Sometimes you need to delete an Application but you can’t.  You still see it in Essbase Administration Services or even Application Manager (hey, there’s nothing wrong with still being on 6.5.x, if it ain’t broke…), but the app is broken or doesn’t exist.  The simplest cause of this is that someone [probably you] deleted the folder that contained the app, but you didn’t delete it through EAS.  And now, paradoxically enough, when you go in to EAS to delete the app, you can’t, because it can’t be started, because it doesn’t exist.  So essentially, the Essbase server tracks databases based not just on the existences of their folder, but also via some other means.

The easiest and most consistent method that I’ve come up with to kill the unruly app is this (assuming you have an extra Essbase server laying around):

1. On a separate Essbase server (your test server, for example), create an app of the same name, then create a database of the same name (you just have one database to an app, right?   No?  Well, go ahead and create the same-named databases — and shame on you, for cramming more than one database in an application).  If you already had a copy of the app/database on your test server, you can skip this part and just use the existing files.
2. Unload/stop the application you just created.
3. Stop the Essbase service on the server giving you troubles.
4. Copy the entire folder containing the new app to the proper location on the server that is messed up.  For example, if using Windows, if the name of your bad application is BadApp, right click on this folder from Windows Explorer and select Copy, then paste it into the app/folder on the server with the messed up app.  Use the appropriate cp -R command for Unix variants.
5. Restart the Essbase service, if necessary.
6. Start the App that was giving you problems.
7. Delete it (and make sure when you right click on Delete, you press it with authority.  You show that Essbase server who the boss is.)

This approach has always worked for me.  If you don’t have access to another Essbase server, you may be able to get away with following these steps, to an extent, using the same server —  I think I got that approach to work once but I really had to play with it and create the app with a different name, then go in and edit some of the files.

In any case, I hope this helps someone out there that is sick of looking at non-existant apps in their EAS view or just needs to fix something that went corrupt on them — so good luck y’all.