Cognos Analytics – Data Engineering and BI BLOG

When trying to connect sql server database from cognos configuration content store getting following error:
[Content Manager database connection]
[ ERROR ] The database connection failed.
[ ERROR ] Content Manager is unable to connect to the content store. Verify that the database connection properties in the configuration tool are correct and that when you test the connection, the test is successful.

When you get this error:

First make sure you server can connect to SQL server by creating a ODBC connection and do a test. If successful then issue is with Cognos connecting to SQL Server.

Follow below steps:

Cognos Analytics connects to the content store via JDBC, not ODBC. These are completely different client interfaces so comparing ODBC to JDBC is not comparable.

It is important that you make sure that you are using the latest version of the SQL Server JDBC driver. It is recommended to use the 9.4 version of the JDBC driver as there are some changes with encryption defaults with the 10.2 JDBC driver that may break connections.

You can download the 9.4 driver here: https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=2183120

– Download the .zip file

– Extract the .zip file

– Copy the sqljdbc_9.4\enu\mssql-jdbc-9.4.1.jre8.jar file to your cognos_location\drivers folder

– Remove the old SQL Server JDBC driver so there are no conflicts

– Copy the sqljdbc_9.4\enu\auth\x86\mssql-jdbc_auth-9.4.1.x86.dll file to the cognos_location\bin folder. Remove any older sqljdbc_auth.dll file that was there previously

– Copy the sqljdbc_9.4\enu\auth\x64\mssql-jdbc_auth-9.4.1.x64.dll file to the cognos_location\bin64 location.

SQL Server 2016 uses TLS 1.2, so you will need to make sure that you configure Cognos to make a TLS 1.2 connection to your database. Please refer to the following TechNote:

https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/connection-sql-server-fails-when-server-configured-use-tls-12-or-connecting-sql-server-2016

Follow the steps under “To get the Content Store connection working”. Note: You will need to always launch the config using bin64\cogconfig.bat from this point onwards so it picks up the TLS 1.2 parameters.

Regenerate cryptographic keys in Cognos Analytics

Posted on May 1, 2020June 6, 2021 by tekweirdo in Cognos Analytics

If you Cognos service is not starting with following error, then your cryptographic keys got corrupted.

[Launching a JVM using ‘Maximum memory in MB’]
Successfully launched a test JVM with the memory setting of ‘16384’. Note that this does not guarantee that the IBM Cognos service will start and run successfully.
To see which JVM options are based on this setting, view ibmcognos_location/bin64/bootstrap_wlp_<OS>.xml and see your JVM documentation for an explanation of those options.
[Authentication Service]
[ ERROR ] The server did something wrong.
[ ERROR ] AAA-AUT-0016 The function call to ‘CAMFactory.initialize’ failed.
[ ERROR ] CAM-CRP-1095 Unable to find the encryption certificate with alias ‘encryption’ in the keystore ‘E:/cognos/analytics/configuration/certs\CAMKeystore’.
[‘MPDC’]
[ ERROR ] AAA-AUT-0016 The function call to ‘CAMFactory.initialize’ failed.
[ ERROR ] CAM-CRP-1095 Unable to find the encryption certificate with alias ‘encryption’ in the keystore ‘E:/cognos/analytics/configuration/certs\CAMKeystore’.

Follow the steps from the url: https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/node/286475 to regenarte the keys.