Starting OLAP Services

About service modes

OLAP Services operates either in manual or automatic mode. It is set initially to run in manual mode so that it only starts when you explicitly restart it. However, you can set OLAP Services to run in automatic mode, so that it restarts automatically whenever you restart your computer or the service environment.

Procedure: Starting an OLAP service

Follow these steps to start an OLAP service:

1. Open Instance Manager by taking the steps listed in "Procedure: Opening Instance Manager".

2. Click the plus sign (+) to the left of the OLAP service that you want to start.

   A tree of options expands under the service name.

3. Choose Instance.

   You see the State page of the Instance sheet.

   Note: If you want to change the startup mode, then choose the Properties sheet.

4. Select Service Start, then choose Apply.

   Instance Manager will start the selected OLAP service.

Figure: Instance page

The following figure shows the State page of the Instance sheet:

Problems starting an OLAP service

Upon installation, the environment variables and configuration settings used by OLAP Services during startup are set correctly. However, in the course of reconfiguring a service, installing other products, and so forth, you might make changes that will prevent OLAP Services from starting.

The following are some of the most common reasons why an OLAP service fails to start:

• The current primary Oracle home is not the Oracle9i home directory. You must change it back and restart the OLAP service environment. After starting OLAP Services, you can change the primary Oracle home as necessary.

• The value of TNS_ADMIN does not point to $ORACLE_HOME/network/admin.

• OLAP Services cannot authenticate itself through the RDBMS. The values of TNS_ALIAS, the proxy user name and password, or the DBA user and password are incorrect. Test these values by using them in SQL*Worksheet or SQL*Plus to log into the RDBMS. If you cannot log in, then do the following:
  • Check for valid service names by using Net8 Assistant or by viewing the content of tnsnames.ora (located in the network/admin subdirectory of Oracle home).

  • Check that the proxy user and the DBA user identified in Instance Manager are defined in the database with the identical credentials. For more information, refer to "OLAP Services identities".

• The OracleServiceName setting (located on the Security page under Parameters in Instance Manager) points to an invalid database alias. The value of OracleServiceName must match the value of TNS_ALIAS.

• The ServerDBPath setting (located on the I/O Management page under Parameters in Instance Manager) is invalid. Verify that the olap/db subdirectory is first in the list. Check the names of the other directories to make sure that they exist and are spelled correctly.

• The maximum number of connections have been made to the database. You might need to increase the connection limit.

OLAP Services sends messages to log files to help you diagnose any problems. You can access these log files through Instance Manager. For information about viewing these files, refer to "Viewing Status Messages".

Problems connecting to a service

If OLAP API applications cannot connect to an instance of OLAP Services that you know is up and running, then the problem might be that an environment variable has been reset and no longer points to the needed directories. The correct paths are set by a file named olap.prm (located in the olap subdirectory of Oracle home), which runs during startup of the service environment. You can run this file manually or restart the service environment.

Some platforms require that the OSAgentAddr and OSAgentPort configuration parameters be set for the OLAP API to locate that OLAP service. Check the values of these parameters, and refer to Instance Manager Help for information about the appropriate setting for your platform.

Related information

For information about starting an OLAP service, search Instance Manager Help for the following topics:

"Customizing OLAP Service Initialization"

"Starting a Service"

To learn about performing these tasks in a command-line or batch mode, refer to "Command-line Administration". In OLAP Service Manager, get help on the following commands: listservices, start, status, setstartupmode.