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File system error: The following error occurred while opening the file '....~OLAPConfigmsmdsrv.tmp': Access is denied

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I recently worked with the following scenario, did not find any helpful links that explains why we may have the issue, so thought about blogging on this.

  • You connect to SSAS from SSMS, as a local admin (administrator account)
  • The service is running under "Network Service" Account.
  • You try to add an user, under "security" for the instance (Right click on the instance->properties)
  • When you click ok, you get the following error message:

 TITLE: Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio

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File system error: The following error occurred while opening the file '~OLAP\Config\msmdsrv.tmp': Access is denied. .

.......

.......

This happened because the service account does not have enough privilege, to create the file under the location. The solution would be to change the service account to "Local System" or higher privilege domain account

 

Tips:

If you try to look under the folder, ~OLAP\Config, you won't see the file has been created or exists. SSAS tries to create this temporary file for its own purposes but since the service account does not have right, it cannot the necessary file (s), thus gives the error message. You can try taking a process monitor to see it gets "access denied" when trying to access the file, however, the file actually is not there.