Analysis Services 2005 error: Errors in the metadata manager. The attribute with ID of ., Name of . refer

Q: When deploying Analysis Services solution I am getting errors:

Errors in the metadata manager. The attribute with ID of .., Name of .. referenced by the .. measure group dimension does not exist. 

Errors in the metadata manager. An error occurred when loading the .. measure group, from the file, partitionWithFullPath.xml

A: One of the reasons why you could be getting this error message is because you are trying to deploy solution using "Changes Only" deployment method and as not all changes are deployed, metadata that is already deployed conflicts with your current metadata about cube.

To see if this will fix your problem follow these steps:

• In Business Intelligence Development Studio (BIDS) select your solution in Solution explorer, right mouse click and select Rebuild. You should not get any error during this step.
• In BIDS select menu item "Project" and choose "Properties" menu item
• Go to "Deployment" tab and change "Deployment Mode" to "Deploy All". Change Processing Option to "Full processing", or to "Do not process" if you are planning to process latter. Close this dialog.
• Select your solution in the Solution explorer and choose "Deploy" item.
• If reason for above stated error was metadata inconsistencies, you should see no errors during deployment and/or processing.
• Change your deployment setting back to what you usually use.

If you are getting similar error during processing, then there is a good chance that data folder that contains MOLAP data is corrupted. To fix this you have to:

• Stop Analysis Services service
• Make sure you have source deployment files for database that is corrupted
• Drop database files from dataDir folder
• Start Analysis Services service
• Deploy database from source files
• Process database

 If you are getting this error when restoring backup, there is a possibility that you are trying to restore backup done from SP2 Analysis Services machine on Analysis Services machine with older service pack.