I am perplexed as to what and why can anyone summarise, I know the solution and that is to install Oracle 32bit client.
Environment
Windows Server 2012 R2 64bit called VMBOB4
Oracle 12c 64bit installed.
BI 4.1 to SP7 client and server on machine, aware that client is only 32bit and server install is 64bit yet by default it installed in Program Files (x86), that’s my first puzzling aspect of BI 4.1
Repository and audit setup ok within the Oracle 64bit and running fine, no issues with installation or the database, all application servers within CMC running fine, including probes etc.
Yet when trying to setup a connection in UNV designer or setting up a Relational Connection in Information Design Tool within the VMBOB4, to point to the Oracle 12c 64bit database, I get the following error in both…
DBDriver failed to load : C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\dataAccess\connectionServer\drivers\lib32\dbd_oci.dll (%1 is not a valid Win32 application.
It seems to want the 32bit drivers, even though I am or believe everything so far is 64 bit.
Can anyone shed any light, I know I could install 32 Oracle client but I mean come on, database is 64bit, BI 4.1 server 64 bit (or is it, see above).
Thanks Andreas, already aware that 32bit drivers required for the client tool, but alas research I have just uncovered says that to put 32bit and 64bit drivers on the same machine (my VMBOB4) can cause all sorts of problems with CMC and other such like things when it comes to getting it configured, too much effort for very little reward.
I am by no means an expert in SAP BI or installation thereof, but I think it is prudent at this stage to NOT install SAP BI client tools on the same machine (my VMBOB4) as the SAP BI server. Yet have found nothing yet in documentation that advises not to do this. Not to say it isn’t there, there are shed loads of different documentation and pages to trawl through.
Therefore I will re-model the environment, my laptop 64bit already has 32bit drivers so I will remove client tools from the server (VMBOB4) and install the BI client tools on my laptop instead.
Why SAP could not have introduced 64bit client tools, is beyond my comprehension.
I wondered about that too. Best I can figure is that the directory includes both 32-bit and 64-bit executables, so that was the one they chose. For my production server installations, I manually changed the install directory to d:\Program Files.
As far as running client tools on the server, it can be done but as you found you need both 32 and 64 bit drivers. The only caveat for Oracle is that the 32 bit driver has to be installed first. If you have only the 64 bit 12c driver now, you will need to uninstall it, install the 32-bit driver, then re-install the 64-bit driver. You should be good to go from there.
I have the client tools installed on my development server, and have had no trouble with the server and client products co-existing.
Joe many thanks for the update, good to know I was not going completely crazy. I will remove 64bit Oracle drivers, and re-install, starting with 32bit, then see if I can do a re-point of BI data warehouses. No loss if not I can revert to pre-install and start over because I am still at the first stage of evaluation which is getting installation correct.
Apologies for the delayed response , I can confirm that if using Oracle it is best to install 32 bit Oracle client first, then set up a system variable TNS_ADMIN pointing to the location of tnsnames.ora file, this will save any headaches later. I am using Oracle database on the server for the repository and for auditing so I then installed 64 Bit Oracle 12c database. No issues experienced. Finally installed BI 4.1 using custom install de-selected SQL Anywhere, first time round it set up SQL Anywhere and installed into that, so I scrapped it, started over and did a custom install de-selecting SQL Anywhere which then prompted me for a database to install repository etc.
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