Download Actinic Orders in the Background

[ChillOut]

I've been using Actinic 6 for a couple of years with a bat file to download orders every 1/2 hr e.g. Catalog.exe" /D

The downside is that the process is visible e.g. the black cmd window appears and Actinic displays a message e.g. 'there are no orders to download' and takes the focus. I don't have the option of running Actinic on a different pc.

Ideally, I'd like to set up a job in SQL server e.g.

exec master..xp_cmdshell '"C:\Program Files\Actinic\Catalog.exe" /D'

However, this job hangs when run and I can't debug it in Visual Studio. Is it a rights issue as catalog.exe is showing as a process under the SYSTEM user? (I have to end the process in task manager)

Any help would be appreciated

[wjcampbe]

If you are on Windows XP, have a look at schtasks.

hth

[jont]

Have you checked out 1 Stop Automation from Mole End?

http://www.mole-end.biz/acatalog/1St...onInfoDet.html

[ChillOut]

Thanks but I've been using scheduled tasks for this task for 2 years and task scheduler is much easier to use to create the same jobs as schtasks.

The one benefit of schtasks for me is the end task command. Putting it in an SQL job:
exec xp_cmdshell "schtasks /end /tn NameOfScheduledTask"
to close Actinic but only if it was opened by the scheduled task in the first place. This then forces an external links refresh when you reopen Actinic. Is there a close Actinic switch in v6 now?

[wjcampbe]

The other advantage of schtasks is that you can specify which user the task gets run as, so instead of using the default system account, you can specify your own username and password.

Will SQL exec not parse the schtasks calls?

[ChillOut]

Hi Bill

I've tried an sp with my user/pwd and this invokes Actinic in the foreground in the same way as usual which is not what I'm after.

I've tried setting the job up as NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM and I can see actinic.exe in processes when I fire the sp but it doesn't use any cpu and looks like its not running the download job unfortunately due to a login issue?

Similarly, I've tried to set up a job on a different xp user account with admin rights and switch users but get 'error locating the "original" directory' message when I try to open Actinic when logged in as the other user.

[ChillOut]

Happy!

To run Actinic under a different xp user account:
1. Set up another account on xp (must have admin rights).
2. Run regedit.exe (at your peril).
3. Export the folder
HKEY_CURRENT_USER/software/Actinic to say c:/actinic.reg
4. Log in to new account and click on c:/actinic.reg
5. Add the new folder to the registry when prompted
6. Log out of the new account and forget about it - you can run a task to upload Actinic on it without even being logged in

I'm just going with task scheduler for this (rather than sql) as the order download only takes 15secs and you can set the job to stop after 1min which kills the Actinic process running in the background on the new user account.



Thanks for the input Bill

[ChillOut]

Follow up re Actinic task on 2nd windows account:

The order downloads have been running very smoothly in the background on the 2nd account for a couple of days. It's fantastic to just open my sales database and see the new orders in it!!!!!

I've scheduled an overnight upload at 3am and it works with one wierd bug. The 2nd user account has to be logged in (but can be disconnected) while the task is running otherwise the picture width and height settings on the extended info pages are all set to 0 and so no picture!!!!

It's pretty wierd as I've mentioned. Actinic is linked to a sql server and nearly all of the fields are linked (including the extended info width and height). None of the other linked fields are affected if the 2nd xp account is logged on or off.

Putting it in tech speak - in the popup page the INFOIMAGEWIDTH and INFOIMAGEHEIGHT fields = 0 when the user account isn't logged on:

<td align="left" valign="top"><img src="NETQUOTEVAR:INFOIMAGE" width=NETQUOTEVAR:INFOIMAGEWIDTH height=NETQUOTEVAR:INFOIMAGEHEIGHT>
</td>


can someone have a guess at why this is happening please?


Thanks

Paul
Chillout Games

[Nadeem]

Hi Paul

None of the other linked fields are affected if the 2nd xp account is logged on or off.

But if you use the original profile, they are linked, is that what you are saying? That is very strange.. I will ask development this question.

Kind Regards