Installation on Windows Server 2003

[simonc]

I've just installed Actinic 9.0.2 IFZA on our production Windows Server 2003 box. Installation was apparently successful. Actinic launches and asks for the software authorisation key, which I entered. I then clicked Authorise, the dialog disappeared and nothing. Checked task manager, and catalog.exe wasn't running. Launching again results in the splash screen followed by catalog.exe shutting down. Running as a trial results in the same problem.

I'm convinced this is some obscure security setting on the new server (we had the same Actinic version installed and running successfully on an older server, also Win2003). Anyone got any ideas how to get it running? I've got some integration guys scheduled to do some work over the weekend so it needs to be up and running today

[jont]

Is it the stand alone or the networked version of Actinic? I have installed numerous flavours of standalone on 2003 with no security issues in the past.

[simonc]

It's standalone.

[simonc]

Aha. Just run dependency walker on it and it's crashing silently and gobbling up the exception.

GetProcAddress(0x77670000 [OLE32.DLL], "CoGetTreatAsClass") called from "IEFRAME.DLL" at address 0x43787F6E and returned 0x776AD5A6.
LoadLibraryExW("C:\WINDOWS\system32\urlmon.dll", 0x00000000, 0x00000000) called from "IEFRAME.DLL" at address 0x43827537.
LoadLibraryExW("C:\WINDOWS\system32\urlmon.dll", 0x00000000, 0x00000000) returned 0x44130000.
GetProcAddress(0x44130000 [URLMON.DLL], "RevokeBindStatusCallback") called from "IEFRAME.DLL" at address 0x43787F6E and returned 0x4413D082.
GetProcAddress(0x44130000 [URLMON.DLL], "CoInternetCreateZoneManager") called from "IEFRAME.DLL" at address 0x43787F6E and returned 0x4414B355.
GetProcAddress(0x44130000 [URLMON.DLL], 0x00000065) called from "IEFRAME.DLL" at address 0x43787F6E and returned 0x4415F273.
GetProcAddress(0x44130000 [URLMON.DLL], "ReleaseBindInfo") called from "MSHTML.DLL" at address 0x4331409D and returned 0x44133297.
GetProcAddress(0x77D00000 [OLEAUT32.DLL], 0x00000006) called from "MFC80.DLL" at address 0x78297398 and returned 0x77D03F40.
HEAP[CATALOG.EXE]: Heap block at 09905AB0 modified at 09905AEC past requested size of 34
HEAP[CATALOG.EXE]: Invalid Address specified to RtlFreeHeap( 01960000, 09905AB8 )
HEAP[CATALOG.EXE]: Heap block at 098DC0B8 modified at 098DC0F4 past requested size of 34
HEAP[CATALOG.EXE]: Invalid Address specified to RtlFreeHeap( 01960000, 098DC0C0 )
HEAP[CATALOG.EXE]: Heap block at 09905178 modified at 099051B4 past requested size of 34
HEAP[CATALOG.EXE]: Invalid Address specified to RtlFreeHeap( 01960000, 09905180 )
Heap corruption detected at 098C70E0
Heap corruption detected at 098C36F8
Second chance exception 0xC0000005 (Access Violation) occurred in "CATALOG.EXE" at address 0x00525C09.
Exited "CATALOG.EXE" (process 0x1E60) with code 128 (0x80).

[simonc]

Right, 3 hours of mindless uninstalling, reinstalling, profiling and general headbanging and I had a Victor Meldrew moment when I accessed the old server (also Windows 2003 SBS) using remote desktop, which I'd seen running Actinic when I was sat in front of it. Over RDP, it didn't work either. The reason: the session was in 256 colour mode (who wants to sap their ADSL bandwidth with pretty colours anyway?) Actinic isn't even polite enough to inform you that it won't run in 256 colours; it just crashes silently.

for solving it
for only discovering this 5 days from launch.

[Duncan Rounding]

Welcome to the world of Actinic.

[simonc]

And I'm afraid it's also goodbye to the world of Actinic. I shan't be doing another Actinic site. I'm sure it's useful in certain scenarios, but I've found it far too inflexible, untransparent, difficult to customise and even harder to maintain once it's customised. In the time I've spent getting our client's site up and running with Actinic I could've put together a simple eCommerce site from scratch. Granted it may not have been bug free, but then neither is Actinic. We, perhaps foolishly, assumed that Actinic would make the whole catalog/cart/payments integration easier than doing it ourselves in a more traditional web technology with perhaps a couple of cheap bought in components.

[Mike Hughes]

We, perhaps foolishly, assumed that Actinic would make the whole catalog/cart/payments integration easier than doing it ourselves

I would say those are probably actinics weak points and due to be improved in V10 (from what I hear). For me actinics good points are it's content management, Order management, Static web pages and general SEO ability, Simple hosting requirements, and being PC based with Microsoft database for easy integration with custom back end applications (using excel in my case).

I don't think it was ever aimed at people who are capable of building their own system.

Mike