SAS® Visual Analytics displays "An error was encountered contacting the server (500 error)" when opening reports that use parameters in filters


If your SAS Visual Analytics report includes a filter that uses the Parse operator with a parameter, you might see the following error:

An error was encountered contacting the server (500 error)


For example, if the filter is applied to an object, you see the error when you select the object. You also see the error when you select any control that interacts with that object, and when you open the Filter Expression dialog box.

When this problem occurs, the browser network trace includes an error that is similar to this one:

{"errorCode":15375,"message":"Error normalizing query request -
query:e0eaf19b-822b-4b8f-8818-e49e9ef361af_e0eaf19b-822b-4b8f-8818-e49e9ef361af_
c12 -
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Expression parse error:
eq(${bixrbceb2,binned},applySASFormat(minus(applySASInFormat(#{pr84},$SASInforma
t{COMMA4.}),1),$SASFormat{BEST4.}))","details":[],"remediation":"","links":[],"h
ttpStatusCode":500,"version":1}


A similar error appears in the browser console.

To workaround this issue, place the portion of the filter that uses the Parse operator in a calculated item, and then use that calculated item in the filter expression. For example, suppose that your original filter looks like this:

(Country = Format [(parse [Parameter 1 COMMA4.]-1) OVER best4.}

You create a new calculated item like this:

(parse [Parameter 1 COMMA4] -1)

You then use the new calculated item in the filter:

(Country = Format [Calculated item 1 BEST4.])