What are these blb files all about?

[wilsonric]

I have read within the forums that blb files relate to the rules editor formatting. However I think there is more to them than this. I have blb files that relate to cube views, both private:
Capex Projects.Budget Load v2.awadallam.blb
Capex Projects.Budget Load.awadallam.blb
and public views:
Virtual Roster.Default.blb
WorkersComp.Default.blb
etc.

Are these blb files actually holding the cube view formatting for the view?
And can we make the general assumption that the sole purpose of blb files is to hold formatting for the object in the name, whether it be a cube view, rule editor, etc?
I now have over 1,000 blb files on the server. They are small in size, but should I be doing anything about them? Like periodically deleting them before they take over!
I guess at least I can identify any blb files that relate to an obsolete user, and safely delete them? Do I need to stop the service first, delete, then restart?

[David Usherwood]

I've noticed them too, working on CX 9.0 (=TM1 9.4) and TM1 9.5.1, having previously stuck with 9.0 at most of my clients. Whoever thought of cluttering up the server directory with them needs to be staked out in a poison ivy patch, especially since there are _rules_ blb files which actually do something in the way of formatting.

[lotsaram]

Yes the blb files only contain view formatting such as view number format (if being used), window size and position.

As the blb files contain no actual data of importance from a system integrity point of view there is no need to back them up when backing up the data directory (in fact they probably should be excluded from any copy for speed and efficiency). Although the absolute volume of blb files can bloat the data directory the files don't actually do any harm and you can easily ignore them by sorting by extension, there is no need to delete them unless you have a burning desire to.

With the new rules editor in 9.1, 9.4, 9.5 there are no longer any blb files for rule formatting.

[David Usherwood]

That's the editor that came in with 9.1, doesn't work properly and is disabled by default?

[lotsaram]

Didn't work properly in 9.1 that's for sure (but no worse than the old rules editor with formatting in 8.x )
But works fine in 9.4 and 9.5, I'm now a convert for most purposes.

[wilsonric]

Thanks for the feedback guys, have to agree with David's initial comments. What a crazy idea to set them up this way. Good to know its specific to version 9.1 as we plan to upgrade to 9.5 in the next couple of months, so this issue will go away. No doubt will have some new issues though!

[David Usherwood]

Mmm. Thought I might have missed something. Ran up 9.5.1 having flipped the 'Advanced Rules Editor' to T, ran up a server, edited a rule. Still can't create a [] reference including more than one dimension, so still no good. Lotsa, I'm surprised .

[Andy Key]

To get to more than one dimension in your [ ], type a comma after you have selected the element(s) (yes you can select multiple elements and get the { } notation) from your first dimension, and you get the drop down list of dimensions again. Why you don't get a form with a list of all dimensions at the same time like you do on a DB reference I don't know.

[David Usherwood]

Not in the Northern Hemisphere, you don't
You can reselect from the [] icon, then you get
[ 'A',['B']]
which is - since I'm writing before the watershed here - invalid.

[Andy Key]

Assuming you still keep multiple versions of TM1 on your machine, I reckon you've got a dll conflict. I'd give a re-install of 9.5.1 into the default bin directory a go, making sure your perspectives link is running from there as well.

[yyi]

I also have a few hundred <awkward> *.blb files </awkward> in the data directory for ver 9.1

just started ver 9.4.1.3 on dev svr and the BLB Files have already started accumulating

[iansdigby]

Cautionary note:

I deleted all our .blb files last night in a fit of housekeeping. Users then received the message "Error saving rules formatting" every time they opened any view on any cube. It wasn't a show-stopper as you could click through it and carry on as normal, just an annoyance. All were on 9.4 or 9.5 Perspectives versions.

When the server rebooted the problem disappeared. I now only have one .blb file on the server and that appears to have been created when, from one of the affected users' PCs, I opened, then saved, a rule in their rules editor (they were on AdvancedRulesEditor=F in tm1.cfg).

Since in practice only two of us ever write rules and we both use the advanced editor, I assume there will no longer be a need for .blb files and all the ones there were from historic rules editing.

Ian