Exceptions in Informatica – 2

Let us see few more strange exceptions in Informatica

1. Sometimes the Session fails with the below error message.
“FATAL ERROR : Caught a fatal signal/exception
FATAL ERROR : Aborting the DTM process due to fatal signal/exception.”

There might be several reasons for this. One possible reason could be the way the function SUBSTR is used in the mappings, like the length argument of the SUBSTR function being specified incorrectly.
Example:

IIF(SUBSTR(MOBILE_NUMBER, 1, 1) = ‘9′,
SUBSTR(MOBILE_NUMBER, 2, 24),
MOBILE_NUMBER)

In this example MOBILE_NUMBER is a variable port and is 24 characters long.
When the field itself is 24 char long, the SUBSTR starts at position 2 and go for a length of 24 which is the 25th character.

To solve this, correct the length option so that it does not go beyond the length of the field or avoid using the length option to return the entire string starting with the start value.
Example:

In this example modify the expression as follows:

IIF(SUBSTR(MOBILE_NUMBER, 1, 1) = ‘9′,
SUBSTR(MOBILE_NUMBER, 2, 23),
MOBILE_NUMBER)

OR

IIF(SUBSTR(MOBILE_NUMBER, 1, 1) = ‘9′,
SUBSTR(MOBILE_NUMBER, 2),
MOBILE_NUMBER).

2. The following error can occur at times when a session is run

“TE_11015 Error in xxx: No matching input port found for output port OUTPUT_PORT TM_6006 Error initializing DTM for session…”

Where xxx is a Transformation Name.

This error will occur when there is corruption in the transformation.
To resolve this do one of the following: * Recreate the transformation in the mapping having this error.

3. At times you get the below problems,

1. When opening designer, you get “Exception access violation”, “Unexpected condition detected”.

2. Unable to see the navigator window, output window or the overview window in designer even after toggling it on.

3. Toolbars or checkboxes are not showing up correctly.

These are all indications that the pmdesign.ini file might be corrupted. To solve this, following steps need to be followed.

1. Close Informatica Designer
2. Rename the pmdesign.ini (in c:\winnt\system32 or c:\windows\system).
3. Re-open the designer.

When PowerMart opens the Designer, it will create a new pmdesign.ini if it doesn’t find an existing one. Even reinstalling the PowerMart clients will not create this file if it finds one.

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Informatica PowerCenter 8x Key Concepts – 1

We shall look at the fundamental components of the Informatica PowerCenter 8.x Suite, the key components are

1. PowerCenter Domain
2. PowerCenter Repository
3. Administration Console
4. PowerCenter Client
5. Repository Service
6. Integration Service

PowerCenter Domain

A domain is the primary unit for management and administration of services in PowerCenter. Node, Service Manager and Application Services are components of a domain.

Node

Node is the logical representation of a machine in a domain. The machine in which the PowerCenter is installed acts as a Domain and also as a primary node. We can add other machines as nodes in the domain and configure the nodes to run application services such as the Integration Service or Repository Service. All service requests from other nodes in the domain go through the primary node also called as ‘master gateway’.

The Service Manager

The Service Manager runs on each node within a domain and is responsible for starting and running the application services. The Service Manager performs the following functions,

• Alerts. Provides notifications of events like shutdowns, restart
• Authentication. Authenticates user requests from the Administration Console, PowerCenter Client, Metadata Manager, and Data Analyzer
• Domain configuration. Manages configuration details of the domain like machine name, port
• Node configuration. Manages configuration details of a node metadata like machine name, port
• Licensing. When an application service connects to the domain for the first time the licensing registration is performed and for subsequent connections the licensing information is verified
• Logging. Manages the event logs from each service, the messages could be ‘Fatal’, ‘Error’, ‘Warning’, ‘Info’
• User management. Manages users, groups, roles, and privileges

Application services

The services that essentially perform data movement, connect to different data sources and manage data are called Application services, they are namely Repository Service, Integration Service, Web Services Hub, SAPBW Service, Reporting Service and Metadata Manager Service. The application services run on each node based on the way we configure the node and the application service

Domain Configuration

Some of the configurations for a domain involves assigning host name, port numbers to the nodes, setting up Resilience Timeout values, providing connection information of metadata Database, SMTP details etc. All the Configuration information for a domain is stored in a set of relational database tables within the repository. Some of the global properties that are applicable for Application Services like ‘Maximum Restart Attempts’, ‘Dispatch Mode’ as ‘Round Robin’/’Metric Based’/’Adaptive’ etc are configured under Domain Configuration

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Exceptions in Informatica

There exists no product/tool without strange exceptions/errors, we will see some of those exceptions.

1. You get the below error when you do “Generate SQL” in Source Qualifier and try to validate it.
“Query should return exactly n field(s) to match field(s) projected from the Source Qualifier”
Where n is the number of fields projected from the Source Qualifier.

Possible reasons for this to occur are:

1. The order of ports may be wrong
2. The number of ports in the transformation may be more/less.
3. Sometimes you will have the correct number of ports and in correct order too but even then you might face this error in that case make sure that Owner name and Schema name are specified correctly for the tables used in the Source Qualifier Query.
E.g., TC_0002.EXP_AUTH@TIMEP

2. The following error occurs at times when an Oracle table is used

“[/export/home/build80/zeusbuild/vobs/powrmart
/common/odl/oracle8/oradriver.cpp] line [xxx]”
Where xxx is some line number mostly 241, 291 or 416.

Possible reasons are

1. Use DataDirect Oracle ODBC driver instead of the driver “Oracle in
2. If the table has been imported using the Oracle drivers which are not supported, then columns with Varchar2 data type are replaced by String data type and Number columns are imported with precision Zero(0).

3. Recently I encountered the below error while trying to save a Mapping.

Unexpected Condition Detected
Warning: Unexpected condition at: statbar.cpp: 268
Contact Informatica Technical Support for assistance

When there is no enough memory in System this happens. To resolve this we can either

1. Increase the Virtual Memory in the system
2. If continue to receive the same error even after increasing the Virtual Memory, in Designer, go to ToolsàOptions, go to General tab and clear the “Save MX Data” option.

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