Troubleshooting
Problem
When viewing or opening a report in Excel format, images are not appearing. Instead, we see a box with an error icon (triangle, square and circle). The report shows images when viewed in HTML or PDF, but not in Excel 2002 (just empty placeholders shown)
Cause
The Excel 2002 format is in fact MHT (Multipage-HyperText) formatted for Excel.
The MHT file does not contain the actual images, they are embedded as http links (URLs). If the image path is not fully qualified in the report, the server name that is prefixed to the path is taken from the gateway URL as found in Cognos Configuration. If the gateway URL is defined using localhost (or any other notation not accessible from the client machine where Excel is being launched), the above problem occurs.
Resolving The Problem
Ensure that the URL generated in the report is accessible from a browser on the client computer.
- Specify the Gateway URL in the Environment section of Cognos Configuration using the server name accessible from the client.
- Check the correct web server directory is specified in the Cognos Configuration.
- There shouldn't be any authentication challenge. Excel isn't able to respond to requests for external authentication.
Note: The client needs to be online and have network access to the location of the image. There is no facility to "embed" the image into the file.
Was this topic helpful?
Document Information
Modified date:
15 June 2018
UID
swg21342608