ASO, ESSCMDQ, and Essbase 11.1.2.4.015

Some of my clients automate EPMA’s command line batch utility to pump metadata updates into ASO Essbase cubes. Anybody who has done this for any length of time knows about the ASO design flaw involving an internal dimension restructure counter that is capped at 255.

Oracle published a workaround for this a while ago, in the form of the ESSCMDQ utility. Once installed and we automate the suggested ASO restructure script, this was a reliable way to avoid the 255 limitation…. not anymore!

A few patches ago, ESSCMDQ started behaving… erratically. Sometimes the restructure script would complete, and other times ESSCMDQ would crash. The crash message would complain about a DLL within the Microsoft Windows version of the 11.1.2.4 Essbase Client, such as ESSOPGN.dll.

It just so happens that Oracle discovered this and published an update, but you have to dig for it within the Knowledge Base!

The Knowledge Base article # on support.oracle.com is “2273191.1”. This article acknowledges the bug and includes a download link to a version of ESSCMDQ.exe recompiled for Essbase 11.1.2.4.015 and higher. Unfortunately, this version isn’t included on the main download page for ESSCMDQ.

Oracle is issuing patches for on-premises Essbase 11.1.2.4 at the pace of about once every 2 months. Since 11.1.2.4.0 first came out, as of this writing 19 cumulative patches have been issued for Essbase. This means if you are using ASO and are on 11.1.2.4.015 through 11.1.2.4.019, you will want to hit the “2273191.1” article and grab the newer version of ESSCMDQ.