CM-REQ-4034 An error occurred while reading or formatting data in a property val

Symptom
Unable to open the model file E:/Cognos_Workdir/Temp/cqe/\TempXML_944_1291793059_0.xml
CM-REQ-4034 An error occurred while reading or formatting data in a property value.
CCL-RCI-0002 The soap server error …

Problem
Reports run fine in HTML format but attempting to run the report in any type of Excel format fails. Restarting the Cognos 8 services would resolve the issue temporarily.

Cause
No cm folder exists in the \temp directory. Seemed that there was script on the Cognos 8 server that was run nightly as a clean up tool and it removes any temp directories that are empty. This script would remove the c8/temp/cm directory that is created only at startup. The subdirectories of the /temp directory had been deleted. (cm, cam, cogconfig, cqe and rsvp)

Environment
Cognos 8
Windows 2003, Unix

Solution
Manually create a folder called ‘cm’ under the Cognos 8 temp directory.

OR

Restart Cognos 8 (which will create all needed directories)
Steps:
Navigate to the c8/temp directory and make sure you have the following folders cm, cam, cogconfig, cqe and rsvp. If any one of them missing then create new folder .