IBM Cognos Statistics error RSV-CCP-0005 OXML not found

The Problem

When installing Cognos Statistics, the installation may go smoothly except when trying to run a report, such as the included sample reports, you get an error RSV-CCP-0005 ‘OXML not found’.

OXML is the output file from SPSS, the statistics software acquired by IBM and integrated into a product that adds Statistics processing and graphing on to IBM Cognos Business Intelligence.  It turns out that the root cause of this error is that IBM Cognos Statistics cannot be installed in a directory with a space in the directory path.  See this IBM note: Space in the install path causes RSV-CCP-0005 error when opening or running Statistics reports.

This is unfortunate, because the overwhelming majority of the time people install Cognos BI under ‘Program Files’  or ‘Program Files (x86)’ and Cognos Statistics can naturally be installed in the same directory.

The Solution

Install Cognos Statistics in a directory with no spaces in the path, say, “c:\IBMCognosStatistics”.  Now, there will be a separate service and it needs a different port address than the IBM Cognos BI Server.  When you run Cognos Configuration for Cognos Statistics (assuming it’s the same server), use the same URL’s, except change the port number.  For example, instead of 9300, use 9310.  Do this for the dispatchers, the logging port and the shutdown port.  Only leave the Content Manager port the same as Cognos.  This is because it will communicate with Cognos BI Server through the same Content Store.

Be sure Cognos BI is up and running before setting this configuration because it will need the Content Manager service for encryption and registering the new service.  When you save and start, there will be a new service under Windows Services for Statistics.  Ideally, you will start IBM Cognos service before the IBM Cognos Statistics service and conversely, shut down the Statistics service before shutting down the Cognos BI service.

Comments

Anecdotally, this error began with version 10.1, but I haven’t confirmed this.  It seems the kind of problem that should be fixed in future releases.  Maintaining a separate install outside of the standard area is undesirable.

In a green field situation where you are starting from an empty server, you might consider installing Cognos BI and Cognos Statistics in the same directory with no spaces in the path.  In this case, there will be only one configuration and you won’t need separate ports or a separate service.