[R-SIG-Finance] Rbloomberg problem "Seems like this is not a Bloomberg Workstation"

[Voss, Kent]

Paul,

I believe that I did have the Excel add-in and DDE server installed
already (at least I could pull Bloomberg history and real-time data in
Excel).  I thought I had to have those COM API's installed as well.
Anyway, just to be sure I went to that site you listed and there was an
update to the Excel add-in.  I installed the update and voila, it works
now.
As I can figure, it may have been one of the following: 
a) I didn't have the Excel Add-in installed properly such that I could
pull data in Excel, but not through R.
b) Installing the COM/API SDK Package overwrote something that caused it
not to work.
c) Some combination of (a) and (b)
d) Gross operator error to which I am thankful for your suggestions that
fixed it.

Many thanks again,

Kent

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Paul DeBruicker [mailto:pdebruic at gmail.com] 
Sent: Monday, February 09, 2009 8:44 AM
To: Voss, Kent
Cc: r-sig-finance at stat.math.ethz.ch
Subject: Re: [R-SIG-Finance] Rbloomberg problem "Seems like this is not
a Bloomberg Workstation"

Hi Kent,

I'm confused by this bit of your post:

>At first the Bloomberg installation didn't have the COM API installed.
>So I went to WAPI in Bloomberg and downloaded and installed both the 
>Desktop v3.x - API and ActiveX Data Control SDK Package and the Desktop

>Pre-3.x API SDK Package (the v3.x didn't work at first, so I tried the 
>older one to no avail)


Did either of the packages install?  From my reading it looks like
neither did.  I don't think you need them.  Do you have the Excel Add-In
& DDE Server installed and functioning on your Bloomberg
terminal?    If not, then you might go here:
http://about.bloomberg.com/software/info_upgr.html and download and
install them, then restart, log in to bloomberg, and try your
blpconnect() calls again.  RBloomberg, which must run on the BBG
terminal, just interfaces with the COM api provided & used by the Excel
add-in and dde server.


Good luck

Paul

On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 2:44 PM, Voss, Kent <VOSSK at kochind.com> wrote:
> I am trying to set up the RBloomberg connection on a new machine, and 
> am running into the following error when I run blpConnect()
>
>> blpConnect()
> [1] "Error : Invalid class string\n"
> attr(,"class")
> [1] "BlpCOMConnect"
> Warning message:
> In blpConnect() :
>  Seems like this is not a Bloomberg Workstation:  Error : Invalid 
> class string
>>
>
> I have set up RBloomberg many times before, and never run across this,

> so here's what debugging/troubleshooting information I have.
>
> At first the Bloomberg installation didn't have the COM API installed.
> So I went to WAPI in Bloomberg and downloaded and installed both the 
> Desktop v3.x - API and ActiveX Data Control SDK Package and the 
> Desktop Pre-3.x API SDK Package (the v3.x didn't work at first, so I 
> tried the older one to no avail)
>
> I downloaded and installed RDCOMClient and Rbloomberg.  Here is the 
> session info dump with the relevant information:
>> sessionInfo()
> R version 2.8.1 (2008-12-22)
> i386-pc-mingw32
>
> locale:
> LC_COLLATE=English_United States.1252;LC_CTYPE=English_United
> States.1252;LC_MONETARY=English_United
> States.1252;LC_NUMERIC=C;LC_TIME=English_United States.1252
>
> attached base packages:
> [1] graphics  grDevices datasets  stats     tcltk     utils
methods
> base
>
> other attached packages:
>  [1] RBloomberg_0.1-10  chron_2.3-28       RDCOMClient_0.92-0
zoo_1.5-4
> RODBC_1.2-4        svSocket_0.9-42    svMisc_0.9-47
>  [8] TinnR_1.0.2        R2HTML_1.59        Hmisc_3.4-4
>
> loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
> [1] cluster_1.11.11 grid_2.8.1      lattice_0.17-17 tools_2.8.1
>>
>
> The problem seems to be in the COMCreate() function call inside of 
> blpConnect().  When I just run the COMCreate(), I get the following:
>> COMCreate("Bloomberg.Data.1")
> Error: Invalid class string
>>
>
> I can run COMCreate("Excel.Application") successfully, so I don't 
> think it's the RDCOMClient that's the issue (of course I could be 
> wrong on that).  I can download Bloomberg into Excel no problem is 
> that is helpful at all.  Bloomberg is installed in the default at 
> c:\blp\API, but I'm not sure if there is a particular file I should be

> looking for the COMCreate.  "bbcomm.exe" is in c:\blp\api and I can 
> fire that up and it works, but I'm not sure what else is needed.  When

> I load the Rbloomberg library all looks fine:
>> library(RBloomberg)
> Loading required package: RDCOMClient
> Loading required package: chron
> Contents of bbfields have been stored in .bbfields in the current 
> workspace
>>
>
> At this point I've exhausted my rudimentary troubleshooting skills, 
> and so am looking for any suggestions.  I have searched the archives, 
> but the only hits I get on my error is the actual code for the 
> blpConnect() function.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.
>
> Thank you in advance,
>
> Kent
>
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