cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 

EPM Add-in: server report not opening - also COM Add-in doesn't look right

0 Kudos

We just started having this issue.  Our IT department has now released 2 new Windows workstation images where when we install the EPM Add-in, it ends up not working correctly (we're using EPM 10 for MS Platform, Add-in SP20 or SP25 depending upon bit config of Office, and Windows .NET - we have multiple configs enterprise-wide across over 300 end users).  Yes, 2 workstations isn't big in the scope of 300, but so far we haven't been able to find a solution and this is a new image, so there will be more of these if we don't figure out what the cause is now.

One workstation is a 32 bit workstation with 32 bit Office (.NET 3.5) and EPM SP20 installed (can't be upgraded due to limitation of another application used by end user), and the other workstation is a 64 bit workstation (.NET 4.0) with 32 bit Office (needed for some other applications end user uses), so we used EPM SP25 for this one.


The issue is that the EPM Add-in seems to install just fine -- and we've tried both the .exe and the .msp -- and while it mostly functions (you can connect to models, open EPM reports that are saved locally, and you can create new reports locally), it won't open server reports.  You click Open Server Report folder, select the report and then nothing happens.

(I saw that this symptom on another SCN thread in the Netweaver platform area , but that had to do with a back-up and restore and we've done none of that - and we're in MS platform, so it's a completely different scenario that I've dismissed as non-applicable.)

We're completely stymied.  We did notice that the install (and it was installed as administrator) in the COM add-in listing in Excel doesn't look right.  It looks like this (with the mscorree.dll location):

When I know that it should look like this:

Any ideas what's happening with it or other thoughts on troubleshooting?  All Windows and Office updates have been installed and no errors came up during installation or at any point when operating within the Add-in.

Thank you,

Susan

Accepted Solutions (0)

Answers (5)

Answers (5)

april_shultz
Participant
0 Kudos

Hi Susan,

I found that customers who got reimaged machines or new images it always included  .NET 1.1 and this caused alot of odd behaviors with applications using .NET 3.5. 2-3 years ago I even found a MS article about it.  If you guys have .NET 1.1 I would remove it, very old.

UAC still check that because I have seen people be able to install with no pop up and then later have other issues.  An example of this a user goes to schedule a data manager package and gets an error.... UAC on the application server prevents them from running it because they don't have enough permissions.  It is probably not that scenario but I just wanted to point out you don't always get that pop up.and later find it to be the issue.

Also for that one user check to see if he has other excel addins installed.
Another thing to check anti-virus I have seen in past where some DLL got corrupted from one.

Also Jon mentioned permissions on the file share, its possible.

I have seen similar issues in the past with AD group policies being the problem or permissions were not propegated all the way down.

April

0 Kudos

Oooh!  I'll definitely check on the .NET 1.1 piece.  Still waiting to hear back from the IT imaging group regarding the AD policies and I did pass along to check on UAC (although in the instance where I was present, I didn't see any indicator that UAC was turned on - it didn't intervene when we downloaded the EPM add-in from our remote portal).  Thank you for the great ideas!

Susan

former_member244885
Participant
0 Kudos

Sounds like a permission issue to the file share to me.

0 Kudos

We're currently exploring this -- the symptoms are exactly the same with both of these users, but slightly different with regard to behavior when it comes to the VPN.

One piece of access is controlled by a VPN group which I add active directory domain users into.  I've already tried removing and re-adding to the VPN group - no win.  So, that means that the user profile may be whack somewhere in AD, RACF and such.  I'm not in identity management, so I don't know what all they do with profiles at the root; I just pull from AD and call it good.

At any rate, one of the users has been having issues with her profile  in other systems as well.  For that same user, we were able to replicate - just yesterday afternoon after I had posted this question - that her workstation works when someone else is logged into the VPN - and she's able to pull up reports on her profile.  But, when logged in to the workstation on her VPN connection -- and even connecting to BPC with my credentials -- it doesn't work.  So, that really points to it being profile/permissions related in some manner.  In her instance.

For the other guy, it doesn't seem to matter who's logged into his workstation - it's not going to work.  And, I brought over my laptop for him to try and he logged in to the VPN on it and then it worked beautifully for him.  This points to it being his workstation.

So, we have the same symptom, but two different scenarios and possible causes.  Ay ay ay.

former_member186498
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

... and verify also that all sw version are ok for your bpc version and sp, see please 1678822 - BPC 7.0 / 7.5 / 10.0 / 10.1 for Microsoft: Third Party Software Support Matrix

Regards

     Roberto

0 Kudos

Yup versions are all correct.

april_shultz
Participant
0 Kudos

Hi Susan,

The MSCOREE.DLL is part of the microsoft library so interesting that it shows in the location path the way it does in the screen shot. I agree with Robert's possible assessment of what it could be but also have alot of questions.

What OS is on these 2 new images?
What Office version? Example is it Office home edition?

What all .NET versions are on these 2 machines for instance does it have .NET 1.1 with 3.5
Are any other addins installed in Excel other than the EPM addin?
Where is the location of the MScoree.DLL on these 2 machines located?
Is UAC enabled? If so disable and reinstall.
There could be a problem with your Office install affecting the EPM addin install in some cases customers do a repair on office or try reinstalling Office then reinstall the EPM addin.
Do these users have 2 different versions of Excel/office on these machines?
Have you looked at the client machine application and security event logs to see if any errors are refrenced?

Thanks

April

0 Kudos

This reply has so many things to try - thank you, April!

For some answers:

OS is windows 7 on both

Office is Office Professional -- both are 2013.

One workstation is 64 bit with 32 bit Office 2013

We went with .NET 4.0 SP25 for 32 bit Office: EPM Addin Support Package 25.msp,

I did see that this workstation had many older versions of .NET installed including 3.5, so we also tried SP20 3.5 (SP20 is the highest version I have for the 32 bit/.NET 3.5 Office/MS .NET Framework machines).

We needed to install Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 into this workstation, but didn't reinstall 2013.

We didn't reinstall any of the .NET Framework versions.  Different departments and different desktop support staff so different escalation protocols and ways of dealing with things.

One workstation is 32 bit with 32 bit Office 2013 so we went with .NET 3.5 SP20.

We also checked to ensure appropriate .NET framework was installed and even reinstalled it.

We reinstalled Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 and 2013.

With this department, the desktop support installed a brand new image into a desktop workstation of a staff member who had just left the department, installed EPM into it and had their EPM user test it out with the same result.  This was a 64 bit workstation with 64 bit Office.  That really leaves me clueless.  I didn't test, myself, in this revamped workstation, but rather took their words for it.

Again, we've uninstalled and reinstalled BPC, deleted and recreated connections and completely destroyed and rebuilt the user profiles (as much as we can - me in BPC Admin and with removing/adding from the VPN group).

I don't think UAC was disabled, but it didn't pop-up during installation -- and it was installed as administrator.

In both instances, MS Office 2013 Pro was reinstalled.

I didn't look to see where mscoree.dll is - I'll add that to the list of things to check-on.

I haven't looked at security event logs - that's a good idea!

Thanks for the ideas - it's given us more things to try!

former_member186498
Active Contributor
0 Kudos

Hi Susan,

it seems that the epm addin is not well installed maybe before on the machine was an old bpc version installed.

Try uninstalling all versions of bpc, delete the PC_MS folder and also Outlooksoft folder if present, search and delete all osoft... files inside the workstation and after that reinstall epm addin again.


Regards

     Roberto

0 Kudos

One of these machine images is brand new and another is not -- and worked fine a year ago (the last time the end use needed to input budgets into EPM - not a power user so only uses about once/year).  The other is a new machine image.  And in both instances, we also uninstalled and re-installed a number of times.  That's just about the #1 troubleshooting item in our fix EPM heuristic.   However, I will say, we didn't actually go so far as to delete the PC_MS folder and scour for traces of Osoft, so that's something we'll try.  Thank you.