VS 2012 - Analysis Services / SQL

Question

VS2012 Pro environment, with the SQL2012 support for Analysis Services installed (including the Aug.2013 update for SSDT). But still I'm unable to connect to the server and when I goto Tools>Options>Analysis Services Tabular Designers - I see "localhost" as the default server and the "test connection" button produces a fail each time. Tried changing localhost to my machine's name and dozens of other permutations but still unable to connect. Is there a fix for that at all? Thanks!

Answer 1

FIX: Error when you open a tabular model file in SQL Server 2012

NOTE : Close (restart) your SQL Server Data Tools or your computer (system) it may resolve your issues , if not then follow below resolutions.

Symptoms Assume that you apply Microsoft SQL Server 2012 together with SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 (SP1) or later versions on a computer. When you try to open a tabular model file (.bim file) in SQL Server 2012 SP1, an error occurs in SQL Server Data Tools and you receive the following error message: An error occurred while opening the model on the workspace database. Reason: ReadElementContentAs() methods cannot be called on an element that has child elements. Cause This issue occurs because the annotation tags inside the XML structure of the the .bim file cannot be successfully parsed by the SQL Server Analysis Services Tabular project.

Resolution To resolve the issue, install the cumulative update on the computer where the tabular model file is opened.

Cumulative update information

Cumulative update 3 for SQL Server 2012 Service SP1

The fix for this issue was first released in Cumulative Update 3. For more information about how to obtain this cumulative update package for SQL Server 2012 SP 1, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 2812412 Cumulative update package 3 for SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 Note Because the builds are cumulative, each new fix release contains all the hotfixes and all the security fixes that were included with the previous SQL Server 2012 SP 1 fix release. We recommend that you consider applying the most recent fix release that contains this hotfix. For more information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: 2772858 The SQL Server 2012 builds that were released after SQL Server 2012 Service Pack 1 was released

Status Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.

Workaround To work around the issue, open the .bim file manually in a text editor to remove the annotation tags. For example, Such as open the file by using Notepad.

Notes Microsoft does not support or encourage editing the .bim files because the file format should not be edited manually under typical circumstances. Additionally, some third-party add-ins that depend on the annotation tags may not work if the metadata is removed from the project file. For example, the CodePlex BIDS Helper add-in to SQL Server Data Tools may not work if you remove the annotation tags manually, in this situation, go to the following CodePlex website to see the workaround:

Tabular Annotation Workaround :
http://bidshelper.codeplex.com/wikipage?title=Tabular%20Annotation%20Workaround

Answer 2

Do you have Analysis Services installed for tabular mode on your computer? Please note that an Analysis Services instance does only support one of three modes: multidimensional, tabular, and tabular embedded in SharePoint. To support more than one mode, you must install several instances of Analysis Services. And the default setup installs Analysis Services in multidimensional mode - not in tabular mode!

Also note that to access a non default instance of Analysis Services, you have to state the instance name like this, assuming the computer name is comp and the instance name AS_tabular:

 comp\AS_tabular