The Hard Way

Problems connecting to Microsoft SSAS 2008

Ricke — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 20:47:36 +0000

One of our workstations at the office developed issues connecting to Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services 2008 on one specific server. No users on the workstation could connect to AS on one server, though they could connect to other AS servers. The same users could connect to the server from a different workstation. The issue appeared to be specifically between one workstation and one server. The client was Windows 7, and the server Windows 2003.

When connecting with SQL Server Management Studio, an error would pop up almost immediately stating “An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host.” If we tried connecting through Excel 2007’s external data wizard, we got the error “The following system error occurred: The security database on the server does not have a computer account for this workstation trust relationship.”

After a good deal of searching, I finally found a suggestion for a solution at the following link:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en/sqlanalysisservices/thread/b058635f-6d3e-4240-a555-1dbd945ae25a

About 2/3 of the way down the page, user hesmith posts a comment with the solution. He suggests three different options, all of which should work, from what I’ve read. However, the one I tried was option 2, which suggested uninstalling the Windows Live Sign-in Assistant (if it’s installed, it will be listed under Programs and Features). Uninstalling it and rebooting the computer resolved the problem immediately, and connecting to Analysis Services once again worked.

“Access is denied” connecting to WAS-hosted WCF service using impersonation

Ricke — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 20:49:07 +0000

This error actually pertains to any IIS-hosted .Net Framework application that utilizes impersonation, but I ran into it implementing a WAS-hosted WCF service in Windows 2008. It rears its ugly head in the form of an exception message in the following format: “Could not load file or assembly *insert random assembly here* or one of its dependencies. Access is denied.” The assembly can be any of the many DLLs that you have in your bin\ directory for the application, and the error does not always appear, only intermittently. Restarting IIS, or changing files (forcing the app pool to cycle) will sometimes solve the problem temporarily, but never permanently.

The solution is to give all impersonated users write permissions to the ASP.Net temp directory (“%systemroot%\Microsoft .Net\Framework\v2.0.50727\Temporary ASP.NET Files” in the case of the 2.0/30/3.5 versions). MSDN talks briefly about the permissions needed for various Framework directories for impersonation and process users here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa719568.aspx I believe the problem is caused by the .Net Framework dynamically compiling portions of the app and/or referencing new DLLs for the first time as the impersonated user, and not being able to copy them to the temp directory. Obvious from the exception message, eh?

Giving Back

Ricke — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:06:14 +0000

For a long time, I’ve toyed around with the idea of having some sort of repository for my various geek conquests. The purpose of said repository would be twofold. First, were I ever to need to duplicate a given feat of geekery in my older, more forgetful years, I’d be able to search for how I did it the first time. Second, by posting my solutions online, where Google could find them, I’d hopefully be saving other geeks from hours of hair-pulling accompanied by statements of “I can’t believe I can’t find this answer *anywhere* on Google.” Today the era of idea-toying comes to an end, and a new age of useful answers to arcane programming questions begins.

My hope is that each time I’m programming and solve a problem that is either hard to find on Google, or not found on Google, I’ll write a post about it, including the various tags I used to search for the solution, thus making it easier for the next person to find the answer. Admittedly, I may never post again, or I may post snippets that probably could easily found elsewhere, just because I can, but hey, that’s my prerogative, right? You should just be glad I didn’t title this post “Hello World,” though I certainly came close. So there you have it: the birth of yet another half-attended programming blog on the Internet. Huzzah.