Analysis Services Processing Freezes or Hangs

Currently I have multiple Analysis Services databases on multiple servers. On occassion, when processing these databases it will freeze or hang. Sometime the problem is the database structure, sometimes it is the back end source tables being locked, etc. The only way I can terminate the processing is to kill the dev environment or management studio. This causes problems because the next time the database is opened, it will not process or save. The only solution I found is restarting Analysis Services. Is there some way to force stop processing without damaging the database and leaving connections open?

It might be possible to open a second instance of SSMS and use XMLA to discover the sessions or connections and then cancel the one that it stuck. But sometimes the server can take a while to respond to these commands if it is "stuck".

You can also use the xmlaDiscover class from the Analysis Services Stored Procedure project http://www.codeplex.com/ASStoredProcedures/Wiki/View.aspx?title=XmlaDiscover&referringTitle=Home which lets you manage this a bit simpler by running a command like:

CALL ASSP.DiscoverConnections()

which displays the current connections in a grid, and then:

CALL ASSP.CancelConnection(<ConnectionID>)

You should probably be aware that there is an issue with the Cancel command in SP2 that I read about in a KB article and sometimes it does not function correctly. Apparently there is a hotfix available if this issue affects you.

Analysis Services Performance

We have an Analysis Services server that freezes from time to time (processor is sometimes very high, memory is high, and then we can not even stop the service - as if it went in an infinite loop).

I would like to know whether the following configuration overloads the service or not:

4Gb of RAM

SQL Server and Analysis Services installed on the machine

SQL Server limited to 1Gb of RAM

Analysis Services stay below 1.5Gb

Analysis services takes the rest

We have 102 cubes, some of them up to 100Mb

Apriori, is that configuration overloading the processor, or the problem is somewhere else?

102 cubes does sound a little extreme. I need to ask, are you running 2005 or 2000? Also are you running anything else on the box? SSRS?

B.

Analysis services freezes on Processing a Cube

I have not succeeded in processing my cubes because anaylsis services freezes when ever i run process cube. What could be the reason for this. Thanks in anticipation for your help

Hi!

You should check firstly which step of the processing work you are having problems.

I suggest to trace the SQL sentence executed by SSAS against the source database to see if there exists problems in resolving the query.

Then, if no problems are encountered I would check if it stops when processing a dimension or a measure group, or when calculating the aggregations.

Thanks

Leandro