Cognos Planning Contributor Administration Console (CAC) add new JOB SERVERS to your job server cluster gives an error

Product:
Cognos Planning 10.1.1
Windows 2008 R2 Server
Oracle Database

Symptom:
Have setup new servers, and try to from inside Cognos Planning Contributor Administration Console (CAC) add new JOB SERVERS to your job server cluster, you get a error.

Error message:
Errors occurred while trying to communicate with each of the following servers: xxxxx

Communication failure could result from:
-The server is not running
-Planning is not installed on the server
-The servers firewall is blocking requests xxxxx


Error in planningerrorlog files:
{4904905A-9BAF-4B99-B054-E41891C9E36C} 2 2014-05-08 19:33:44.433 UTC +120 EAdminDB_10 10.1.4074.0 JobServer GetEnabledAndNameLocal 100 Factory_10 70 Unable to create the object with ProgID 'epPlanningService_10.JobExecManager' (request was for 'epPlanningService_%v.JobExecManager')~~~~Permission denied domain\serviceaccount domain\servername domain\serviceaccount domain\servername 1744 5020

Error in windows event log:
Log Name: System
Source: Microsoft-Windows-DistributedCOM
Date: 5/8/2014 6:46:16 PM
Event ID: 10016
Task Category: None
Level: Error
Keywords: Classic
User: domain\serviceaccount
Computer: servername
Description:
The machine-default permission settings do not grant Local Activation permission for the COM Server application with CLSID
{7B59D7CC-3FD8-41A4-9F2A-40D2D6B5590A}
and APPID
{324E655C-61EF-4500-85D1-2791358B531E}
to the user domain\serviceaccount SID (S-1-5-21-3598516276-3377520961-430964465-92766) from address LocalHost (Using LRPC). This security permission can be modified using the Component Services administrative tool.
Event Xml:
<Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">;
<System>
<Provider Name="Microsoft-Windows-DistributedCOM" Guid="{1B562E86-B7AA-4131-BADC-B6F3A001407E}" EventSourceName="DCOM" />
<EventID Qualifiers="49152">10016</EventID>
<Version>0</Version>
<Level>2</Level>
<Task>0</Task>
<Opcode>0</Opcode>
<Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords>
<TimeCreated SystemTime="2014-05-08T16:46:16.000000000Z" />
<EventRecordID>14320</EventRecordID>
<Correlation />
<Execution ProcessID="0" ThreadID="0" />
<Channel>System</Channel>
<Computer>servername</Computer>
<Security UserID="S-1-5-21-3598516276-3377520961-430964465-92766" />
</System>
<EventData>
<Data Name="param1">machine-default</Data>
<Data Name="param2">Local</Data>
<Data Name="param3">Activation</Data>
<Data Name="param4">{7B59D7CC-3FD8-41A4-9F2A-40D2D6B5590A}</Data>
<Data Name="param5">{324E655C-61EF-4500-85D1-2791358B531E}</Data>
<Data Name="param6">domain</Data>
<Data Name="param7">serviceaccount</Data>
<Data Name="param8">S-1-5-21-3598516276-3377520961-430964465-92766</Data>
<Data Name="param9">LocalHost (Using LRPC)</Data>
</EventData>
</Event>



Solution:

The service account set to run the IBM Cognos Planning service on the Microsoft Windows 2008 Server is not set to be local admin on the server.

Go to Manage – Configuration – Local user and groups – Groups
Click on Administrators
Click ADD to add the windows service account to this group on your Planning server.

Save and restart the Cognos Planning servers.
Then you can test again.

You can also test this with change back to local system to run the Cognos Planning service, if it works then to add as job server then it is the rights for the windows service account that is the case.

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