Data Analysis Views Not Responding

P

ProjectAnalyst

We just put in Project Server 2007 (have not implemented SP1 yet).

My Data Analysis views lock whenever I try to drill down into them, for
example, trying to expand a resource row to see which projects they are
assigned to. The data report contains Actual Work by Week.

The application logs on the database server have an error over and over
again, "Login failed for user ProjectServerUser", but those seem to happen
all the time, so I don't think it's related.
 
P

ProjectAnalyst

Additionally, it appears that when the views hang, something is going wrong
with Analysis Services as well. Yesterday my entire database server had to
be restarted.
 
G

Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]

PA:

Your message contains language that indicates you are using 2003. Based on
this, I suggest that you download the editsite tool from Microsoft for your
version 2002 or 2003, and run the test site feature and report your results
back here. The error in your application log indicates a very serious
problem and your symptoms back that up.

--

Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
MSProjectExperts
For Project Server Consulting: http://www.msprojectexperts.com
For Project Server FAQS: http://www.projectserverexperts.com
 
P

ProjectAnalyst

Thanks Gary. I'm not sure what I said, but we've definitely moved to Project
Server 2007.

When I try to drill down into a column in the Data Analysis views, IE hangs
and never responds. It appears that somehow this is making Analysis Services
hang as well, because ultimately users start calling me to say that they
can't access their tasks. I have to restart Analysis Services to resolve the
issue.

I'm just not familiar enough with Analysis Services to figure out where the
issue is.
 
G

Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]

The quote that threw me was: Login failed for user "ProjectServerUser"

This was a SQL account created by Project Server 2003 installation and used
in SQL to access the data. It should not be relevant in 2007, which uses
Windows accounts. Perhaps a leftover from migration? Did you kill your old
2003 site and remove the logon from SQL. If not, the error may be related to
your old world, and not the new one.

As for the Analysis Services problem, it sounds like you might be
overwhelming the server with the view. Did you make heavy use of the time
dimension? Is there an unusual amount of data in the system? You should
definitely install SP1 and the rollup hotfix package.

--

Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
MSProjectExperts
For Project Server Consulting: http://www.msprojectexperts.com
For Project Server FAQS: http://www.projectserverexperts.com
 
P

ProjectAnalyst

I knew that ProjectSErverUser was from 2003, and I suddenly realize that we
actually still have the 2003 environment up and running, and it uses an
identical service account, so that might be the entire problem. I'll turn
off the old environment ASAP.

The 2007 view I'm using doesn't have much data, in my opinion, but it does
attempt to use all the various dimensions, Project, Resource, Task, and Time
to deliver weekly actuals that are filtered by project group, task type,
resource type, etc. It's sad though that Project 2003 was better at
delivering this data than 2007.

I'm convinced if I understood the new cube structure better I could make
this thing work.

Will follow your advice and install SP1, and research the rollup, which I
was unaware of. Thanks!
 
G

Gary L. Chefetz [MVP]

I think you need to explore the new cube structure because I find this much
richer than the 2003 environment, although not without its own annoyances!
There are also some known issues with Analysis Services 2005 that can cause
slow performance, but we'd need to know more about your system, and how
heavily populated the system is, and the type of view you're building to
determine whether any of these might apply.

--

Gary L. Chefetz, MVP
MSProjectExperts
For Project Server Consulting: http://www.msprojectexperts.com
For Project Server FAQS: http://www.projectserverexperts.com
 
P

ProjectAnalyst

Gary, just thought you'd like to know: Once I had the Project Server 2003
system turned off, the Data Analysis tool started working great. I haven't
really had any problems since then.

I'm pretty sure that somehow the fact that I used the same service account
in both Project SErver 2003 and Project Server 2007 was the problem, although
I have competely separate hardware, so I'm not sure exactly what was wrong.
But the endless errors associated with "ProjectServerUser" on the Analysis
server have stopped, and performance is generally a vast improvement over
2003.

Thanks for helping out on this site!
 
P

ProjectAnalyst

Gary, I agree.

And just to be clear for anyone else who reads this.....my SQL Server
instances are on separate physical servers (and different versions of SQL
too!)...not just a single instance of SQL Server.

I am going to assume that somehow the network authentication was recognizing
my service account's "alter ego" as ProjectServerUser from the 2003
implementation. Maybe something to do with network impersonation or
delegation.
 
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