Errors processing city dimension in SSAS with SQL Server Management Studio 20 and Visual Studio 2019

Question

I'm working with SQL Server Management Studio 20 and Visual Studio 2019 on a project involving the Wide World Importers (WWI) sample database. Although the deployment of the project through Visual Studio proceeds without issues, I encounter several errors when attempting to process the City dimension in SQL Server Analysis Services (SSAS).

Environment

• SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) version 20
• Visual Studio 2019
• SQL Analysis Services 2019
• Database: Wide World Importers (WWI)

Issue

During the processing of the City dimension, the following errors occur:

The following system error occurred: A device attached to the system is not functioning.

OLE DB or ODBC error: Invalid object name 'Cube.City'.; 42S02.

• Errors in the OLAP storage engine while processing the dimension and attributes like WWI City ID and Continent.

The project deploys without issues, but processing fails consistently with these errors.

Here are the steps I've tried:

1. Verifying the connection strings and credentials.
2. Ensuring remote connections are enabled and the SQL Server allows them.
3. Using both Windows authentication and explicit usernames/passwords for the connections.

Here’s a snippet of the XMLA command used for processing:

<Batch xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/analysisservices/2003/engine">
  <Parallel>
    <Process xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
      <Object>
        <DatabaseID>WideWorldImportersMD</DatabaseID>
        <DimensionID>City</DimensionID>
      </Object>
      <Type>ProcessFull</Type>
      <WriteBackTableCreation>UseExisting</WriteBackTableCreation>
    </Process>
  </Parallel>
</Batch>

Screenshot of the Process Progress log:

Processing Dimension 'City' failed

Edit:

Questions

1. Has anyone faced similar issues with processing dimensions in SSAS using SSMS 20 and VS 2019?
2. Are there known compatibility issues or configurations that might lead to these specific errors?
3. Any recommended diagnostic steps or configurations to successfully process dimensions without these errors?

Answer 1

Did you happen to rename the sample database? The Wide World Importers sample should be pointing to WideWorldImportersDW, not WideWorldImportersMD.

Here is a link to the latest release of the sample databases: https://github.com/Microsoft/sql-server-samples/releases/tag/wide-world-importers-v1.0

Here is a link to the SSAS project, which points to WideWorldImportersDW: https://github.com/microsoft/sql-server-samples/tree/master/samples/databases/wide-world-importers/wwi-ssasmd

Inside that database, the City dimension is under the "Dimension" schema, as seen in the screenshot below. That is what the SSAS project should be referencing, not "Cube.City".

I hope this helps. Image of SQL Server Management Studio object explorer, focusing on wide world importers database