• Article

Handling Errors and Warnings (XMLA)

Error handling is required when an XML for Analysis (XMLA) Discover or Execute method call does not run, runs successfully but generates errors or warnings, or runs successfully but returns results that contain errors.

Error

Reporting

The XMLA method call does not run

Microsoft SQL Server Analysis Services returns a SOAP fault message that contains the details of the failure.

For more information, see the section, Handling SOAP Faults.

Errors or warnings on a successful method call

Analysis Services includes an error or warning element for each error or warning, respectively, in the Messages property of the root element that contains the results of the method call.

For more information, see the section, Handling Errors and Warnings.

Errors in the result for a successful method call

Analysis Services includes an inline error or warning element for the error or warning, respectively, within the appropriate Cell or row element of the results of the method call.

For more information, see the section, Handling Inline Errors and Warnings.

Handling SOAP Faults

Analysis Services returns a SOAP fault when the following situations occur:

  • The SOAP message that contains the XMLA method was not well-formed or could not be validated by the Analysis Services instance.

  • A communications or other error occurred involving the SOAP message that contains the XMLA method.

  • The XMLA method did not run on the Analysis Services instance.

The SOAP fault codes for XMLstartA start with "XMLForAnalysis", followed by a period and the hexadecimal HRESULT result code. For example, an error code of "0x80000005" is formatted as "XMLForAnalysis.0x80000005". For more information about the SOAP fault format, see Soap Fault in the W3C Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) 1.1.

Fault Code Information

The following table shows the XMLA fault code information that is contained in the detail section of the SOAP response. The columns are the attributes of an error in the detail section of a SOAP fault.

Column name

Type

Description

Null allowed1

ErrorCode

UnsignedInt

Return code that indicates the success or failure of the method. The hexadecimal value must be converted to an UnsignedInt value.

No

WarningCode

UnsignedInt

Return code that indicates a warning condition. The hexadecimal value must be converted to an UnsignedInt value.

Yes

Description

String

Error or warning text and description returned by the component that generated the error.

Yes

Source

String

Name of the component that generated the error or warning.

Yes

HelpFile

String

Path or URL to the Help file or topic that describes the error or warning.

Yes

1 Indicates whether the data is required and must be returned, or whether the data is optional and a null string is allowed if the column does not apply.

The following is an example of a SOAP fault that occurred when a method call failed:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
   <SOAP-ENV:Envelope
   xmlns:SOAP-ENV="https://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"
   SOAP-ENV:encodingStyle="https://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/">
      <SOAP-ENV:Fault>
         <faultcode>XMLAnalysisError.0x80000005</faultcode>
         <faultstring>The XML for Analysis provider encountered an error.</faultstring>
         <faultactor>XML for Analysis Provider</faultactor>
         <detail>
<Error
ErrorCode="2147483653"
Description="An unexpected error has occurred."
Source="XML for Analysis Provider"
HelpFile="" />
         </detail>
      </SOAP-ENV:Fault>
</SOAP-ENV:Envelope>

Handling Errors and Warnings

Analysis Services returns the Messages property in the root element for a command if the following situations occur after that command runs:

  • The method itself did not fail, but a failure occurred on the Analysis Services instance after the method call succeeded.

  • The Analysis Services instance returns a warning when the command is successful.

The Messages property follows all other properties that are contained by the root element, and can contain one or more Message elements. In turn, each Message element can contain either a single error or warning element describing any errors or warnings, respectively, that occurred for the specified command.

For more information about errors and warnings that are contained in the Messages property, see Messages Element (XMLA).

Handling Errors During Serialization

If an error occurs after the Analysis Services instance has already begun serializing the output of a successfully run command, Analysis Services returns an Exception element in a different namespace at the point of the error. The Analysis Services instance then closes all open elements so that the XML document sent to the client is a valid document. The instance also returns a Messages element that contains the description of the error.

Handling Inline Errors and Warnings

Analysis Services returns an inline error or warning for a command if the XMLA method itself did not fail, but an error specific to a data element in the results returned by the method occurred on the Analysis Services instance after the XMLA method call succeeded.

Analysis Services supplies inline error and warning elements if issues specific to a cell or to other data that are contained within a root element using the MDDataSet data type occur, such as a security error or formatting error for a cell. In these cases, Analysis Services returns an error or warning element in the Cell or row element that contains the error or warning, respectively.

The following example illustrates a result set that contains an error in the rowset returned from an Execute method using the Statement command.

<return>
   ...
   <root>
      ...
      <CellData>
      ...
         <Cell CellOrdinal="10">
            <Value>
               <Error>
                  <ErrorCode>2148497527</ErrorCode> 
                  <Description>Security Error.</Description> 
               </Error>
            </Value>
         </Cell>
      </CellData>
      ...
   </root>
   ...
</return>