Cognos Analytics

We've been testing 11.2.4, first on FixPack 3 and now on FixPack 4.

We discovered, that unlike in 11.1.7 (FP6), you can no longer doing a search with a "contains".

We have many reports that get sent out with with the subject of the email having other words besides the name of the report and if that report is HTML only, it's embedded in the email, not an attachment, so we have no idea what the report name is.  Sux when users then ask for changes!

As an example, we have a report named PP80_BO_Parts

The subject of the email is:   "Report: Manufacturing PP80_BO_Parts"

In 11.1.7 we can put that whole string in the search and it's found.

In 11.2.4 in both FixPack 3 & 4, it will ONLY find the report if we start the search string with "PP".  You have to eliminate everything before it.

I have a support ticket open and they have confirmed the issue but they haven't been able to determine if search got broken or if that's just the new functionality of 11.2. Doesn't seem to be any documentation if it was a change and seems we're the first to have discovered it and opened a support ticket.

The reason I posted to this group is I'm curious if the search behavior in 12 - preferably more recent patches - is broken/mimics this as well.  Since we only started testing 11.2.4 FP3, I don't know if it's always been this way with 11.2 or if it got broken with later patches.

Thanks and best regards!

Wayne Westlake

From my experience, search behavior in Cognos can indeed change between versions and fix packs. In your case, it seems that the search functionality in 11.2.4 has been altered compared to 11.1.7, making it more restrictive.

While I haven't personally tested version 12, I've heard from a few colleagues that they faced similar issues initially but managed to find a workaround. 

We've been testing 11.2.4, first on FixPack 3 and now on FixPack 4.

We discovered, that unlike in 11.1.7 (FP6), you can no longer doing a search with a "contains".

We have many reports that get sent out with with the subject of the email having other words besides the name of the report and if that report is HTML only, it's embedded in the email, not an attachment, so we have no idea what the report name is.  Sux when users then ask for changes!

As an example, we have a report named PP80_BO_Parts

The subject of the email is:   "Report: Manufacturing PP80_BO_Parts"

In 11.1.7 we can put that whole string in the search and it's found.

In 11.2.4 in both FixPack 3 & 4, it will ONLY find the report if we start the search string with "PP".  You have to eliminate everything before it.

I have a support ticket open and they have confirmed the issue but they haven't been able to determine if search got broken or if that's just the new functionality of 11.2. Doesn't seem to be any documentation if it was a change and seems we're the first to have discovered it and opened a support ticket.

The reason I posted to this group is I'm curious if the search behavior in 12 - preferably more recent patches - is broken/mimics this as well.  Since we only started testing 11.2.4 FP3, I don't know if it's always been this way with 11.2 or if it got broken with later patches.

Thanks and best regards!

Wayne Westlake

We've been testing 11.2.4, first on FixPack 3 and now on FixPack 4.

We discovered, that unlike in 11.1.7 (FP6), you can no longer doing a search with a "contains".

We have many reports that get sent out with with the subject of the email having other words besides the name of the report and if that report is HTML only, it's embedded in the email, not an attachment, so we have no idea what the report name is.  Sux when users then ask for changes!

As an example, we have a report named PP80_BO_Parts

The subject of the email is:   "Report: Manufacturing PP80_BO_Parts"

In 11.1.7 we can put that whole string in the search and it's found.

In 11.2.4 in both FixPack 3 & 4, it will ONLY find the report if we start the search string with "PP".  You have to eliminate everything before it.

I have a support ticket open and they have confirmed the issue but they haven't been able to determine if search got broken or if that's just the new functionality of 11.2. Doesn't seem to be any documentation if it was a change and seems we're the first to have discovered it and opened a support ticket.

The reason I posted to this group is I'm curious if the search behavior in 12 - preferably more recent patches - is broken/mimics this as well.  Since we only started testing 11.2.4 FP3, I don't know if it's always been this way with 11.2 or if it got broken with later patches.

Thanks and best regards!

Wayne Westlake

We are currently testing 12.0.3 and the search is working with the contains.  We have reports called Utility Aging and Servco Aging and I just searched for aging; all reports and jobs were returned.  The search returned data regardless of case and where the word was located in the name. 

We've been testing 11.2.4, first on FixPack 3 and now on FixPack 4.

We discovered, that unlike in 11.1.7 (FP6), you can no longer doing a search with a "contains".

We have many reports that get sent out with with the subject of the email having other words besides the name of the report and if that report is HTML only, it's embedded in the email, not an attachment, so we have no idea what the report name is.  Sux when users then ask for changes!

As an example, we have a report named PP80_BO_Parts

The subject of the email is:   "Report: Manufacturing PP80_BO_Parts"

In 11.1.7 we can put that whole string in the search and it's found.

In 11.2.4 in both FixPack 3 & 4, it will ONLY find the report if we start the search string with "PP".  You have to eliminate everything before it.

I have a support ticket open and they have confirmed the issue but they haven't been able to determine if search got broken or if that's just the new functionality of 11.2. Doesn't seem to be any documentation if it was a change and seems we're the first to have discovered it and opened a support ticket.

The reason I posted to this group is I'm curious if the search behavior in 12 - preferably more recent patches - is broken/mimics this as well.  Since we only started testing 11.2.4 FP3, I don't know if it's always been this way with 11.2 or if it got broken with later patches.

Thanks and best regards!

Wayne Westlake

We've been testing 11.2.4, first on FixPack 3 and now on FixPack 4.

We discovered, that unlike in 11.1.7 (FP6), you can no longer doing a search with a "contains".

We have many reports that get sent out with with the subject of the email having other words besides the name of the report and if that report is HTML only, it's embedded in the email, not an attachment, so we have no idea what the report name is.  Sux when users then ask for changes!

As an example, we have a report named PP80_BO_Parts

The subject of the email is:   "Report: Manufacturing PP80_BO_Parts"

In 11.1.7 we can put that whole string in the search and it's found.

In 11.2.4 in both FixPack 3 & 4, it will ONLY find the report if we start the search string with "PP".  You have to eliminate everything before it.

I have a support ticket open and they have confirmed the issue but they haven't been able to determine if search got broken or if that's just the new functionality of 11.2. Doesn't seem to be any documentation if it was a change and seems we're the first to have discovered it and opened a support ticket.

The reason I posted to this group is I'm curious if the search behavior in 12 - preferably more recent patches - is broken/mimics this as well.  Since we only started testing 11.2.4 FP3, I don't know if it's always been this way with 11.2 or if it got broken with later patches.

Thanks and best regards!

Wayne Westlake

My grain of sand.....

I remember having issues with search in 11.2.4 but following the next steps help me:

How to reset search indexes for Cognos Analytics (ibm.com)

As far as you worked with IBM Support team Ithink that you already tried this, but...

Best regards

------------------------------
German Rodriguez

Original Message:
Sent: Tue July 23, 2024 03:04 PM
From: Wayne Westlake
Subject: Is Search broken in 12?

We've been testing 11.2.4, first on FixPack 3 and now on FixPack 4.

We discovered, that unlike in 11.1.7 (FP6), you can no longer doing a search with a "contains".

We have many reports that get sent out with with the subject of the email having other words besides the name of the report and if that report is HTML only, it's embedded in the email, not an attachment, so we have no idea what the report name is.  Sux when users then ask for changes!

As an example, we have a report named PP80_BO_Parts

The subject of the email is:   "Report: Manufacturing PP80_BO_Parts"

In 11.1.7 we can put that whole string in the search and it's found.

In 11.2.4 in both FixPack 3 & 4, it will ONLY find the report if we start the search string with "PP".  You have to eliminate everything before it.

I have a support ticket open and they have confirmed the issue but they haven't been able to determine if search got broken or if that's just the new functionality of 11.2. Doesn't seem to be any documentation if it was a change and seems we're the first to have discovered it and opened a support ticket.

The reason I posted to this group is I'm curious if the search behavior in 12 - preferably more recent patches - is broken/mimics this as well.  Since we only started testing 11.2.4 FP3, I don't know if it's always been this way with 11.2 or if it got broken with later patches.

Thanks and best regards!

Wayne Westlake

------------------------------
Wayne Westlake
------------------------------

Hi German!

Thanks for the link!

Yeah from my multitude of prior support tickets over the years, any time I refresh my Dev servers from Prod (restoring the content store), after shutting down and rebooting, I delete everything in the following folders before starting up again:

<install location>/data
<install location>/javasharedresources
<install location>/temp
<install location>/wlp/usr/servers/cognosserver/workarea
<install location>/wlp/usr/servers/dataset-service/workarea

They say to make backups of those folders before deleting but I've never had an issue so I don't bother anymore.

After doing all that, when you launch cognos config be sure to do a save to ensure it recreates some of those files before startup - the rest of course recreated during startup.

Best regards,

Wayne

------------------------------
Wayne Westlake

Original Message:
Sent: Wed July 31, 2024 01:57 AM
From: German Rodriguez
Subject: Is Search broken in 12?

My grain of sand.....

I remember having issues with search in 11.2.4 but following the next steps help me:

How to reset search indexes for Cognos Analytics (ibm.com)

As far as you worked with IBM Support team Ithink that you already tried this, but...

Best regards

------------------------------
German Rodriguez

Original Message:
Sent: Tue July 23, 2024 03:04 PM
From: Wayne Westlake
Subject: Is Search broken in 12?

We've been testing 11.2.4, first on FixPack 3 and now on FixPack 4.

We discovered, that unlike in 11.1.7 (FP6), you can no longer doing a search with a "contains".

We have many reports that get sent out with with the subject of the email having other words besides the name of the report and if that report is HTML only, it's embedded in the email, not an attachment, so we have no idea what the report name is.  Sux when users then ask for changes!

As an example, we have a report named PP80_BO_Parts

The subject of the email is:   "Report: Manufacturing PP80_BO_Parts"

In 11.1.7 we can put that whole string in the search and it's found.

In 11.2.4 in both FixPack 3 & 4, it will ONLY find the report if we start the search string with "PP".  You have to eliminate everything before it.

I have a support ticket open and they have confirmed the issue but they haven't been able to determine if search got broken or if that's just the new functionality of 11.2. Doesn't seem to be any documentation if it was a change and seems we're the first to have discovered it and opened a support ticket.

The reason I posted to this group is I'm curious if the search behavior in 12 - preferably more recent patches - is broken/mimics this as well.  Since we only started testing 11.2.4 FP3, I don't know if it's always been this way with 11.2 or if it got broken with later patches.

Thanks and best regards!

Wayne Westlake

------------------------------
Wayne Westlake
------------------------------

Hi Wayne, 

I think this should be caused by the change of the search operator in 11.2. Luckily this can be reverted :-)

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cognos-analytics/11.2.0?topic=started-default-search-operator-changed-from

Best regards

Philipp

Hi German!

Thanks for the link!

Yeah from my multitude of prior support tickets over the years, any time I refresh my Dev servers from Prod (restoring the content store), after shutting down and rebooting, I delete everything in the following folders before starting up again:

<install location>/data
<install location>/javasharedresources
<install location>/temp
<install location>/wlp/usr/servers/cognosserver/workarea
<install location>/wlp/usr/servers/dataset-service/workarea

They say to make backups of those folders before deleting but I've never had an issue so I don't bother anymore.

After doing all that, when you launch cognos config be sure to do a save to ensure it recreates some of those files before startup - the rest of course recreated during startup.

Best regards,

Wayne

------------------------------
Wayne Westlake

Original Message:
Sent: Wed July 31, 2024 01:57 AM
From: German Rodriguez
Subject: Is Search broken in 12?

My grain of sand.....

I remember having issues with search in 11.2.4 but following the next steps help me:

How to reset search indexes for Cognos Analytics (ibm.com)

As far as you worked with IBM Support team Ithink that you already tried this, but...

Best regards

------------------------------
German Rodriguez

Original Message:
Sent: Tue July 23, 2024 03:04 PM
From: Wayne Westlake
Subject: Is Search broken in 12?

We've been testing 11.2.4, first on FixPack 3 and now on FixPack 4.

We discovered, that unlike in 11.1.7 (FP6), you can no longer doing a search with a "contains".

We have many reports that get sent out with with the subject of the email having other words besides the name of the report and if that report is HTML only, it's embedded in the email, not an attachment, so we have no idea what the report name is.  Sux when users then ask for changes!

As an example, we have a report named PP80_BO_Parts

The subject of the email is:   "Report: Manufacturing PP80_BO_Parts"

In 11.1.7 we can put that whole string in the search and it's found.

In 11.2.4 in both FixPack 3 & 4, it will ONLY find the report if we start the search string with "PP".  You have to eliminate everything before it.

I have a support ticket open and they have confirmed the issue but they haven't been able to determine if search got broken or if that's just the new functionality of 11.2. Doesn't seem to be any documentation if it was a change and seems we're the first to have discovered it and opened a support ticket.

The reason I posted to this group is I'm curious if the search behavior in 12 - preferably more recent patches - is broken/mimics this as well.  Since we only started testing 11.2.4 FP3, I don't know if it's always been this way with 11.2 or if it got broken with later patches.

Thanks and best regards!

Wayne Westlake

------------------------------
Wayne Westlake
------------------------------

Philipp!

Thank you so much!!!!  You rock!

This exactly the fix I needed!  Why in the WORLD would IBM just change something like this out of the blue???  It's this kind of nonsense that has our company seriously looking at alternatives to Cognos.  With all the drive to Dashboarding and Watson and the elimination of the studios, we're rapidly becoming not a part of IBM's future target audience.

What's worse is I've had a support ticket open since mid-June and the agent was unable to find any documentation on changes to this effect, including lots of contact with the development team.  He was preparing to create a PMR with the hopes the developers would fix it - they're getting close to ceasing anything but bug fixes on 11.2 now.

Thank you again!

Best regards,

Wayne

Hi Wayne, 

I think this should be caused by the change of the search operator in 11.2. Luckily this can be reverted :-)

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cognos-analytics/11.2.0?topic=started-default-search-operator-changed-from

Best regards

Philipp

Hi German!

Thanks for the link!

Yeah from my multitude of prior support tickets over the years, any time I refresh my Dev servers from Prod (restoring the content store), after shutting down and rebooting, I delete everything in the following folders before starting up again:

<install location>/data
<install location>/javasharedresources
<install location>/temp
<install location>/wlp/usr/servers/cognosserver/workarea
<install location>/wlp/usr/servers/dataset-service/workarea

They say to make backups of those folders before deleting but I've never had an issue so I don't bother anymore.

After doing all that, when you launch cognos config be sure to do a save to ensure it recreates some of those files before startup - the rest of course recreated during startup.

Best regards,

Wayne

------------------------------
Wayne Westlake

Original Message:
Sent: Wed July 31, 2024 01:57 AM
From: German Rodriguez
Subject: Is Search broken in 12?

My grain of sand.....

I remember having issues with search in 11.2.4 but following the next steps help me:

How to reset search indexes for Cognos Analytics (ibm.com)

As far as you worked with IBM Support team Ithink that you already tried this, but...

Best regards

------------------------------
German Rodriguez

Original Message:
Sent: Tue July 23, 2024 03:04 PM
From: Wayne Westlake
Subject: Is Search broken in 12?

We've been testing 11.2.4, first on FixPack 3 and now on FixPack 4.

We discovered, that unlike in 11.1.7 (FP6), you can no longer doing a search with a "contains".

We have many reports that get sent out with with the subject of the email having other words besides the name of the report and if that report is HTML only, it's embedded in the email, not an attachment, so we have no idea what the report name is.  Sux when users then ask for changes!

As an example, we have a report named PP80_BO_Parts

The subject of the email is:   "Report: Manufacturing PP80_BO_Parts"

In 11.1.7 we can put that whole string in the search and it's found.

In 11.2.4 in both FixPack 3 & 4, it will ONLY find the report if we start the search string with "PP".  You have to eliminate everything before it.

I have a support ticket open and they have confirmed the issue but they haven't been able to determine if search got broken or if that's just the new functionality of 11.2. Doesn't seem to be any documentation if it was a change and seems we're the first to have discovered it and opened a support ticket.

The reason I posted to this group is I'm curious if the search behavior in 12 - preferably more recent patches - is broken/mimics this as well.  Since we only started testing 11.2.4 FP3, I don't know if it's always been this way with 11.2 or if it got broken with later patches.

Thanks and best regards!

Wayne Westlake

------------------------------
Wayne Westlake
------------------------------

Hi Wayne, 

I think this should be caused by the change of the search operator in 11.2. Luckily this can be reverted :-)

https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cognos-analytics/11.2.0?topic=started-default-search-operator-changed-from

Best regards

Philipp

Hi German!

Thanks for the link!

Yeah from my multitude of prior support tickets over the years, any time I refresh my Dev servers from Prod (restoring the content store), after shutting down and rebooting, I delete everything in the following folders before starting up again:

<install location>/data
<install location>/javasharedresources
<install location>/temp
<install location>/wlp/usr/servers/cognosserver/workarea
<install location>/wlp/usr/servers/dataset-service/workarea

They say to make backups of those folders before deleting but I've never had an issue so I don't bother anymore.

After doing all that, when you launch cognos config be sure to do a save to ensure it recreates some of those files before startup - the rest of course recreated during startup.

Best regards,

Wayne

------------------------------
Wayne Westlake

Original Message:
Sent: Wed July 31, 2024 01:57 AM
From: German Rodriguez
Subject: Is Search broken in 12?

My grain of sand.....

I remember having issues with search in 11.2.4 but following the next steps help me:

How to reset search indexes for Cognos Analytics (ibm.com)

As far as you worked with IBM Support team Ithink that you already tried this, but...

Best regards

------------------------------
German Rodriguez

Original Message:
Sent: Tue July 23, 2024 03:04 PM
From: Wayne Westlake
Subject: Is Search broken in 12?

We've been testing 11.2.4, first on FixPack 3 and now on FixPack 4.

We discovered, that unlike in 11.1.7 (FP6), you can no longer doing a search with a "contains".

We have many reports that get sent out with with the subject of the email having other words besides the name of the report and if that report is HTML only, it's embedded in the email, not an attachment, so we have no idea what the report name is.  Sux when users then ask for changes!

As an example, we have a report named PP80_BO_Parts

The subject of the email is:   "Report: Manufacturing PP80_BO_Parts"

In 11.1.7 we can put that whole string in the search and it's found.

In 11.2.4 in both FixPack 3 & 4, it will ONLY find the report if we start the search string with "PP".  You have to eliminate everything before it.

I have a support ticket open and they have confirmed the issue but they haven't been able to determine if search got broken or if that's just the new functionality of 11.2. Doesn't seem to be any documentation if it was a change and seems we're the first to have discovered it and opened a support ticket.

The reason I posted to this group is I'm curious if the search behavior in 12 - preferably more recent patches - is broken/mimics this as well.  Since we only started testing 11.2.4 FP3, I don't know if it's always been this way with 11.2 or if it got broken with later patches.

Thanks and best regards!

Wayne Westlake

------------------------------
Wayne Westlake
------------------------------