ALOHA EVENTS ARE ERRATIC! 1

[justadoode]

POS GURUS,

ALOHA TS Version: 5.3.20 (I know..old, pci, etc.)
OS: Windows XP Pro

Very strange situation here. I've created events to fire off through out the week, etc. Some are price changes, some are promos, happy hour, etc. They work fine for the most part, but every once in a while, an event, such as an automatic promo will mysteriously enable itself on the wrong day! Or mysteriously, happy hour prices will not turn off just on one day. It doesn't happen regularly and not on the same day. I've double/triple/quadruple checked the events and they are set up correctly. Should I just edit the events.cfg filed directly? Does anyone know what could cause events not to fire off correctly and what I could do to "fix" it? I'm pretty stuck and not sure how to troubleshoot/ diagnose this issue and of course the bar owner wants to tear his hair out each time happy hour doesn't turn off or when an appetizer is half off on the wrong day. Any help would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks-

Charles

 

[alohaakamai3]

Yes, I have seen this before and other anomalies in Aloha, and I don't know if what I am about suggest is much of a technical solution, but it's gotten me out of my share of jams.

Go back a few days before this started happening and copy the data from sales history. The easiest way is just to grab everything from a dated subdirectory except the trans.log and paste it into the newdata folder. Sometimes I don't grab the Aloha.ini either, depending on the situation, but I've had the corruption actually lie in that file before, so sometimes it is necessary. Just remember to change the Date of Business to the correct day, and then refresh.

CAVEAT: You'll be sending Aloha back in a time warp to what day... the employees entered, the menu items, etc... everything but the sales will be like a snap shot of that day.

I know this isn't always possible, especially if you're making menu changes and already did a bunch of work, or if the problem has been going on too long to make this practical. And yes, some people may suggest "only grab the events file" to try to pin point the exact trouble area. But many times that just drags things out.

This quick and dirty solution has gotten me out of more problems than I can count.

 

[justadoode]

Thanks alohaakamai3. That's an interesting solution. I know there was an entire new menu put in and maybe a couple of days after that the idiosyncrasies started happening, so I might have a day or two to play with where I can do that. thanks for the suggestion!

 

[alohaakamai3]

I know there was an entire new menu put in and maybe a couple of days after that the idiosyncrasies started happening, so I might have a day or two to play with where I can do that.

That's generally when have the problem, unfortunately, when you have just done a bunch or work to the menu. And while you *could* try to peck at the problem, picking select files to transfer, etc... in hopes to salvage your work.... my experience has led me to believe it's usually just quick to do it over. I can't say as though I've ever found out exactly where/when it happens or a true way of fixing it.

 

[posknowitall]

Are you having any end of day issues? This would cause events to not fire properly.

 

[justadoode]

No, I checked and it seems that the EOD is running fine and then the day is appending and creating the subsequent dated subdirectory. I can't find any other symptoms that would give me any clues, not in the debout files or the OS notifications.. no where.

 

[coorsman]

Did you upgrade and internet explorer or load google chrome?


Cheers,
Coorsman

 

[justadoode]

I don't *think* that IE has been upgraded or google chrome was installed, but does that have any impact? Or I should say, Would it have any impact?

 

[coorsman]

Yes, I don't know why but especially google chrome affects events in almost every site we have.


Cheers,
Coorsman

 

[justadoode]

Well, Coorsman, Chrome isn't installed but I noticed that IE is upgraded to IE8. Have you seen problems with IE8?

 

[coorsman]

Mostly with credit cards, I can't remember any real problems with events but running IE8 could cause problems and to my recolection IE6 was the highest you would run with 5.3.

Other suggestions:

Check the EVENTS.CFG file - should all be alpha numeric and readable evidence of corruption includes unintelligible characters (for example, 'GÜ÷¿p_'),

Another cause of events not initializing is a Date-of-Business (DOB) setting out of synchronization with the system date by more than one day

Check to see if you have any other event cfg files present:
When the ALOHA® application software parses the scheduled events from the events configuration files, it not only reads the standard EVENTS.CFG, but also any file labeled EVENTSx.CFG, where x is one or more characters. This also includes the EVENTS-S.CFG used for store-specific events.




Cheers,
Coorsman

 

[justadoode]

So I'm starting to suspect there's some sort of electrical issues causing corruption or something. Today they said there was a power outtage and now each time they try to process credit cards or recover from spooling the following error comes up (also found this in the debout file):
May 11, 22:54:19 [3820] Fatal error: SetMessageBytes: offset is 0 length 2 max 2000

Then after that, I noticed in the events notifications that the edc service unexpectedly then terminates.

Any ideas?

 

[coorsman]

It could either be your data or exe files.

Could be your index reference files. Delete all *.cdx and *.tdx files from data and newdata - open aloha manager then refresh.


Cheers,
Coorsman

 

[DTSMAN]

Justadoode,

It may be as simple as remembering the heirarchy of events. Monthly overrides weekly, weekly overrides daily, then daily is last in the programming chain of events.

Just a thought, and wanted to put that out there.

Bo

Remember,
If the women don't find you handsome,
they should at least find you handy.
(Red Green)

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