Catastrophic failure

Hello there!

We have recently upgraded our SQL server to SQL server 2003.
Not entierly without problems i might ad..

The latest one is if you via Excel (2000 or 2003 is tested) try to make a local cube file, using the built-in query wizard, you get an errormessage that only say "Catastrophic failure" and nothing else.

If you instead of using the wizard, do the same thing directly in MsQuery (uncheck the box at the first "new database query window") you dont get the error.

Why!? Many of our users does not have the knowledge on how to write SQL querys and find the wizard very useful. So it is not an option to have them using MsQuery.

And ideas?

From the reference to cube I assume that you are trying to access Analysis Services. I will be moving the thread to the "Data Mining" forum, which has a higher chance to provide an answer.

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Well.. That is not correct..

You can create a "local cube" directly from any datasource in Excel..

Call it a lightversion.. ;)

//P?r

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[moving thread to the Analyis Services forum]

Did you install Excel or other Office components after you installed SQL Server 2005? In that case, you'll need to re-register "Program Files\Common Files\System\Ole DB\msolap90.dll" to regain connectivity to AS 2005 servers and local cubes.

FYI: The local cube functionality in Excel is provided by a "local server" version of Analysis Services.

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Well.. We first tried with the old installation of office 2000 and got the same error, but then we installed 2003 with no success.

But why does it work if you not use the query wizard?

|||If you've upgraded to 2005, the other thing you may want to do is download the SP1 update (which is available soon) as it fixes some issues with local cubes as well, although this may not be the issue you are seeing here.|||

We have now updated to SP1. But the problem remains.

Works without the wizard.. (using MsQuery)

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Not sure if you're seeing the same issue, but there was a recent fix made for the OLEDB provider in an upcoming service pack to accomodate an issue where the connection string was being limited to 256 characters when taking a cube offline from XL. You could try to choose a very short path for the local cube and see if this avoids the error.

Sorry you hit this issue and I hope that helps.