Sorry to repost about this, but something was apparently wrong with my
profile that was keeping the MS support engineers from seeing my messages. I
hope y'all can see this one.

I am seeing an interesting, inconsistant error in Analysis Services queries.

I have a MOLAP cube with a big dimension (about 6 million members). I have
the VLDMThreshold set to about 10 million on the server -- otherwise
processing the cube takes forever. The dimension is relatively flat, so I
have a hidden grouping level between the top level and the leaf level. The
leaf level has Unsigned Big Integer keys (the member key is the same as the
member name), and both member keys and member names are set to true.

After opening a connection to the cube, the first time I slice on the big
dimension, I get a "Formula error - cannot find dimension member - in a
name-binding function." If I execute the SAME query again with the
connection still open, the query succeeds. If I close the connection, reopen
it, and execute the query again, it fails again. This is true whether I make
the query via the MDX sample application or via a VB.Net object.

The problem doesn't happen when I make the keys Varchars. But when they are
Varchars, the dimension is larger, and so the server frequently runs out of
memory.

In my VB.Net, I'm working around the problem by manually opening the
connection to the cube, catching the Formula Error exception and running the
query again before closing the connection. But maybe I'm missing something?
Anyone seen this problem? Anyone gotten this to work without having to run
the same query twice?

-- J

Hello,

Based on my research, this seems to be a issue that with having a BigInt
datatype in SQL Server and Drilling down in a parent child dimension. This
resulted in geting the error.

The wordaround now is changing the BigInt Datatype to String. You may want
to add more grouping levels into the dimension so that you will not
encounter memory issue.

If you want to a fix for this issue, I suggest that you open a Support
incident with Microsoft Product Support Services so that a dedicated
Support Professional can assist with this case. They will evaluate the
business impact and plan for appropriate action for the issue.

For a complete list of Microsoft Product Support Services phone numbers,
please go to the following address on the World Wide Web:
http://support.microsoft.com/directory/overview.asp

Regards,

Peter Yang
MCSE2000/2003, MCSA, MCDBA
Microsoft Online Partner Support

When responding to posts, please "Reply to Group" via your newsreader so
that others may learn and benefit from your issue.

================================================== ===


This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.




--------------------

Peter,

Thanks for your response.

"Peter Yang [MSFT]" wrote:
Thanks, but adding more levels isn't really a good solution for me. I
prefer my current workaround (to query multiple times on the same connection.

Am I going to have to pay for that support call?

Regards,

Jonathan

Hello Jonathan,

In special cases, charges that are ordinarily incurred for support calls
may be canceled if a Microsoft Support Professional determines that the
issue is a known issue or bug.

Regards,

Peter Yang
MCSE2000/2003, MCSA, MCDBA
Microsoft Online Partner Support

When responding to posts, please "Reply to Group" via your newsreader so
that others may learn and benefit from your issue.

================================================== ===

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.




--------------------

I had the same problem once - after openning the connection I got "cannot
find dimension member" error, but from the 2nd run on evrything went fine.
Apparently I was sure that the database is ok as I just archived and restored
it from the other server where it was working fine.

The solution for me was to delete the dimension and recreate it through
Analysis Manager. After this the same query started to work normally, i.e.
from 1st run.

For some reason re-creating the dimension through DSO didn't help and only
manually re-creating it through Analysis Manager helped.

"Jonathan Levine" wrote:

I had the same problem once - after openning the connection I got "cannot
find dimension member" error, but from the 2nd run on evrything went fine.
Apparently I was sure that the database is ok as I just archived and restored
it from the other server where it was working fine.

The solution for me was to delete the dimension and recreate it through
Analysis Manager. After this the same query started to work normally, i.e.
from 1st run.

For some reason re-creating the dimension through DSO didn't help and only
manually re-creating it through Analysis Manager helped.

"Jonathan Levine" wrote:

I had the same problem once - after openning the connection I got "cannot
find dimension member" error, but from the 2nd run on evrything went fine.
Apparently I was sure that the database is ok as I just archived and restored
it from the other server where it was working fine.

The solution for me was to delete the dimension and recreate it through
Analysis Manager. After this the same query started to work normally, i.e.
from 1st run.

For some reason re-creating the dimension through DSO didn't help and only
manually re-creating it through Analysis Manager helped.

"Jonathan Levine" wrote:

I had the same problem once - after openning the connection I got "cannot
find dimension member" error, but from the 2nd run on evrything went fine.
Apparently I was sure that the database is ok as I just archived and restored
it from the other server where it was working fine.

The solution for me was to delete the dimension and recreate it through
Analysis Manager. After this the same query started to work normally, i.e.
from 1st run.

For some reason re-creating the dimension through DSO didn't help and only
manually re-creating it through Analysis Manager helped.

"Jonathan Levine" wrote:

I had the same problem once - after openning the connection I got "cannot
find dimension member" error, but from the 2nd run on evrything went fine.
Apparently I was sure that the database is ok as I just archived and restored
it from the other server where it was working fine.

The solution for me was to delete the dimension and recreate it through
Analysis Manager. After this the same query started to work normally, i.e.
from 1st run.

For some reason re-creating the dimension through DSO didn't help and only
manually re-creating it through Analysis Manager helped.

"Jonathan Levine" wrote:

I had the same problem once - after openning the connection I got "cannot
find dimension member" error, but from the 2nd run on evrything went fine.
Apparently I was sure that the database is ok as I just archived and restored
it from the other server where it was working fine.

The solution for me was to delete the dimension and recreate it through
Analysis Manager. After this the same query started to work normally, i.e.
from 1st run.

For some reason re-creating the dimension through DSO didn't help and only
manually re-creating it through Analysis Manager helped.

"Jonathan Levine" wrote: