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Planning Analytics Administration Agent displays "Invalid Date" or nothing in "Start Time" field of a TM1 Server - Cannot create PyString with non-byte value

Question & Answer


Question

In Planning Analytics Workspace
In Planning Analytics Administration
In Databases tab
For all TM1 Servers, the "Start Time" field is either empty or contains "Invalid Date"
This kind of error message may be found in messages.log file:
File "kateagent/scripts\status.py", line 2, in <module> import logging
File "C:\Program Files\ibm\cognos\tm1_64\paa_agent\wlp\usr\servers\kate-agent\apps\expanded\PA_KATE_AGENT.war\WEB-INF\lib\jython-standalone-2.7.1.jar\Lib\logging\__init__.py",
line 26, in <module> java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Cannot create PyString with non-byte value

Cause

Locale / Regional Settings issue

Answer

1) Verify that the stop and start was done through Planning Analytics Administration user interface. Indeed, the Planning Analytics Administration Agent cannot detect TM1 startup and shutdown if this was done through either Cognos Configuration or the Windows services.
2) The "IBM Planning Analytics Administration Agent" service must be run as an english service account. If the service account is "Local System", then open Windows Regional Settings (Start / Run "intl.cpl"), select the "Administrative" tab, and verify that "Language for non-unicode programs" is set to english.
If this parameter is modified, then a server reboot is necessary.
3) If not sufficient, then go to the properties or options of the internet browser, go to the Languages parameters, and move english languages at the top of the list.

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Document Information

Modified date:
01 February 2021

UID

ibm16379100