gcUserData.GCD is the culprit ! MSAS now fixed and works perfectl

[Guest]

A variety of symptoms existed:
1. Initial set-up screen opened each time MSAS started, despite fact that
MSAS had been completely set up
2. MSAS daily scan was not remembered and Scan Schedule returned to
"InActive"
3. MSAS update was not remembered and UpdateSchedule returned to "InActive"

We had several machines running MSAS so we picked one that worked, updated
several settings, and then sorted the MSAS program directory by date to find
if any file had recently changed. On the machines where MSAS worked and
settings were changed, gsUserData.GCD would be updated to the current date
and time (thus signifying it had changed to accept the new user settings).

On the machine were MSAS did not work (see above symptoms), the
gcUserData.GCD file had an old date and was not being updated for user
settings.

Solution that worked?
We deleted the gcUserData.GCD file on the machine that did not work and then
ported that same file (copy and paste) from a machine that did work.
Immediately MSAS stopped the symptoms noted above and, further, began
accepting and remembering all new settings.

We had previously uninstalled and reinstalled MSAS and updated to a more
recent version. Neither of these fixed the above symptoms.

See also my post of January 4th with additional symptoms and also the exact
MSAS error log entries

 

[Bill Sanderson]

Thanks for doing the digging, Larry. Had I spotted your original post, my
prescription would have been to uninstall, delete the installation folder
(and thus that .GCD file) and reinstall.

That would have worked, but it is probably easier for many to just deal with
the single file, and I hadn't had a test case to try that kind of solution
out on.

I think that it is likely that simply deleting that file will fix the
issue--it'll get recreated on next run.

Thanks again for this post--I'll be testing this solution as I see further
posts with similar issues.

 

[Guest]

I R so dumb! (Accompanied by palm to forehead) Of course a well written
application should be able to re-create a deleted or missing user setting
file (i.e. gcUserData.GDC) upon restart. I really should have tried this
first and bet you are correct. I have now added this to my growing checklist
- thanks.

I was trained as an auto mechanic (an earlier life) to solve issues in order
of lowest cost and shortest time first which runs counter to the instinct to
use the most likely solution and your best guess first. It can be
embarrasing in the middle of an elaborate disassembly to be asked, "Did you
try plugging it in?"

Hence we tried a short cut of pasting a working gcUserData.GDC before a more
elaborate and time consuming solution.

Had this shortcut failed, next would have been an uninstall, restart,
registry cleaner (to identify broken MSAS links left behind), restart, clean
reinstall. We generally do a registry clean after any uninstall.

Thanks for adding to my checklist.