You know why i’ve started this blog in the first place? To get advice, of course. And today DesiCresnet shared a wonderfull piece of information concerning memory troubles in BI 8.3.

Those who aren’t struck by occasional CAM-AAA-0071 “An internal error occurred” which stops the whole server can skip this post.

This error was discussed at:

http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/forums/thread.jspa?threadID=244357 http://www.cognoise.com/community/index.php?topic=4971.0

The story goes like this:

• java.exe (that powers BI), grows up to the point where it cannot obtain contigious memory from server and crashes
• Cognos BI doesn’t recognize this error, so it throws out a general CAM-AAA-0071
• Cognos BI is unaccessible until restart

This error occurs more often in heavy-usage enviroments. In one of our projects, with lots of Event triggered admin-links and reports, it took only a coulple of hours before it striked.

Solution is not complete, but as I see it now:

1. Put the latest SP on BI (or a special hotfix, if one is avalaible)
2. Lower the avalaible memory for Cognos BI service (to 768 mbs)
3. Modify the HeapDecommitFreeBlockThreshold registry property

It’s interesting if 8.4 is prone to such error.

PS: I’m a certified Cognos Technical Specialist now as well. Need to get first-line support partnership, you know )