Failing Services EngineService (MSOLAP$POWERPIVOT)

Question

This alert appears in SP2010 Health Analyzer

The Analysis Services instance runs in VertiPaq mode, but the configuration setting that specifies this mode is turned off. 
Access to the path 'C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSAS10_50.POWERPIVOT\OLAP\config\msmdsrv.ini' is denied.
Remedy Verify that the <IMBIMode> setting is set to 1 in the msmdsrv.ini file in the \Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSAS10_50.PowerPivot\OLAP\Config folder.
Failing Servers [servername]
Failing Services EngineService (MSOLAP$POWERPIVOT)

Answer 1

yes, i see the same alert in CA!  I'm nearly sure that i have seen this alert on every powerpivot/sharepoint machine i installed.. So is this a false alert??

Answer 2

Can you check the server it is failing (this is a per server health rule) and see if PowerPivot is even installed on this server. Please double check that.

Thanks
Lee

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Lee Graber

Answer 3

Yes, PP installed and working on this server.

Answer 4

Hi Stephen,

   Sorry for the basic questions. :) Can I assume then that this is a one machine farm? If so, can you validate that the path we are indicating in the error is in fact the path to your install? If it is the correct path, did you install AS using an account which is different from your Farm Account and so is it possible that it doesn't actually have permission to this file?

  As a side note, while this rule might have sounded interesting when it was proposed, the odds of it finding a real problem are pretty slim. All it is doing is making sure that AS is configured to run in IMBI mode. If everything else about your system is working correctly, then this is a false alarm (at least with regards to the indication that AS is not set to run in IMBI mode). I would still like to know why it is failing for you so that we can resolve this but I would not get too worried about it yet.

Thanks
Lee

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Lee Graber

Answer 5

Hi Lee,

As others have also run into this issue I thought it might be worth investigating (rather than have everyone just ignore the rule or override it).

The path is correct to msmdsrv.ini. The file has the following permissions:

Local Administrators group: Full Control

SQLServerMSASUser$[SERVERNAME]$POWERPIVOT group: Full Control

SYSTEM: Full Control

Within the Farm Administrators Group is mydomain\administrator, builtin\administrators, mydomain\serviceSharePoint (the Farm Account) and me. AFAIK I did all the installs using the mydomain\adminstrator account which is a member of domain admins.

However, the Farm Account is NOT a member of Local Administrators group, Domain Admins etc. Should it have at least Read & Execute on msmdsrv.ini?

Answer 6

Hi Stephen,

in my configuration this alert has disapeared! As i changed many configuration settings of powerpivot (because of a problem with data refresh) i don't know exactly which change was needed to resolve the altert in CA, BUT here's my actual configration:

- Farm Admin is also NOT member of local administrators group
- Farm Admin is member of local group "SQLServerMSASUser$YOURSERVERNAME$POWERPIVOT"

can you check if adding the Farm Admin account temporarly to the local MSASUser group resolves your error?

The rule seems also to have a second "bug". The alert-message mentions <IMBIMode> Tag in msmdsrv.ini ! This tag was renamed in RTM to:
<DeploymentMode>1</DeploymentMode>

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms174921.aspx

Answer 7

Granted the SharePoint Farm Account Read permission on the msmdsrv.ini file. This solved the problem.