Cannot restore my .ABF file...with no meaningful error message.

This one is just frustrating. I'm trying to restore an .ABF file, but when I go into SQL Server Manager (against the Analysis Services), bring up the restore dialog and click "Browse", I get an error:

TITLE: Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services Managed Code Module

The function failed because of the following error: The given path's format is not supported..

If I manually type in the name of the .ABF, I get:

TITLE: Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio

File system error: The following error occurred while opening the file ''.
The following system error occurred: . (Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services)

Never knew that . was an error message. The frustrating part is I've done a restore before, and I can't for the life of me think of anything I've changed on the server. Anyone else seen this?

Hello there,

Would you be able to provide pathname fo the ABF file you are trying to restore? As much as I see from your description it looks like you used relative path that is not supported; you should specify absolute pathname to the file.

Another idea is to use XML/A instead of UI dialog, something like

<Restore xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/analysisservices/2003/engine">
<File>your_file_pathname.abf</File>
<Security>CopyAll</Security>
<AllowOverwrite>true</AllowOverwrite>
<Locations/>
</Restore>

Thanks,

Mike

|||There is an advanced property on the server called AllowedBrowsingFolders. It sounds like there is an invalid value in this particular property.|||

IT seems I'm actually experiencing two different problems. I still can't Browse (I've checked the "AllowedBrowsingFolders" property, and it seems to be okay:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.2\OLAP\Log;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL.2\OLAP\Backup;d:\database

However, I was able to backup and restore one of my existing cubes. I noticed that the backup was placed in the location specified in my "BackupDir" property:

D:\database\

So I copied my .ABF to that directory, and attempted to restore using just the name of the file. This still failed. I then created a new .ABF file from the original server, and tried that, and this time it worked. That suggested that part of my problem was the backup file itself, but when I open the two files with a Hex editor, they look pretty identical; the header and footer information is all the same. Strange and annoying, but at least I've gotten the restore to work (even if I don't know how or why).