Failed to download Excel Services chart

Question

I'm having the problems while displaying the grapfs from an Excel workbook in a Sharepoint Site as described in this KB.

 

but this solution doesn't work unless I'm doing something wrong

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928726

 

Description:

A user opens a workbook on a computer that is running Excel Services for Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. The workbook contains a chart that is viewed many times. Over time, the chart is not displayed successfully.

Additionally, the user receives the following error message:

 

Failed to download Excel Services chart

 

I changed the settings in the Shared Services Administration / Edit Excel Services settings ti these settings:

 

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File Access Method:     Process account

Connection Encryption: Not required

 

Load Balancing:           Workbook URL

Retry Interval:               30

Max Sessions per User: 5

 

Max private bytes:        -1

Memory Cache Treshold:      0

Max Unusud Object Age:      1

 

Workbook cache location:     empty

Max Size of workbook cache:  40960

Caching unused files:              Caching enabled : yes

 

Connection LifeTime:               1800

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Hope to get some response...

Answer 1

 

Is it a really big chart (one with lots of data points)?  Does a simple chart (like a pie chart of "1 2") render?

 

If the answers are yes and yes, you should try changing the "Maximum Chart Size" (something like that) Excel Services Trusted Location setting.  By default it is 1MB, so if a chart is bigger than that, it won't render.

Answer 2

 

Where is this setting? I am new to MOSS and excel services.

 

Thanks

 

Answer 3

1. On the server, click Start > Administrative Tools > SharePoint 3.0 Central Administration (or, if you know the URL to Central Admin, just navigate to that)
2. Under 'Shared Services Administration' on the left, click the name of your Shared Service ("SharedServices1" by default)
3. Under 'Excel Services Settings' click "Trusted file locations"
4. Click on the relevant Trusted Location
5. In the 'Workbook Properties' section (the third section down) there is a "Maximum Chart Size" setting that is "1" (meaning the maximum chart size is 1MB) by default.  Increase that and then click OK.

I hope that helps,
Dan

Answer 4

I have a similar issue, but the KB article doesn't seem to fix it.  I've set the Chart Size, etc, to use a large amount of system resources, just in case -- Chart Size is 250; I've also set Cache Time to 0.

When I looked into the SharePoint log, I found something very interesting:  The Excel Web Service had failed on a SOAP request to the GetImage webmethod.

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09/25/2008 10:44:27.69  w3wp.exe (0x1F94)                        0x1864 Excel Services                 Excel Services Web Front End   6k38 Medium   ExcelServerProxy.ExecuteWebMethod: sending request of type GetImage, to server=http://prod_sp:56737/SharedServices1/ExcelCalculationServer/ExcelService.asmx, session=23.175g7mvMdthLhHEBXPPkDnm90.5.en-US5.en-US73.+0360#0000-11-00-01T02:00:00:0000#+0000#0000-03-00-02T02:00:00:0000#-0060, state id=1 

09/25/2008 10:44:27.69  w3wp.exe (0x1F94)                        0x1864 Excel Services                 Excel Services Web Front End   6k3f Medium   ExcelServerProxy.ProcessSoapException: A SOAP exception during ExecuteWebMethod has occurred for server: http://prod_sp:56737/SharedServices1/ExcelCalculationServer/ExcelService.asmx, method: GetImage, ex: System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapException: Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.ExcelServiceSoap+EcsSoapException: Your session has timed out because of inactivity.    at Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.ExcelServiceSoap.PostProcessRequest(CommandResult result, WebMethodType webMethodType, Exception ex, Boolean endRequest, String sessionId)    at Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.ExcelServiceSoap.ExecuteWebMethod(CommandParameter parameter, WebMethodType webMethodType, CoreWebMethod coreWebMethod)    at Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.ExcelServiceSoap.GetImage(CommandParameter parameter, String imageId, String& imageFormatType, Byte[]& binaryChartImage)     at System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHttpClientProtocol.ReadResponse(SoapClientMessage message, WebResponse response, Stream responseStream, Boolean asyncCall)     at System.Web.Services.Protocols.SoapHttpClientProtocol.Invoke(String methodName, Object[] parameters)     at Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.Proxy.ExcelServiceSoap.GetImage(CommandParameter parameter, String imageId, String& imageFormatType, Byte[]& binaryChartImage)     at Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.Proxy.ExcelServerProxy.<>c__DisplayClass37.<GetImage>b__36(CommandParameter parameterDelegate, ExcelServiceSoap excelService)     at Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.Proxy.ExcelServerProxy.ExecuteWithSecurityContext(Boolean revertToSelf, CoreWebMethod coreWebMethod, ExcelServiceSoap excelService, CommandParameter parameter)     at Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.Proxy.ExcelServerProxy.ExecuteWebMethod(WebMethodType webMethodType, PreProcessWebMethod preProcessWebMethod, CoreWebMethod coreWebMethod, Boolean& noServerResponse). 

09/25/2008 10:44:27.69  w3wp.exe (0x1F94)                        0x1864 Excel Services                 Excel Services Web Front End   3skc Information There was problem processing a request on Excel Calculation Services http://prod_sp:56737/SharedServices1/ExcelCalculationServer/ExcelService.asmx exception: Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.ExcelServiceSoap+EcsSoapException: Your session has timed out because of inactivity.    at Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.ExcelServiceSoap.PostProcessRequest(CommandResult result, WebMethodType webMethodType, Exception ex, Boolean endRequest, String sessionId)    at Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.ExcelServiceSoap.ExecuteWebMethod(CommandParameter parameter, WebMethodType webMethodType, CoreWebMethod coreWebMethod)    at Microsoft.Office.Excel.Server.CalculationServer.ExcelServiceSoap.GetImage(CommandParameter parameter, String imageId, String& imageFormatType, Byte[]& binaryChartImage) [Session: 23.175g7mvMdthLhHEBXPPkDnm90.5.en-US5.en-US73.+0360#0000-11-00-01T02:00:00:0000#+0000#0000-03-00-02T02:00:00:0000#-0060 User: taylor.j]. 

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I find it very peculiar that my "session has timed out because of inactivity."  This is a recurring issue and duplicated across multiple accounts.  This is all on an intranet and the page doesn't take longer than a couple of seconds -- maybe 3 seconds at most.

The error it throws at me on the actual SharePoint page on the image is that it just failed to download the chart.  But clearly, we can see the issue at the WebService level.

Any ideas?

Answer 5

I've seen this same issue.  The cause was using a Web Garden for your SSP, where ECS generates charts and images.  The session ID doesn't match correctly because one thread requests and the other generates, as I understand it.  The fix is to change your Shared Service Provider Web Application to single-threaded (WebApp Properties in IISMgr, performance tab, threads: 1)...

Hope that helps!

jn
http://echef.chaosfarm.net

Answer 6

I have run into the same problem, however that setting is already set to 1, meaning single threaded NOT web garden. any other ideas?

thx
-howard

Answer 7

THere area couple of issues that may be affaceting Excel Services

1. Is the ODC Authentication Set to None
2. Are there a number of people hitting the chart at the same time?
3. Does the reports library have Version Control Turned on with Draft MOde 
4. Are the following set to defaults.
       Session Time Out
       Max Request Duration
       Max WorkBook Size
       Short Session Timeout
       Max Concurrent Data Queries per session

If the Excel workbook is being opened from a location that does not automatically check out drafts, there are issues when opening the WorkBook leaving it open and using EWA to render the notebook without versioning tunrned on. By default If a user has more than 5 concurrent data queries in a single session then this will stop the WorkBook from Opening9 YOu can easily reach this number)

Hope this helps, please respond an I will see if I can troubleshoot further.........

Cheers,

 

Ivan Sanders

SharePoint Architect

Dimension Solutions, Inc.

http://dimension-si.com/blog

http://linkedin.com/in/iasanders

http://twitter.com/iasanders

http://delicious.com/iasanders

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Ivan Sanders http://linkedin.com/in/iasanders http://dimension-si.com/blog

Answer 8

Hi All,

       I ran into the same issue, and found the error message from the log file.
    
      "Chart rendering failed (hr=0x8004000a, GDIError=2, Win32Error=0x0)"

        But cannot find any helpful info so far.
 
        Basically, we have 2 WFE in the farm, one can render the Excel chart without any problem, but the other one just can't.

        We didn't use Web Garden on our WFEs at all, and both WFEs can show Excel tables correctly.

         It is not because of the huge chart file neither.

         Any idea?

         Thank you in advance.

James

Answer 9

I'm having the same problem now too. 2 WFEs + 1 Excel Services server, all MOSS SP2 running on Windows 2008 64-bit. After opening a couple of pages with Excel Services charts, they start to say "failed to download excel services chart", and the browser goes dead... meaning it starts returning HTTP 400 Bad Request errors no matter where you try to go.

I got all excited when I read JosephN's suggestion settings the SSP App Pool to single-threaded, but no dice. They already were set that way.