Actinic freezing closing down creating a mystery error box on larger sites.

[umbrellagirl]

Hi

This following problem seems to be baffling Actinic and MoleEnd folk, and I was wondering if anyone here has or is experiencing the same problems as we are?

We have the multi user version of Actinic V.9.0.3 running on Windows exchange server 2003 and we have five sites, we use the MoleEnd OneStop Automation to help us with the downloads and to keep the stock levels updated.

When Actinic is closing (not every time - tis annoyingly random) the program seems to freeze and an empty error box pops up, which stops actinic from closing completely

http://www.naysmith.ltd.uk/Actinic_Error_Box.jpg

http://www.naysmith.ltd.uk/Error_ScreenShot2.jpg

And thus stops the MoleEnd Automation from continuing as it keeps trying to open another instance of actinic. So if it happens at night I have hundreds of these message boxes to close.

http://www.naysmith.ltd.uk/Error_ScreenShot.jpg


I can sort this problem out during the day but at night/weekends this is a major problem as orders are piling up and the stock levels are not being updated. We have just (last week) updated Brolliesgalore (BRG) to V.9 from V.7 and since we included it, this error has been happening more frequently - for example today its happened 7 or 8 times.

Now I don't think the problem is with the MoleEnd Plugin as the mystery empty error box sometimes comes up when you are manually exiting Actinic, and seems to only affect the larger sites... BRG being our largest site does not seem to be closing down smoothly and we are getting a failed message on the automation, but this again just seems to come up when actinic is trying to close.

http://www.naysmith.ltd.uk/Failed_ScreenShot.jpg

Is there anyone having the same problem?
Is there anyone who had this problem and solved it?
Anyone got any clues as to what may be causing it?

From a Puzzled Christine

[rmorrow]

Isn't it possible just to leave Actinic open rather than closing it every time you do the automated order processing?

[umbrellagirl]

If actinic was open, the automation shuts down actinic to change sites and if the first site on the run is open initally it still shuts it down and we get this error message. So we have always kept the 'Close actinic after run' box ticked.

http://www.naysmith.ltd.uk/Closing_Failed.jpg

Stepping away from the OneStop Automation, even if we exit actinic ourselves the error box can appear.

[Rich Brady]

I'm guessing you've gone through the compacting database? Also may be worth cmapct and repair in Access too, although I'm pretty sure you'll have been told to try that already?

As this always happened? When did it start?

[umbrellagirl]

Sorry, yeah forgot to say...

We have been down the route of compacting databases, actinic support has had me uninstalling and reinstalling all programs and sites too

[Darren B]

i get this all the time, started happening when i upgraded to v9.0.3 seems to happen when i tick compact and database backup.

sorry these days i ignore all these little quirks, i guess i should really report everything as a problem but i dont have enough time as it is these days

[Rich Brady]

Have you upgrade that site to 9.04 Darren? Perhaps it's fixed...

[Darren B]

not yet, i have to many script hacks to put in before i go down that road. one site at a time

[Rich Brady]

Christine

Is this happening on every site? Have you tried testing them individually to see if it's one database that's causing the issue?

[umbrellagirl]

Now thinking about when it happened.... excluding BRG we had the rest of the sites still on V.8 running on a stand alone XP computer then we installed our server and centralised our data thinking it would be a good time to update the v.8 sites to v.9 with the move. So it has been happening since we updated to v.9 and moved the sites over to run on the server. We thought everything was running smoothly did for about a week and then the error box started appearing. The box had only been appearing very randomly perhaps once or twice a week but since last week when we added BRG to v.9 its happening frequently - the count today is now 11 times

[umbrellagirl]

the box is random but only really shows up after orders are downloaded and uploaded from the larger sites SAC and now BRG and actinic takes AGES to close. The error message (typically) never comes up when you try to test it out which is why support is baffled

[umbrellagirl]

Actinic support have never been able to duplicate the error and I have tried testing them individually but never comes up during testing - sounds daft but I feel like it knows when my back is turned!

[pnagames]

if they cannot reproduce it then it might be something specific to your pc

i would move the sites to another pc for a day or so and run them from there. then format and re-install everything on the server.

[umbrellagirl]

move the sites to another pc for a day or so and run them from there. then format and re-install everything on the server.

Easier said than done! especially when I have no choice other than to have a BT connection. And I don't know if anyone else finds this but when the sites move computer they don't like it one bit and take AGES to upload and never on the first attempt... times that by five and its on the coffee for a long night... never had this problem when we ran the business from home and had fabulous fast cable. Anyway going off on a tangent there... reformating the server is not an option. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the program but has not helped but will try running them on a different XP computer for a couple of days see it is a conflict with windows exchange server.

Also has anyone noticed that uploading is a lot slower on v.9? BRG on V.7 was really fast uploading.

[Rich Brady]

Upgrading from V7 to V9 has been well deocumanted on here as being a real bitch.

Most people would recommend building a site from scratch in 9 rather than upgrading. There may be some V7 hang ups in the database that are causing the problem.

May be you should try and speak to someone that has successfully done the upgrade, Actinic may be able to track someone down.