Category Archives: Errors

Errors, SSRS

SSRS Expression Iif Statement Divide by Zero Error

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If you’ve ever tried to use an IIF statement expression to fix an error received by dividing by zero, you probably still received the divide by zero error message. Very frustrating.

An expression like this returns an error when Sum(Fields!Beta.value) = 0:

=sum(Fields!Alpha.Value)/sum(Fields!beta.Value)

So you, being the critical thinker that you are, try the following:

=iif(sum(Fields!Beta.Value)=0,0,sum(Fields!Alpha.Value)/sum(Fields!Beta.Value))

Alas, this will not work. Even though SSRS may evaluate your expression as true, it still will attempt to resolve the false part of your expression, which gives you the divide by zero error.

To get around this infuriating issue Microsoft should have dealt with in the first place, try this:

=iif(sum(Fields!Beta.Value)=0,0,sum(Fields!Alpha.Value)/iif(sum(Fields!Beta.Value)=0,1,sum(Fields!Beta.Value))

This solution should fix any issues you have dividing by zero.

Errors, MDX, SSAS

MDX Aggregate Functions Can Not Be Used on Calculated Members in the Measures Dimension

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If you’ve ever tried to use the Aggregate function on a calculated measure, you’ve seen the following error:

Aggregate functions error

This is a problem if you’re trying to calculate something like Year To Date for a calculated measure. Take the following MDX query (which I understand doesn’t make sense and isn’t something you’d do in a real world situation, but just go with it for the sake of the example), which can be run against the Adventure Works cube, for example:

WITH MEMBER [Measures].[YTD Average Price] AS Aggregate ( PeriodsToDate( [Date].[Calendar].[Calendar Year], [Date].[Calendar].CurrentMember) , [Measures].[Internet Average Unit Price] ) Select [Measures].[YTD Average Price] on0, [Date].[Calendar].[Date] on1 From [Adventure Works] Where [Date].[Calendar Year].&[2003]

 

If you execute this query, it will complete successfully with #Error as the results. You have a couple different options. First, you could replace the Aggregate function with the Sum function. If you are unable to use the Sum function, then you’ll have to  adjust the way you calculate Year to Date Average Price. We’ll have to break this up into a couple different calculations.

WITH MEMBER [Measures].[YTD Unit Price] AS Aggregate ( PeriodsToDate( [Date].[Calendar].[Calendar Year], [Date].[Calendar].CurrentMember) , [Measures].[Internet Unit Price] ) MEMBER [Measures].[YTD Transaction Count] AS Aggregate ( PeriodsToDate( [Date].[Calendar].[Calendar Year], [Date].[Calendar].CurrentMember) , [Measures].[Internet Transaction Count] ) MEMBER [Measures].[YTD Average Price] AS [Measures].[YTD Unit Price]/[Measures].[YTD Transaction Count], format=“Currency“Select [Measures].[YTD Average Price] on0, [Date].[Calendar].[Date] on1 From [Adventure Works] Where [Date].[Calendar Year].&[2003]

 

Doing our calculation this way, we are able to work around our inability to use the Aggregate function on a calculated member. I hope this gives someone an idea of how they can work around this annoying issue.

Errors, SSAS

SSAS 2008 Error when browsing cube in BIDS or SSMS: “An error 0xE0040200 occurred. No further information was provided.”

While working on an SSAS project today, I was scripting out some MDX calculations in the cube (year to date, month to date, previous year’s month to date, and previous year to date). I wrote the calculations and they looked perfect, but when I tried to browse the cube in BIDS after deploying, I received this very perplexing error:

Error when browsing cube in BIDS or SSMS: “An error 0xE0040200 occurred. No further information was provided.”

After stumbling around for a bit and doing some research, I eventually discovered that if I clicked the “Show Empty Cells” icon (seen below),

Show empty cells icon

my calculations appeared to be working correctly. Apparently this is some kind of bug in the cube browser in SSMS and BIDS. You’ll notice that if you connect to your cube from Excel and browse the cube using a Pivot Table, you are able to successfully browse the cube without any strange errors. I hope this saves someone else the 45 minutes I spent trying to figure out what in the world was going on.