Troubleshooting
Problem
If you have heard reference to file corruption in our support documents and have wondered what may be causing this to occur in your models and/or reports, the following lists the most common causes and possible prevention.
Resolving The Problem
.
This list does not include all possible causes of file corruption but
offers suggestions for the most common causes only. There is no way to tell
what causes a particular file to be corrupted or 'backtrack' the file to a
stable state, so it is strongly suggested that regular backups of all files be
made. All applications on your pc are subject to file corruption.
1.
One of the most common causes of corruption is that files are being stored or
accessed on a fragmented drive. Run a scandisk and defrag to optimize the
drive and clear up lost clusters. This may also help with performance as the
free harddrive space will now be contiguous.
2. System shutdowns,
power surges, cntrl+alt+deleting while a file is open, can all be causes of
file corruption. Save often to prevent data loss. Back up all files. Work with
one application at a time if resources are low. Do not reboot until you are
certain the system is hung, and that it is not simply still processing its
tasks.
3. If a file is a copy of a copy of a copy etc, this can cause
corruption to 'spread'. If the first file contained any problems this has
now been copied to the other files. Do not base new files on ones that have had
problems. Use templates if applicable.
4. Viruses may cause symptoms
similar to file corruption. Run an up to date virus check on the
system.
5. If a template is corrupt, the reports based on that template
may also inherit that corruption. In this case use the back up template or if
it is one of the templates we supply, delete and reinstall a clean version. The
same is true of catalogs.
6. There have been cases of email causing
problems in files. Confirm your email is not affecting the report, by testing
with other files.
7. If you have determined that the model is corrupt,
save it as a MDL and reopen it.
8. It is possible for an INI file to
become corrupt. Renaming that file ( for example the cognos.ini) and
re-installing or copying from a machine that works may resolve this
issue.
Usually, corruption is not stated as a cause for a file to fail
until all other possible reasons have been determined NOT to be the cause.
Symptoms of corruption include: General Protection Faults, freezing or hanging,
strange symbols or behavior, inability to open or save a file, erroneous error
messages or a inability to copy. Symptoms of a corrupt catalog include invalid
login errors for users, invalid govenor settings, all the above errors, failure
to open or connect to the database. Search for our support document titled '
Troubleshooting General Protection Faults' using the key words Tips and
Troubleshooting. This provided tips on GPF's.
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Document Information
Modified date:
15 June 2018
UID
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