Deleting Offline Folders with Vista

Posted on 17/02/2009 by Alistair Hunt

How do I delete offline folders from a Vista machine when there is no connection to the server?

There was an issue with Vista that it would not allow you to delete or rename folders that were cached by Offline Folders when you were working offline. The fix to this issue is available here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/942845/en-us. I found that since I was already using Vista SP1 the actual hotfix was not required I just needed to insert the relevant registry entries and reboot my machine.

SQL Server 2008 And Dundas Charts

Posted on 10/02/2009 by Alistair Hunt

Using Dundas Charts with SQL Server 2008 Reorting Services

Looking at SQL Server 2008 and in particular Reporting Services I have been interested in the new functionality that has been added and things that have changed since 2005. In particular I wanted to know which bits of the functionality within Dundas Charts that Microsoft had included with 2008. Fi you want a quick summary of whats not included take a look at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/956028. Basically if you have any existing Dundas charts in SSRS 2005 that use code then the 2008 charts that are shipped with SSRS will not be transferable.

Since Dundas did not sell everything to Microsoft the solution is to use Dundas’ own 2008 version of their charts. You can download evaluation edition, Version 2.2 is currently available at the time of writing and can be installed with SSRS 2008. Just to make things interesting, when I tried to install this version on a Windows 2008 Server running SQL Server 2008 the Wise Installation would hang whilst determining the disk space. To try and solve the problem I ran the installation again with logging using the following command line “C:JunkDCR22SQL10EVAL.exe” /L*v “C:JunkInstallLog.txt” /I and this time the installtion completed without any problems. I didnt even need to review the log file.

Having got the control installed successfully my next task is to import a SSRS 2005 chart that uses code and see if it runs with the next version on SSRS2008. Stay tuned for more details….

Beeping Computers !

Posted on 10/02/2009 by Alistair Hunt

Disable the anoying system beeps within Terminal Services

Whilst I have been working on a Windows 2008 Server remotely using RDP I found that even though the Windows Audio service is disabled and I chose not to play my remote computer sounds from the RDP settings (see below) I was still getting the system beeps passed through to my machine.

To solve the problem requires a little registry hack. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlTerminal Server and set the DisableBeep (REG_DWORD) key to 0x1. A quick rebbot later and the system beeps are gone.

Microsoft.ReportingServices.Diagnostics.Utilities.AccessDeniedException

Posted on 26/11/2008 by Alistair Hunt

The permissions granted to user ‘DOMAINusername’ are insufficient for performing this operation. (rsAccessDenied) .

This error had been bugging me for a few hours and it occurs in numerous areas of SSRS so tracking down the problem was a pain. Here was my specific problem;

I had a domain user that only had permissions to see reports from one particular folder (and sub-folders) on the Report Server.
The user had been assigned the Content Manager role and could upload and run reports.
The problem ocurred when the user wanted to edit the properties of the report and then they would get the above error.

After a bit of digging around it seems that if your user does not have any permissions at the root level (Home folder) then they are not allowed to change any of the settings within a report, regardless of their current role assignment. In this case the solution was straight forward. I just added my domain user to the root folder with a Browser role. Since my root folder security settings were not propogating to any sub folders the user only has permission to access their particular reports and could now amend the properties for them as well.

For more information on the above error, take a look at;

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa337279(SQL.90).aspx – rsAccessedDenied (SQL Server Books Online 2005)
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms156014(SQL.90).aspx – Managing Permissions and Security for Reporting Services

Simultaneous Lookups using Full Cache to the same table

Posted on 21/11/2008 by Alistair Hunt

Creating multiple simultaneous Lookups to the same table that use Full cache.

Whilst developing a DTSX package for my ETL process I came across an issue that had me stumped for a while. If you have multiple Lookup Data Flow items in your packge that perform lookups to the same table then you may encounter a situation where the second lookup to a table generates an error in the package.

In the package (above) my calls to to the Lookup table (Segment 2(2) & Segment 3(2)) are made simultaneously and using identical code, however the second request fails with the following error;

A quick bit of research indicated that caching may have been the issue here – https://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=4010917&SiteID=17 – but I have found an alternative solution to the problem that allows you to keep your caching set to Full. If you change your Lookup Data Flow item such that the lookup columns are defined in a SQL Query and you include a unique alias for the tablename, you can then lookup values in the same table multiple times in the same package using Full cache mode.

Its more straight forward than you think.

Posted on 07/11/2008 by Alistair Hunt

Passing MultiValue paramaters to a Stored Procedure in Reporting Services.

I have been working on a Reporting Services report that contained a MultiValue select list as one of the parameters and I needed to pass this comma separated list of values to my stored procedure. I had prepared my stored procedure so that it contained a user defined function to split out the values into a table and had tested my stored procedure independently of the report. My problems occurred when I tried to run my report and select multiple from my list. I would end up with the following error – ‘must declare scalar variable @VarName’. To confuse things a little further, if I just selected one item from the MultiValue list then my report would run fine.

The answer, according to other enlightend ssrs users, comes from the method used to define your dataset. I had originally defined my dataset using the Text Command Type to call the stored procedure. E.g. EXEC myStoredProc @MultiValueParam. To get stored procedures to use the multivalue paramaters the dataset needs to be created with a Stored Procedure Command Type and then define the parameters within the Parameters tab.

After making the change my report would run successfully using my multivalue prameters.

ISV.Config.xml Entries

Posted on 09/10/2008 by Alistair Hunt

Unusual ISV.Config.xml behaviour.

Recently one of our clients had mentioned that a small piece of their Microsoft CRM 3.0 functionality was not functioning correctly, namely a customised button. To make it easier for certain CRM users to create new Products in the Product Catalog I had added a new Grid button to the Products entity.

This displayed a blank Product form ready to create new entries and meant that they did not have to navigate to the Product Catalog section in the Settings area. This was particuarly useful as the Product Catalog cannot be accessed from within the Outlook client since the settings area is not exposed to the Outlook client. The button was placed on the grid by editing the ISV.Config.xml and adding the following entry;

I had tested this button in test environment before transfering the code to the clients server and everything worked fine. That was until the other day when a number of users recieved a new machine with a fresh install of the CRM. The install went smoothly as I had made sure they had uninstalled the Outlook client from their old machines before installing it onto the new ones. When they clicked on the ‘New’ Product button to open up the form there was no option to Save or Save and Close.

I knew nothing had changed on the server, so I checked the settings for the Intranet Zone to see if they were configured correctly or were causing the problem but they were all fine. After more head scratching and web surfing I decided to try something and removed the Sales Manager Role from one of the users who had this issue. (The Sales Manager has permissions to create Products). They only had one Role so I just added the Sales Manager Role back to the user and got them to try the button again. This time it worked and the user had the ability to save changes to the new product.

So although nothing had changed within the system, for some reason the CRM Server needed its security roles refreshing to allow the user to operate with functionality defined within the ISV.Config.xml file.

dtproj File Error

Posted on 30/09/2008 by Alistair Hunt

"There was an error generating the XML document."

I have been developing a number of items in a multi-project solution within BIDS (Business Intelligence Developer Studio) and then the other day, after adding a new DTSX package to my SSIS project, I started to get an error saving the project file (dtproj). All the Visual Studio message box would tell me is ‘There was an error generating the XML document.’ and then I was presented with the ‘Save File As’ dialog box. To fix the problem I tried…

Overwriting the dtproj file when the ‘Save File As’ dialog box was displayed.
Checking the dtproj file back in SourceSafe.
Closing the solution, without saving the changes to the project, re-opening the solution, re-adding the new DTSX file and saving the project file changes.
Getting an earlier version of the dtproj file from SourceSafe and re-insterting the existing items to the project and saving the project file changes.

All of the above attempts proved to be in vain as I was just presented with the same message box. After checking my dtproj file differences within SourceSafe it occurred to me that I should edit the dtproj file within Notepad and see if that resolved the problem. I added a couple of new entries into the dtproj file for the new items that were included in my SSIS project and saved the changes. When I clicked back to my open project, Visual Studio recognised that changes had been made to the dtproj file and asked me if I wished to reload the file? I clicked ‘Yes’, the project file reloaded successfully and have been able to continue working with my SSIS project without further error messages.

Error generated loading DTSX file into IDE

Posted on 12/09/2008 by Alistair Hunt

"Unable to instantiate XML DOM document, please verify that MSXML binaries are properly installed and registered."

I have recently been developing some DTSX packages on my laptop within my VS 2005 IDE and needed to continue the work on a remote machine the following day. Having checked my files into the source control and got the latest version on the remote machine I attempted to open the same packages from within the VS 2005 IDE on the remote machine. The same packages that I had completed the previous day on my laptop were refusing to open cleanly, presenting me with a numbr of error messages and had lost the Data Flow items in my package.

Knowing that I had my files under source control, and stored on my laptop, I knew I could retrieve the files again without too much hassle but I needed to find out why they were not loading successfully in this particular IDE. A quick search of the digital cloud provided this little nugget of information http://bisqlserver.blogspot.com/2008/05/ssis-error-opening-packages-msxml.html. Having applied the suggested solution on the remote machine I was able to open my packages without any errors or loss of content.

VS 2005 SP1 Installation Problem

Posted on 12/09/2008 by Alistair Hunt

"The installation source for this product is not available."

I recently had to install VS 2005 SP1 on a Windows 2003 server that was hosting a development environment. After firing up the setup process I was presented with this error message on my screen;

Looking in the Event Log I also found this entry around the time the error message was generated;

Event Type:Error
Event Source:MsiInstaller
Event Category:None
Event ID:1008
Date:12/18/2006
Time:12:18:31 PM

Description:
The installation of C:DOCUME~1…LOCALS~1TempZNWA0VS80sp1-KB926601-X86-ENU.msp is not permitted due to an error in software restriction policy processing. The object cannot be trusted.

After doing a bit of research I came across others who had experienced the same problem and they directed me to this Knowledge Base artcile http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/925336 which provided the solution. After applying the update and rebooting the server I was able to install the Service Pack.