The latest version of Chrome is currently completely messing up Cognos reports. Report Studio is completely unusable. So far I’ve seen the following:

1. Data item expressions are all missing
2. text items are empty
3. data source is missing
4. errors when running reports

I stopped testing at this point. What’s the point in testing more? RS is completely FUBAR in Chrome.

For end users it’s not as bad. The reports run but there are some issues:

1. C11 graphs are not rendering
2. interactive features, like sorting and filtering fails
3. Rerunning reports with the toolbar run or refresh buttons fail
4. Changing format with the dropdown fails
5. Custom controls fail

For the custom controls issue there is a fix. The issue stems from the configuration object in oControlHost is null, but we can identify the configuration from the xmlElement:

let config = oControlHost.configuration??JSON.parse(oControlHost.xmlElement.querySelector('configuration').text);

So what can we do? Well, there are two options, neither I like very much.

Rollback to Chrome 149. Easier said that done, Google doesn’t offer a 149 download. You have to use a third-party site. Enterprise environments might not even allow it. Good luck.

Use a different browser. Firefox and Edge both still work well with Cognos.

So the next question, what does IBM have to say about it? At the moment I have not seen a public announcement, but when asked in a support ticket I received this official statement:

While Cognos is designed to work with supported third-party applications, changes introduced by those vendors can occasionally impact existing integrations or functionality. Our expectation is that updates maintain backward compatibility; however, significant behavioral changes in a third-party application may result in unexpected issues.

We are aware of the issue introduced following the recent Google Chrome Version 150 update and are actively investigating the root cause to determine the impact on Cognos and identify a permanent resolution.

As a temporary workaround, affected users can either use other browsers (Mozilla Firefox and/or Microsoft Edge) or downgrade Chrome to Version 149 should Chrome be the only approved browser.

To prevent Chrome from automatically upgrading back to Version 150, we recommend disabling the GoogleUpdaterService and GoogleUpdaterInternalService through the Windows Services console.

We appreciate your patience while we continue our investigation and work toward identifying the underlying cause of this issue.

Very diplomatic, and yeah, Chrome broke backward compatibility without warning. Not cool, Chrome!

IBM has issued a Known Issue for this, DT475269. It’s not public yet, so you can’t subscribe to it. Once it does become public, or once the issue is resolved, I’ll post here again. You don’t need to post more tickets, I am sure IBM support is swamped.

And thanks to the IBM Support dude Ian Bishop! Keep up the good work!