I noticed occasionally after a reboot, the EDBServer (Unicode) service is running, but not answering requests from the client. I get a message "EDBServer(1100) Connection Failed". The only way around this is to stop the service and start it again. Then it is fine. It happens maybe 1 out of 10 reboots on Win7 64bit.

Has anyone else noticed this?

The service startup type is "Automatic". Should I change it to "Automatic (Delayed Start)"?
I did not find anything unusual in the configuration.logevents table EXCEPT there was NO ROW for  "Start Server" at the time the computer was booted this morning. There is a "Start Server" 10 minutes later when I restarted the EDB Service.

I thought it might be ZoneAlarm, but I removed it and a couple of days later the problem still happened after reboot.
I switched to EDB 32bit Unicode Debug server from the 64bit server and it didn't solve the problem.

Any suggestions on how to tackle this problem?

Barry
Win7 64bit
EDB v2.11B3 Win64bit Unicode Server or 32bit Unicode Debug Server

This *may* have something to do with the software firewall from letting the EDBServer respond to requests. It is strange that sometimes the EDBServer works fine after reboot, and other times I have to restart the service. If it is the firewall, why does restarting the service always solve the problem?

I switched from ZoneAlarm to the Windows firewall and the problem persists. Turning off the Windows Firewall doesn't solve the problem unless I reboot.

I will continue to monitor the problem and report back any new findings.

1) Has anyone else had problems with EDBServer running as a Service and firewalls?
2) What advantage is there in using EDBServer Debug server? Are there additional log files I should be looking at?

TIA
Barry

Barry,

<< The service startup type is "Automatic". Should I change it to "Automatic
(Delayed Start)"? I did not find anything unusual in the
configuration.logevents table EXCEPT there was NO ROW for  "Start Server" at
the time the computer was booted this morning. There is a "Start Server" 10
minutes later when I restarted the EDB Service. >>

Hmm, if there's an error starting the server (listening on the port, etc.)
then you should see an error in the logged events.  If there isn't an error,
then you should see a Start Server event, provided that you're logging the
informational events.  You should definitely see one or the other.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Barry,

<< This *may* have something to do with the software firewall from letting
the EDBServer respond to requests. It is strange that sometimes the
EDBServer works fine after reboot, and  other times I have to restart the
service. If it is the firewall, why does restarting the service always solve
the problem? >>

I don't have an answer for that, but I can assure you that there is nothing
wrong with the EDB Server running as a service, so there's definitely
something external going on.

<< 2) What advantage is there in using EDBServer Debug server? Are there
additional log files I should be looking at? >>

The debug server is only useful for fatal errors like AVs, and is used to do
a call stack/memory dump to an .edbdmp file in the server's temporary files
directory if/when such errors occur.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

"Tim Young [Elevate Software]" wrote:

<< The service startup type is "Automatic". Should I change it to "Automatic
(Delayed Start)"? I did not find anything unusual in the
configuration.logevents table EXCEPT there was NO ROW for  "Start Server" at
the time the computer was booted this morning. There is a "Start Server" 10
minutes later when I restarted the EDB Service. >>

<Hmm, if there's an error starting the server (listening on the port, etc.)
then you should see an error in the logged events.  If there isn't an error,
then you should see a Start Server event, provided that you're logging the
informational events.  You should definitely see one or the other.>

The EDBSrvr failed to connect to EDBMgr again this morning after the computer was booted. I am logging everything. Here is the configuration.logevents:

Information Stop Server 2013-02-16 03:43 (last night) when computer shut down
This morning I powered on the computer around 10:30 AM
- ERROR 1100 when trying to connect using ADD or a Vcl program via C/S
Information Login to Session 2013-02-16 10:47 (ADD this morning without using C/S)
- ERROR 1100 when trying to connect using ADD or a Vcl program via C/S
Information Start Server 2013-02-16 11:05 (Restarted Service)
Information Connect Session 2013-02-16 11:06 (Successful connection)
Information Login To Session 2013-02-16 11:06 (Successful login)

I have a Delphi program that I run to test the C/S connection and it reported:
 Connection FAILED at Feb 16, 2013 10:47:09  -  (1100) Connection Failed
 Connected Ok at Feb 16, 2013 11:08:11

So where is the "Start Server" in configuration.logevents this morning when the computer was rebooted? It is missing. The EDBSrvr Service is running this morning when I got the 1100 error because I checked using Services program and WhatsRunning. (The EDB service display name is something I chose via Config, but I left the service executable as EDBSrve.exe) The service had "Started" and Startup Type was "Automatic" with Logon as "Local System".

When I stopped and started the EDBService at 11:05 AM this morning, the configuration.logevents now records the "Start Server" event. But it didn't record the "Start Server" event at 10:30AM when the computer was started nor did it record the "Stop Server" event when I stopped the service this morning at 11:05AM before service was restarted.

Does this shed the light on what's going on?

Barry

Barry,

<< So where is the "Start Server" in configuration.logevents this morning
when the computer was rebooted? It is missing. >>

Okay, just to clarify - the logged events in EDB uses a circular log, and
there's a log file size limit configuration setting in the engine.  Check
your edbconfig.edblog file size, and if it's 1MB in size, then the logged
events probably just wrapped around.  You're free to increase the log file
size limit to any size you want, however, so that you can capture more data.
Configuration information is here:

http://www.elevatesoft.com/manual?action=viewtopic&id=edb2sql&topic=Starting_Configuring_Server

You want the "Maximum Log File Size" setting.

It still sounds to me like something is interfering with the connections.
Can you establish a local connection to the server (localhost/127.0.0.1)
using the EDB Manager from the same machine as the server when this problem
is occurring ?  If so, then you probably have a firewall/connection blocking
issue still.

If you have any other questions, please let me know.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

"Tim Young [Elevate Software]" wrote:

<< So where is the "Start Server" in configuration.logevents this morning
when the computer was rebooted? It is missing. >>

<Okay, just to clarify - the logged events in EDB uses a circular log, and
there's a log file size limit configuration setting in the engine.  Check
your edbconfig.edblog file size, and if it's 1MB in size, then the logged
events probably just wrapped around.  You're free to increase the log file
size limit to any size you want, however, so that you can capture more data.
Configuration information is here:

http://www.elevatesoft.com/manual?action=viewtopic&id=edb2sql&topic=Starting_Configuring_Server

You want the "Maximum Log File Size" setting.>

Yesterday I changed the Maximum Log File Size from 1MB to 5MB, but I don't think that is relevant because if I restart the EDBSrvr process it will log the Start Server event.

<It still sounds to me like something is interfering with the connections.
Can you establish a local connection to the server (localhost/127.0.0.1)
using the EDB Manager from the same machine as the server when this problem
is occurring ?  If so, then you probably have a firewall/connection blocking
issue still.>

I should have mentioned earlier that I'm using EDBMgr on the same box as the EDB server when the problem occurs. I'm only using Unicode databases and EDBMgr is Unicode v2.11B3 so there is no chance I'm using the wrong EDBMgr (I double checked to be sure).

EDBSrvr failed again today with an error:

"ElevateDB Error #1100 a connection to the server at '127.0.0.1' cannot be established ("Socket error: no connections could be made because the target machine actively refused it. (10061) on API connect") ".

So I used EDBMgr (Unicode) and changed the (remote) session settings to IP Address "127.0.0.1" (from a HostName) and kept port as "12010" (never changed port number). Pinging is enabled ever 60 seconds with timeout of 180 seconds. Encryption is enabled. Compression is set to None.

I used EDBMgr to connect to the database and I got the same error message dialog window.
If I restart the process, it will work fine. The EDBMgr server process will only fail to allow connections after a reboot and this happens only about 10%-20% of the reboots.

Services window shows EDBSrvr.exe is running. (Actually it shows the Service Name and Display Name that I changed the service to, using the steps outlined in your documentation. I left the .exe as EDBSrve.exe as shown below. Could this be the problem?).

Service shows path to executable as (which is correct):
D:\Programming\Delphi\Comp\ElevateDB_2_VCL_CS\XE2_Win32_Unicode\servers\edbsrvrunicodedebug\edbsrvr.exe

The service's Log On tab has "Log on as: Local System Account". Is that correct? Or should I supply it with an Administrator user name and password?

The service recovery is set to "Restart the Service" on First and Second Failure and to restart the service after 1 minute. But since the EDBSrvr service starts, I don't think Windows ever tries to restart it.

I switched to the debug server a couple of weeks ago thinking it might give me more info, but the non-debug 32-bit server also fails. I'm running this on Win7 64-bit Ultimate.

When the EDBSrvr service fails to allow connections, it will stay this way until the service is restarted or rebooted.
The next time this happens I'll run WireShark and see what response I get from the EDBSrvr. I'm betting it is "asleep" because any attempt to communicate with it takes about 5 seconds to get the error dialog displayed.

Barry

Barry,

<< The service's Log On tab has "Log on as: Local System Account". Is that
correct? Or should I supply it with an Administrator user name and password?
>>

No, the Local System Account will be fine.

<< When the EDBSrvr service fails to allow connections, it will stay this
way until the service is restarted or rebooted. >>

Just to clarify - the EDB Server is *not* what is refusing the connection.
The connection is being refused at the Winsock layer, which means that the
EDB Server is not getting the connection because:

1) Something, like a firewall, is blocking the connection.  This won't show
up anywhere except the client because the EDB Server doesn't even know that
the client is trying to connect.
2) Something is preventing the EDB Server from listening on the designated
IP address/port, which is then causing the server start to fail.  However,
this should show up in the logged events as a logged error.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

<Just to clarify - the EDB Server is *not* what is refusing the connection.
The connection is being refused at the Winsock layer, which means that the
EDB Server is not getting the connection because:

1) Something, like a firewall, is blocking the connection.  This won't show
up anywhere except the client because the EDB Server doesn't even know that
the client is trying to connect.
2) Something is preventing the EDB Server from listening on the designated
IP address/port, which is then causing the server start to fail.  However,
this should show up in the logged events as a logged error.>

Tim,

You may be right. I disabled Windows Firewall and after testing with 6 reboots, the problem has not re-occurred. I will leave WF off for the rest of the week just to be sure.

I originally used ZoneAlarm when this first happened. I then uninstalled ZoneAlarm and activated Windows Firewall. I'm puzzled by the fact when either firewall was running and EDBSrvr was "blocked", restarting the EDBSrvr service fixed the problem. If the problem was the firewall, why would restarting the EDBSrvr service suddenly get past the firewall that blocked it previously?

As for logging, neither firewall logged the blocking of edbsrvr.exe and neither did the Windows event logs. I'm logging everything.

I'm wondering when EDBSrvr.exe starts running (as a service or as GUI), does it call itself using TCP to see if it can communicate with itself? Because if this connection fails, you could use an FS connection and log it in LogEvents. This would be helpful in logging the problem. I may end up writing an IBGuardian type service to monitor the EDBSrvr and restart it should it fail.

Barry

Barry,

<< I originally used ZoneAlarm when this first happened. I then uninstalled
ZoneAlarm and activated Windows Firewall. I'm puzzled by the fact when
either firewall was running and EDBSrvr was "blocked", restarting the
EDBSrvr service fixed the problem. If the problem was the firewall, why
would restarting the EDBSrvr service suddenly get past the firewall that
blocked it previously? >>

I don't know, since I'm not privy to the internals of either.  All I know is
that the EDB Server will log an error if it can't listen on the specified
addresse(s)/port, so if you're not seeing any errors in the logged events,
then the listen is occurring okay, but something in-between the EDB Server
and the connecting applications is blocking the connections.

<< I'm wondering when EDBSrvr.exe starts running (as a service or as GUI),
does it call itself using TCP to see if it can communicate with itself?
Because if this connection fails, you could use an FS connection and log it
in LogEvents. This would be helpful in logging the problem. I may end up
writing an IBGuardian type service to monitor the EDBSrvr and restart it
should it fail. >>

If a connection is blocked for the EDB Server when connecting to itself, at
the very best, that will simply tell you what you already know.  Also, this
may or may not accurately reflect the problem, considering that Windows
Firewall is going to possibly have different settings depending upon where
the connection is coming from (domain/public/private profiles).

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com