Analysis services query timeout from SSIS

Hi,

I've just developed a simple integration services package which picks up a list of MDX queries from a table then runs them against our Cube using a .NET OleDb connection and saves the results to a csv file.

Unfortunately the queries frequently timeout, despite the fact that the Timeout property on the Connection Manager is set to 100000 and the Connect Timeout property is set to 600.

I have some logging on the packages and this revels that the queries will often timeout after less than 60 seconds with the error below:
<<Query>> failed with the following error: "XML for Analysis parser: The XML for Analysis request timed out before it was completed.". Possible failure reasons: Problems with the query, "ResultSet" property not set correctly, parameters not set correctly, or connection not established correctly.

Looking at the properties of the connection manager, I can see that the ConnectionString which has been generated is:
Data Source=Server;Initial Catalog=CubeName;Provider=MSOLAP.3;Integrated Security=SSPI;Connect Timeout=600;Auto Synch Period=1000;Timeout=100000;

Subsequent re-running of the package will often succeed, I'm guessing this is because the Cube has cached the query result and is able to return it fast enough.

Is there an additional timeout property that I'm missing somewhere?

Your help is much appreciated!

-Stuart

Perhaps try ExternalCommandTimeout? (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2005/ssasproperties.mspx)|||Chris Webb built a "cache warming" prototype using SSIS and I think he found a way around this issue, you can find the post on his blog about this at http://cwebbbi.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!7B84B0F2C239489A!1062.entry|||

Hi,

Sorry for the delay in replying and thanks for your suggestions. It seems that Chris Webb's solution was to ignore the timeout, which was fine given that he was building a cache warmer and didn't actually need to get the results. Given that I did need the results I decided to try and build some retry logic into my SSIS package.

I had a very clear and simple idea in my mind of how this would work. I would simply add an additional flow connector to the Execute SQL task with a Failure & Expression constraint where @.RetryCount < @.MaxRetries, then I would flow into a script task to increment @.RetryCount then back into the same Execute SQL task. Unfortunately though SSIS will not allow this as this would result in looping dependency.

The somewhat contrived solution I have now come up with is to extract my MDX Query list into a .NET Dataset pointed to by an SSIS Object variable, onto which I add an additional column to keep track of the number of retires. I then loop over the dataset and in the event of a query failing, I copy the row in the dataset and add it to the bottom, incrementing RetryCount.

It seems like a crazy solution to the problem of a query timing out. Is anyone at Microsoft aware that the Execute SQL task will timeout after 30 seconds when using an ADO .NET OleDb Connection with the Analysis Services provider, regardless of what you set the timeouts to be?

-Stuart