• Select the dir object again and select Next
• Enter a job name and description and select Next
• Select Submit

The job kicked off but produced some errors saying it couldn't find the export directory object. Makes no sense to me, I thought I would just try and sneak on by.

I created a new instance with Database Configuration Assistant using character set AL32UTF8 and tried to import the export files into it but I hit a lot of errors.

I decided to use a separate instance just for Cognos. Phew, I could finally connect ok to the Content Database.

Cognos 8 Cryptographic Services

Copied c8_location\bin\jre\version\lib\ext\bcprov-jdk13-125.jar to java_home\lib\ext. I have no idea if this has to be done but I did it anyway.

Starting the Service

Selected Root node in Cognos Configuration and Action:Test. All came back good except mail server which I don't care about for the moment. Selected Action:Start which was also successful.

Getting the web server to respond

Created virtual directory for cognos8 at c8_location\. Worked through the IE settings and browsed to http://localhost/cognos8. 404 Page not found. Trawled around on web and found that I could Allow All Unknown CGI Extensions in IIS Web Extensions. This time I got 403 Not authorised to view this page.

Figured out that I didn't read the instructions correctly - there are 2 nested virtual directories.

• cognos8 points to c8_location\webcontent
• cgi-bin points to c8_location\cgi-bin. Created by right-clicking the previously created cognos8 virtual directory

At last it works! The Framework Manager install was straightforward after this.