D
D. Eilenberger
Sorry if you saw this message on other newsgroups - but
I'm getting desperate and thought it might best be posted
wherever I think the answer might be..
Background -
I moved a consulting client from a NT4 Server (running on
an old 200MHz box) with W98 and XP-Home client machines to
a full W2K-Server environment with all W2K-Pro client
machines.
Since then - I've had nothing but trouble - especially
with an Access application that they rely on to run their
business.
One problem I have - is I am not near the machines when
the multiple users are accessing the files - it's a
consulting job being done out of hours..
The current Access problem seems to be random disconnects
of the Access data files from the client machines.
I spent some time with the systems last night, and was
able to see the disconnects.
The program is an Access one - with one main file using
other files (about 5) with various tables in them. The
main file uses pointers (I won't claim to be at all expert
on Access) to the other files, doing various lookups on
them, and opening and closing them. The pointers are setup
to point to the files using a mapped drive (N
The symptoms are simple - about every 15-25 minutes the
user will have the application freeze, followed by the
generic warning message "Disk or Network Error". They
frequently see this message 5 times - which to me
indicates they're getting the warning for all 5 files in
the application.
If they can manage to kill the application (sometimes it's
necessary to use Task Manager) - they can very shortly go
right back into it.
Originally - the main program (file) was located on each
users machine - so they could customize their view of the
program to their needs.
Last night I tried setting everyone up to use a version of
the main program that is located on the server - no joy
here - they called this AM and reported the same problem.
I did not redo the pointers in the main program to use UNC
paths - they remain the mapped drive on the user's machine.
The user this AM who called - after clicking on the
warning message (which appears about 5 times before
letting them out of the program) - then reported the
following message appeared:
"The Microsoft Jet Database Engine cannot find the input
table or query RMA - make sure it exists and the name is
spelled correctly" - I have to assume this is just a
warning from the JetDB engine that it also lost
connectivity to the table "RMA" in one of their data files.
I went through the server last night - and checked some of
the server settings - setting the default inactivity
timeout to infinity (well - 8,171 years according to MS,
close enough) and checked the error log.
There were some NetDDE errors - but these appeared related
to the service for Microsoft Time - and they stopped when
I disabled MS-Time. No errors appear in any of the logs
corresponding to when the Access failures occur.
It doesn't appear immediately to me to be a real network
problem since the users can access other files on the
server without any problem..
The main server is W2K-Server, Patch-3, the JetDatabase
engine was updated with the latest patch from MS, the
server is running dual 1.8GHz processors, with a raid-5
array, and dual (teamed) network cards. It is a Compaq
(forget the exact model - but current one) Proliant (570?)
It is the primary (and only) domain server, running active
directory and DNS. The network used to use DHCP assigned
IP's from a router, I've now set it up to use mapped IP
static numbers on all the machines outside the range the
router DHCP server provided. I made this change recently
due to other problems with trust relationships that were
occuring... and it's possible this might have something to
do with the problem. Before the trust relationship problem
occured - they could use the application. There is a
noticeable speed increase in the application since the
static IP numbers were put in place - but I don't know if
this has anything to do with the problem. All the machines
show up in the DNS widget now - where before they didn't.
I'm giving thought now to resurrecting the NT4 server
until I can solve this problem - and moving the program
back to it.. the user isn't going to tolerate the behavior
they're seeing for very long. It's a bodge to do this, but
it might be necessary.
Any ideas? Should I be taking this to another newsgroup?
Thanks for ANY help! And sorry this is kinda long - but I
thought more details might trigger some thoughts.
Don
I'm getting desperate and thought it might best be posted
wherever I think the answer might be..
Background -
I moved a consulting client from a NT4 Server (running on
an old 200MHz box) with W98 and XP-Home client machines to
a full W2K-Server environment with all W2K-Pro client
machines.
Since then - I've had nothing but trouble - especially
with an Access application that they rely on to run their
business.
One problem I have - is I am not near the machines when
the multiple users are accessing the files - it's a
consulting job being done out of hours..
The current Access problem seems to be random disconnects
of the Access data files from the client machines.
I spent some time with the systems last night, and was
able to see the disconnects.
The program is an Access one - with one main file using
other files (about 5) with various tables in them. The
main file uses pointers (I won't claim to be at all expert
on Access) to the other files, doing various lookups on
them, and opening and closing them. The pointers are setup
to point to the files using a mapped drive (N
The symptoms are simple - about every 15-25 minutes the
user will have the application freeze, followed by the
generic warning message "Disk or Network Error". They
frequently see this message 5 times - which to me
indicates they're getting the warning for all 5 files in
the application.
If they can manage to kill the application (sometimes it's
necessary to use Task Manager) - they can very shortly go
right back into it.
Originally - the main program (file) was located on each
users machine - so they could customize their view of the
program to their needs.
Last night I tried setting everyone up to use a version of
the main program that is located on the server - no joy
here - they called this AM and reported the same problem.
I did not redo the pointers in the main program to use UNC
paths - they remain the mapped drive on the user's machine.
The user this AM who called - after clicking on the
warning message (which appears about 5 times before
letting them out of the program) - then reported the
following message appeared:
"The Microsoft Jet Database Engine cannot find the input
table or query RMA - make sure it exists and the name is
spelled correctly" - I have to assume this is just a
warning from the JetDB engine that it also lost
connectivity to the table "RMA" in one of their data files.
I went through the server last night - and checked some of
the server settings - setting the default inactivity
timeout to infinity (well - 8,171 years according to MS,
close enough) and checked the error log.
There were some NetDDE errors - but these appeared related
to the service for Microsoft Time - and they stopped when
I disabled MS-Time. No errors appear in any of the logs
corresponding to when the Access failures occur.
It doesn't appear immediately to me to be a real network
problem since the users can access other files on the
server without any problem..
The main server is W2K-Server, Patch-3, the JetDatabase
engine was updated with the latest patch from MS, the
server is running dual 1.8GHz processors, with a raid-5
array, and dual (teamed) network cards. It is a Compaq
(forget the exact model - but current one) Proliant (570?)
It is the primary (and only) domain server, running active
directory and DNS. The network used to use DHCP assigned
IP's from a router, I've now set it up to use mapped IP
static numbers on all the machines outside the range the
router DHCP server provided. I made this change recently
due to other problems with trust relationships that were
occuring... and it's possible this might have something to
do with the problem. Before the trust relationship problem
occured - they could use the application. There is a
noticeable speed increase in the application since the
static IP numbers were put in place - but I don't know if
this has anything to do with the problem. All the machines
show up in the DNS widget now - where before they didn't.
I'm giving thought now to resurrecting the NT4 server
until I can solve this problem - and moving the program
back to it.. the user isn't going to tolerate the behavior
they're seeing for very long. It's a bodge to do this, but
it might be necessary.
Any ideas? Should I be taking this to another newsgroup?
Thanks for ANY help! And sorry this is kinda long - but I
thought more details might trigger some thoughts.
Don