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Crawl and lineage issues

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TL;DR

Resolve upload failures, empty extractions, and missing lineage for the Informatica PowerCenter connector

Use these steps to resolve common upload, extraction, and lineage issues when running the Informatica PowerCenter connector workflow in Atlan.

Archive rejected during upload​

Error

Encrypted archive not supported or Invalid archive entry

Cause​

The connector rejects a .zip archive when it's password-protected or encrypted, or when it contains symbolic links or entries with absolute paths. These are blocked for security reasons.

Solution​

  1. Re-create the archive as a standard, unencrypted .zip.
  2. Make sure the archive contains only your exported files, with no symbolic links or absolute paths.
  3. Upload the new archive in the Repository XML export field and run the workflow again.

Repository export fails with permission error​

Error

Permission denied or Access denied while exporting from PowerCenter

Cause​

The account used to export repository objects lacks the required repository permissions.

Solution​

  1. Confirm the account has read permission on the objects you're exporting.
  2. Confirm the account has the Access Repository Manager privilege.
  3. Re-run the export, then repackage and upload the archive.

Repository export is invalid or fails to parse​

Error

Invalid XML or parse error while processing the repository export

Cause​

Informatica has documented issues where repository exports contain characters that break XML parsing. For example, reserved characters such as & in folder or object descriptions, or non-Unicode characters in transformation names.

Solution​

  1. Correct the problematic characters in PowerCenter and re-export the affected objects. This is the recommended fix.
  2. Alternatively, manually edit the exported XML to escape or remove the invalid characters. For example, replace a bare & with &.
  3. Repackage the corrected exports into the .zip and run the workflow again.

You don't need to add a DTD file to your upload. Atlan supplies the required powrmart.dtd automatically during extraction.

No lineage extracted​

Error

No lineage found or the workflow fails after extraction

Cause​

The workflow fails rather than publishing an empty result when the repository exports contain no resolvable data flow. This usually means the XML files are missing folder or repository declarations, or the folders don't contain mappings with resolvable sources and targets.

Solution​

  1. Confirm each XML file contains its <REPOSITORY NAME> and <FOLDER NAME> declarations.
  2. Confirm each file is named after its PowerCenter folder and that all files belong to the same repository.
  3. Re-export any folders that were exported incompletely, then repackage and re-upload the archive, or replace the staged copy in your object store.

Extraction fails with no workflows found​

Error

The workflow fails early during extraction, and the logs show no workflows in this snapshot or Not Generating Snapshot

Cause​

The connector extracted no workflows from the folder it processed, so it couldn't build a snapshot. This is almost always a packaging problem:

  • The uploaded folder holds only shared or reusable objects and has no workflows.
  • A single XML file contains more than one folder. The connector reads only the first <FOLDER NAME> in each file, so any other folders—including the one with your workflows—are ignored.
  • The .zip contains another .zip (a nested archive). Only .xml members are extracted, so the real export is skipped.

Solution​

  1. Export each folder to its own XML file and name the file after the folder, so every uploaded file contains exactly one folder.
  2. Upload folders that contain workflows or mappings. Export shared and reusable objects as dependencies of a workflow folder (using the dependent-object and shortcut export options) instead of uploading a shared folder on its own.
  3. Rebuild the archive so it contains the .xml files directly, with no nested .zip.
  4. Repackage and re-upload, then run the workflow again.

Assets appear as partial or unresolved​

Error

Lineage resolves to placeholder assets instead of your real tables

Cause​

Atlan connects PowerCenter lineage to source and target assets that already exist in the catalog. When a system hasn't been crawled, Atlan creates a partial placeholder that resolves once that system is cataloged.

Solution​

  1. Crawl and publish the source and target systems referenced by your PowerCenter mappings.
  2. Re-run the PowerCenter workflow, or wait for the placeholders to resolve automatically after the source systems are cataloged.

Missing lineage for ODBC or flat-file sources​

Error

Sources using ODBC or non-relational connections don't appear in lineage

Cause​

Repository exports don't always declare a database vendor for ODBC or non-relational (flat file, XML, VSAM) connections, so Atlan can't always determine which system the data flows to.

Solution​

  1. Confirm the affected sources use ODBC or a non-relational connection type. These may not resolve to a specific database in the current release.
  2. Contact your Atlan representative to configure a vendor mapping for the affected connection, applied through the Operator overrides field of the workflow.

See also​

Need help​

If you need assistance after trying these steps, contact Atlan support by submitting a request.