Business Plus synchronization server

[TraceyG]

Hi Alistair,

I've posted your trace file to the development team and they say that it suggest that Actinic is not receiving notifications, so the sync server just logs out the machines. Then it seems it just stops listening which is bizarre. Something, another application probably must have closed the socket somehow.

Are you able to get me the following information for your three pcs:

- operating system and whether all updates have been applied
- network type (wifi or ethernet, DHCP or static address...)
- workgroup or domain? (all PCs must be on the same workgroup or domain)
- is it possible to have a list of running processes on the machines (screen shots of 'Task Manager | Processes')?
- a list of ports that are open - enter netstat -a in the command prompt

- Do you run some torrent software or something that puts a heavy load on the network?

If you can get all this information can you email it to me at tgsupport[@]actinic[dot]co[dot]uk.

[Folk]

We have now installed a new computer and decided to try installing everything on it from Actinic, all went well but still problem with the same two sites

Is this the firewall opening of ports?

[Folk]

- close Access and re-open Actinic and that should solve the issue.

Is there a way of doing this if you don't have MS Access? It seems that if you open this in Excel and try to save it it wants to save it as a work book.

[TraceyG]

Hi,

There is a way to do it without having access. Try the following (but first backup your database and make sure no-one is using Actinic while you do it):

- go into your Control Panel | Administrative Tools | Data Sources (ODBC)
- on the 'User DSN' tab, click the 'Add' button
- choose 'Driver do Microsoft Access (*mdb)' and click 'Finish'
- enter a 'Data Source Name' (something you'll remember) and then click the 'Select' button and browse to your ActinicCatalog.mdb file
- click 'OK' and you should then see your ODBC connection in the 'User Data Sources' list
- open Excel and go to 'Data | Get External Data | New Database Query'
- select your data source in the 'databases' tab and click 'OK'
- select the 'SetupInfo' table from the 'Available Tables and Columns' list and click the 'right arrow button' to move the columns into the 'columns in your query' list
- keep clicking 'Next' until you get to the 'Finish' screen and select 'view data or edit query in Microsoft Query'
- click 'Finish'
- click the 'SQL' button in the toolbar and replace the contents of the window with the following:

UPDATE SetupInfo SET SetupInfo.sData = 'localhost'
WHERE (((SetupInfo.sName)='sSynchronizationServerURL'));

(replace 'localhost' with the name of your pc)

- when you click 'OK' you will get message to say that it can't be displayed graphically, just click 'OK' to this
- you should get a message to say that the SQL statement was executed successfully
- click 'OK' and close the Microsoft Query window and Excel
- open Actinic and go to the 'Settings | Synchonization Server' window and you should then see the pc name instead of the IP address in the 'server running on machine' field
- don't forget to untick the 'use IP address for notifications' box.


PS many thanks to Jan for pointing me in the right direction for this.

[TraceyG]

Hi Alistair,

I haven't received any of the information that I requested in my previous post - have you resolved this issue?

If not, then one thing I'd like to check with you is whether you get this error after one of your users has logged off?

[chris ashdown]

OK it's happened again, I have two sites with problems with Dynamic Images (same two)

Finally got time to try and sort them out, so reinstalled Normans Patches, First site worked well and uploaded ok to site, Second went through identical reinstall and came up with sync failure when trying to upload to site

Went back to first site the same thing

Both 4371 and 4371 open in firewall, absolutly nothing else changed, this sync server error is getting out of hand and needs sorting fast, is only on business plus using multi sites that has this problem

Any suggestions welcomed

[TraceyG]

Hi Chris,

Can I have the information that I posted in #16 from you and also a sync server trace file as per my instructions in #5 please.

[davie_ne1]

Chris we have the same problem

* port 4371 and 4372 open in windows firewall on all pc's
* gave is pc a static ip address instead of dynamic via dhcp
* even tried changing pc's to newer visata ones (good excuse to upgrade )
* noticed our roter had a firewall built in and tried changing the router
* tried sending snapshots + trace files to support but all i keep getting told is they cannot recreate the problem

don't get me wrong i am not bad mouthing actinic, we have been a user since version 6 and love the software.

just as you can imagine pulling out over £1000 for the multi-user fuction and then not been able to get it working properly is a little disheartening.

we have had to resort back to the old 1 pc for orders and a seperate pc for site design. Not ideal but at least it works

as a point of note if i change to the default actinic site everything works great so there must be something that all of us that is having this problem have done with our site that the sync server does not like

as a suggestion to actinic why does the sync server fail result in actinic shutting down

why can it not just say what it was trying to do and give you the option to

cancell -- retry -- close

just an idea

[chris ashdown]

Dealing with Courtney at support at moment, he may have a fix, hopefully know in next few hours

These things are sent to try us I guess

[davie_ne1]

Dealing with Courtney at support at moment, he may have a fix, hopefully know in next few hours

These things are sent to try us I guess

We have been dealing with Adam but have not heard anything for over a week now.

I would appreciate if you can post the fix as we need multi-user sorting

regards

David

[leehack]

Try and be patient please guys, they've only had 2 years to get it working.

[george]

The server sync method is new to v9. Never, ever had a connection problem with v7 or v8 with a connection, until now... I guess theres a good reason for the change but again appears to lack proper testing in the real world before release. (Not likely that a multiuser can properly beta test on a non-working site but its Actinics responsibility to get it right before release at the end of the day...)

[chris ashdown]

The server sync method is new to v9. Never, ever had a connection problem with v7 or v8 with a connection, until now... I guess theres a good reason for the change but again appears to lack proper testing in the real world before release. (Not likely that a multiuser can properly beta test on a non-working site but its Actinics responsibility to get it right before release at the end of the day...)

You are right George in Beta we were never allowed to run multi sites, so this was an obvious failing for guys with multi sites and I guess there are relativly few of us compared with single user sites

[davie_ne1]

were you able to run multi-user in beta as we only have the 1 site and cannot get sync server to fuction properly

[chris ashdown]

We never tried it ourselves, but the fault seems to be variable on different sites, we have seven sites of which 5 worked ok from first upgrade with two faulty with sync error, then applied the firewall fix and had seven working ok then re-applied Normans Dynamic Images to two sites and the fault reappeared on the two updated sites, (but all 5 sites use dynamic images)

Support thought they had a fix yesterday, but if failed so waiting on update hopefully today

Everything else works apart from Snapshots and Uploads on base computer but unable to use these two sites over network (better than nothing i Guess)