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 Grouping in list containers. Cognos Analytics 12.0.3

Diego Jose Urbaneja Pacheco's profile image
Diego Jose Urbaneja Pacheco posted Mon August 25, 2025 11:33 AM

Hi everyone, 

We are experiencing an issue with a report in Cognos Analytics version 12.0.3, integrated with OpenPages 9.0.0.5. The report was originally developed and functioning correctly in Cognos Analytics 11.1.7 with OpenPages. After upgrading to the newer versions, we encountered a problem with row grouping in list containers.

Specifically, the report includes six grouped fields. Upon execution, it fails with the following error:

RSV-SRV-0040: The report server encountered an internal error. Check additional information associated with this error message. If the cause of the problem cannot be ascertained, increase the logging level in the IBM Cognos administration tool and reproduce the conditions that caused the error.

We reviewed the log files but were unable to identify a specific cause. As a workaround, we removed one of the grouped fields, reducing the total to five, and the report executed successfully.

We would like to know:

  • Are there any known issues or limitations with row grouping in list containers in Cognos Analytics 12.0.3?
  • Is there a recommended approach to resolve or debug this issue without reducing the number of grouped fields?

Thanks in advance.

Diego

Patrick Neveu's profile image
Patrick Neveu IBM Champion posted Tue August 26, 2025 04:18 AM

Hi Diego,

The workaround might be the following: Group Span...

If there is a one-to-one relationship between a grouped column and another column, you can associate the two columns. This produces the same report output but requires less sorting of the query results.
For example, the Product type code and Product type data items have a one-to-one relationship. Each product type code corresponds to one product type. You can show these columns in a report so that each product type code and corresponding product type appear once, beside each other, spanning the detail rows. Instead of grouping both columns, you can group one column and then set the group span for the second column with the grouped column to achieve the same visual result while improving efficiency.
Best regards,
Marc Reed's profile image
Marc Reed IBM Champion posted Wed August 27, 2025 02:27 AM

You could search the later fix lists for anything that sounds similar to the issue you are having :  https://www.ibm.com/support/pages/system/files/inline-files/ibm_fixlist_cognos_analytics_1204_3.pdf

I always end up having to find workarounds for any Cognos bugs - upgrading isn't as easy an option for enterprise installs.

In your situation I would do the basic trouble shooting :

  1. Are you sure its the grouping causing the issue? I would remove all grouping from the report and re-run.
  2. Is it 6 levels of grouping causing the issue, or a particular level? I would remove "binary chop" the grouping, remove 3, run, undo to put the three back in, remove the other 3 and so on to see if its a particular data item.
  3. Whereabouts in the output generation is the error occurring. Can you capture the sql being sent to the database? can you run the sql on the database successfully?
  4. Is it the size of the output causing the error? can you add a filter to the report to just return one row and run the report successfully?
  5. Is the report creating local processing that is causing the issue? compare the Cognos and Native Sql to ensure the full report logic is being passed to the database.

These are just some of the steps I would take to identify the issue - after identifying exactly what is the issue then you can start thinking of a workaround.

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