Business Plus synchronization server

[AlistairW]

Hi,

I am using 9.01 Business Plus and am getting the following message when trying to start Actinic:

"Actinic was unable to connect to the synchronization server. Please check network connections and that the Synchronization server is running"

This is happening on all three machines that Actinic is installed on, on the sync server PC when starting Actinic it just hangs. I have checked that the sync server service is running and that there is no firewall blocking communications.

If I restart the service then Actinic will start once and then afterwards will not start again. Has anyone experienced any similar problems or have any suggestions. All PC's are running XP SP2.

many thanks

Alistiar

[TraceyG]

Hi,

Can you check if you are using the IP address for the 'Settings | Synchronization Server | Server running on machine' field. If so, you may need to change it to the pc name if you have dynamic IP addresses being assigned to the pcs. To do this:

- untick the 'Use IP Address for notifications' box and click 'OK'
- close Actinic
- then you need to edit the 'ActinicCatalog.mdb' database in the shared site data (take a backup first) by opening it in Access and go into the 'SetupInfo' table
- locate the line with an 'nID' value of '247'. It should have an 'sName' of 'sSynchronizationServerURL'
- replace the 'sData' value with the Computer Name of the 'Business Plus' PC running the synchronisation server (you can get this by going to 'Control Panel | System Info | Computer Name').
- close Access and re-open Actinic and that should solve the issue.

[AlistairW]

Hello Tracey,

I have made the changes as described and it has not made any difference. The PC that the sync server is installed on has a static IP address anyway.

Can you suggest anything else I can look at.

thanks

[AlistairW]

I have now uninstalled and re-installed Actinic on the sync server PC, the problem is still occurring.

This is very inconvenient as every time we need to log on I have to restart the sync server service on the main PC before we can use it.

I have run out of ideas and things to try..........

[TraceyG]

Hi,

Connections to/from the synchronisation server take place via port 4371 and 4372. Can you check that these ports are not being blocked on the Business Plus PC.

If that doesn't work then you can enable tracing by going to 'Settings | Synchronization Server | Enable Tracing'. It then writes all communications via the synch server to the file it creates. Once you have had the error while tracing is switched on you can then contact support and give them this trace file to give to the development team so they can analyse it. Turn tracing off once you have recreated the error as it will slow things down.

[george]

Go to your Windows Firewall settings and open port 4372, thats what worked for us.

There is an older thread about this issue, but I didn't find any documentation saying you had to open that port at the time I set ours up either.

[chris ashdown]

Just solved our problems as well after having sites on both V8 and V9 whilst we waited

Pity support could not email us about the cure after 5 days

How come one person in Actinic knows the problem and solution and Support doesn't

[AlistairW]

Many thanks for all your suggestions, however none of them have worked.

I do not believe that there is anything blocking the port access, the problem is that there is a failure which appears to cause the sync server service to stop listening - consequently all connection attempts including the sync PC itself are unable to connect. In this state the PC reports that the sync server service is running - even if it is not working correctly. Manually restating the service cures the problem for a very short period. The end of the trace from the log is below :

2008/04/30 23:57:03:029 0fb4 CMachineNotificationThread::Run Notification of http://192.168.1.113:4371/:4371Invok...icationService for signature 6_<9>_Site1_Administrator failed: 80004005 ret: 0

2008/04/30 23:57:03:029 1554 CMachineNotificationThread::Run Notification of http://192.168.1.113:4371/:4371Invok...icationService for signature 4_<9>_Site1_alistairwhite failed: 80004005 ret: 0

2008/04/30 23:57:03:029 0fb0 CMachineNotificationThread::Run Notification of http://192.168.1.113:4371/:4371Invok...icationService for signature 5_<9>_Site1_#Licence Key Removed from trace#H failed: 80004005 ret: 0

2008/04/30 23:57:03:029 0fb4 CMachineMgr::OnConnectionFailure Machine 192.168.1.113 (9.0.1.0.0.0 IDWA) fail count 5

2008/04/30 23:57:03:029 1554 CMachineMgr::OnConnectionFailure Machine 192.168.1.113 (9.0.1.0.0.0 IDWA) fail count 4

2008/04/30 23:57:03:029 0fb0 CMachineMgr::OnConnectionFailure Machine 192.168.1.113 (9.0.1.0.0.0 IDWA) fail count 3

2008/04/30 23:58:08:430 1618 CHttpListener::StopListening

2008/04/30 23:58:08:430 1618 CHttpListenerThread::ShutDown

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 1618 CActThreadPool::ShutDown

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 1618 CActWorkerThread::ShutDown

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 15f4 CActPooledThread::Run Exiting

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 1618 CActWorkerThread::ShutDown

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 03e0 CActPooledThread::Run Exiting

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 1618 CActWorkerThread::ShutDown

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 09c4 CActPooledThread::Run Exiting

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 1618 CActWorkerThread::ShutDown

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 0914 CActPooledThread::Run Exiting

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 1618 CActWorkerThread::ShutDown

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 0974 CActPooledThread::Run Exiting

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 1618 CActWorkerThread::ShutDown

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 1170 CActPooledThread::Run Exiting

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 1618 CActWorkerThread::ShutDown

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 0864 CActPooledThread::Run Exiting

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 1618 CActWorkerThread::ShutDown

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 16b4 CActPooledThread::Run Exiting

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 1618 CActWorkerThread::ShutDown

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 09d8 CActPooledThread::Run Exiting

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 1618 CActWorkerThread::ShutDown

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 15e4 CActPooledThread::Run Exiting

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 1618 CMachineMgr::Uninitialize

2008/04/30 23:58:08:445 1618 CCommandMgr::UnAdvise

2008/04/30 23:58:12:117 14f0 CMachineMgr::Uninitialize

2008/04/30 23:58:12:117 14f0 CCommandMgr::UnAdvise
##########################


Can anything cause the service to stop working like this ?

thanks

[davie_ne1]

Just solved our problems as well after having sites on both V8 and V9 whilst we waited

Pity support could not email us about the cure after 5 days

How come one person in Actinic knows the problem and solution and Support doesn't

Chris how do you solve your sync problems

We have windows firewall switched off so I don't think it's a port problem with us

[chris ashdown]

We just opened the port on all machines, could not configure AVG virus / firewall yet(hard to understand),so used Microsoft firewall instead

[davie_ne1]

We just opened the port on all machines, could not configure AVG virus / firewall yet(hard to understand),so used Microsoft firewall instead

Chris I was under the impresson that sync server worked on some sites but not others for you.

Did the opening of the port solve this on all sites ?

We have tried actinic on a standalone pc not on a network with firewall turned off and we still get the sync server problems

[AlistairW]

Your problems sound similar to ours - if you restart the syncronization service does the problem correct itself ?

Our issue is that the sync server service shows as running but as per the trace I included has actually stopped listening on the port - hence nothing will connect

[davie_ne1]

for us we can process orders all do with no problems (mosty) but as soon as we interact with the product database either directly or through the search on the moto form with keep getting the syncro error

[Folk]

for us we can process orders all do with no problems (mosty) but as soon as we interact with the product database either directly or through the search on the moto form with keep getting the syncro error

What he said!

[chris ashdown]

Chris I was under the impresson that sync server worked on some sites but not others for you.

Did the opening of the port solve this on all sites ?

We have tried actinic on a standalone pc not on a network with firewall turned off and we still get the sync server problems

Yes it did, but not the full story

We had tried with Master actinic on main computer and sites on Terastation, out of the 7 sites 5 worked with no problems whilst the other two constantly had the server problem

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

Changed Port settings as advised on all computers and system works as intended

(sits crossed legs, arms, fingers and toes,touching wood and telling everyone to stop using actinic for twenty mins, whilst holding crusifix in teeth and phoneing church to make apointment)