Hi Team,
I am not even vaguely a network guru, as such I am wading a little out of my depth here.
My client has a Windows 2012 R2 server installation, on which there are 2, possibly 3, hubs for the LAN with up to 26 wkstns and some users logging into the server and running apps via RDP.  They are however limited programaticaly to 18 users/sessions at any one time.
The Server connects to the internet via a Netgear adsl modem.
EDB has been operating in Local mode since late 2017.
For some time, seemingly since inception, I/the Users have experience intermittent, no apparent pattern, hiccups in the network, resulting in App errors and in worst case data errors.  It can go for several days without issue.  It's been driving me nuts.
This past couple of days we tried using the EDB Server.  Ran perfectly for 6 or so hours then a hiccup resulted in App errors and data corruption.  See other posts.  It happened again this morning.  After this morning's event it was returned to Local mode.

The client is of course insisting that it is not his LAN as MYOB runs on it without any of the issues we have experienced.

So, my question - What if anything can I implement to monitor the network and confirm it is, or isn't a network issue as opposed to an App issue?

Regards & TIA,
Ian

I should have mentioned.
Delphi 10.3.1, EDB v 2.30 b5.   Updated to 2.31 b1 this morning.

Ian


Being the cynical sole I am have you had a little chat with MYOB support along the lines of "we share a client and I just wondered what it was you did to stop the network errors bringing their system down"

Or to put it another way - who told you they don't have trouble with MYOB?

Roy Lambert

On 3/18/2019 9:35 PM, Ian Branch wrote:
> My client has a Windows 2012 R2 server installation, on which there are 2, possibly 3, hubs for the LAN with up to 26 wkstns and some users logging into the server and running apps via RDP.  They are however limited programaticaly to 18 users/sessions at any one time.

I kind of think they have switches and those are generally pretty decent
these days (even home grade) and having 3 or so would make sense for
office of 30+ devices.

Key question i think is whether everybody connects using wired
connections (other than RDP sessions) also wirelessly ?

> EDB has been operating in Local mode since late 2017.

File share to the server i'm guessing as per your other post.

> For some time, seemingly since inception, I/the Users have experience intermittent, no apparent pattern, hiccups in the network, resulting in App errors and in worst case data errors.  It can go for several days without issue.  It's been driving me nuts.

Are you talking about errors in terms of app data not being valid or
actual issues with EDB files requiring repair ?

> This past couple of days we tried using the EDB Server.  Ran perfectly for 6 or so hours then a hiccup resulted in App errors and data corruption.  See other posts.  It happened again this morning.  After this morning's event it was returned to Local mode.

How does one define a hiccup and corruption exactly ?

Running in C/S mode should help a lot with data integrity and such.
Local mode is (almost) always going to suck.


> So, my question - What if anything can I implement to monitor the network and confirm it is, or isn't a network issue as opposed to an App issue?

Using local file access over wireless is one looking for problems.
Even using wired network with 10+ users in local mode can lead to problems.

My suggestion is go back to C/S and do few things (if not already in place)
- make sure to use RemotePing on all remote sessions
- configure dbsrvr aggressively
- add extra logging in app to detect disconnects and such

See this article for tips :
https://www.elevatesoft.com/articles?action=view&category=edb&article=connections_disconnections_reconnections)


Based on my experience if you can show poor connectivity from app side
then you can push it back to them - using dbsrvr and app logs. And might
further bulletproof your code when dealing with poor connectivity.


Raul

Ian,

<< This past couple of days we tried using the EDB Server.  Ran perfectly for 6 or so hours then a hiccup resulted in App errors and data corruption. >>

Just noting: this is not really possible without the EDB Server process, or the machine on which it runs, being killed unceremoniously.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Ian,

<< Ran perfectly for 6 or so hours then a hiccup resulted in App errors and data corruption. >>

My guess on this is that you still had one or more clients operating in file-sharing mode, hence the corruption when the network burps starting happening again.  You should be able to see this in the logged events (one or more of the sessions will get errors when trying to read from/write to the table files.

Tim Young
Elevate Software
www.elevatesoft.com

Hi Tim,
I'm going to it's not probable but equally I'm not prepared to say it is impossible.
So, what specific test can I use when the App has started to confirm the mode it is running in?

At the moment, from the configuration file all the apps access on start up..
1.  I set the server address and port regardless.
2.  I have a flag in the file that is set for Remote mode, or not.
3.  The flag is read at start up and if set the TEDBSession.SessionType is set to stRemote, otherwise stLocal.
4.  Then the Engine/Session/Database are opened.

Is there something else I need to do/check?

Regards,
Ian

Ian


Since the mode used is under the control of your program the only thing that would make sense is that someone still has a copy of the old program and is using that. Stopping that is possible but the only way I can think of is to mess around with file/directory permissions so that only the server can access the tables.

Roy Lambert

On 3/20/2019 4:52 PM, Ian Branch wrote:
> So, what specific test can I use when the App has started to confirm the mode it is running in?

Check TEDBSession.SessionType make sure it's actually stRemote.

Based on your setup the only way i see this being different is if
somebody has taken the exe and config and is running them locally from
workstation

Raul