Aloha perpetual EOD cycle 1

[mcf747]

Hey guys let me first start with this, I have been reading through a ton of topics on this forum recently and let me just say it has been the best Aloha resource I have found anywhere! THANKYOU

I have a store with 2 terminals and a BOH computer. WE are running table service. WE just took over this establishment, I am pretty handy with aloha though, the computers have been shut off of about 2 months and I just fired them up yesterday.

They first booted up and started doing the "Waiting for end of day" and rebooting and displaying th message again repeatedly over and over again.

I tried to force EOD on the BOH computer but it failed so then I went into the Aloha folder on the master terminal and realized it was creating the daily folders in that folder.

Is that normal I though it just saved them on the share drive and would only save local on the master terminal if it was in redundancy mode?

I have check the date on both terminals and made sure it was accurate along with the BOH computer.

What is odd is the mater terminal seems to be creating the local dated folders and advancing to a new day every time it re-starts.

Where is the "Aloha date" located on the BOH computer? I think it could be the fact that the date on the BOH computer and the date on the terminals is not matching up?

Things that I have tried:
-make sure the computer date is in sync
-manually change the date in the Aloha.ini in the DATA folder to the correct date.
-Made sure the terminals can all see and talk to each other and the BOH computer
-Delete the contents of the DATA folder, this however resulted in Aloha not loading, (I am assuming because they were not refreshed) and I had to restore the old files.

One other thing I have noticed is that the NEWDATA folder, which I believe loads into the DATA folder(located on the terminals themselves) on the restart is surprising empty (only 3 files. From my understanding though it should load the NEWDATA folder from the BOH computer to the terminals and then load it to the terminals, correct?

My local dealer wants my right hand and first born child to help me out so any suggestions would be appreciated.

~Matthew Forman

P.S. Sorry for the lengthy post

 

[coorsman]

your terminals are in redundancy 'running w/o the BOH'. The master terminal will do EOD's until the Aloha date of business catches up with the system date. You might need to do a Fileserver recovery - located under Utilities in Aloha Manager.


cheers,
Coorsman


Hardware: the parts of a computer that can be kicked. ~Jeff Pesis

 

[alohaakamai3]

Also, if it was in redudant mode (which it is), there may have been a reason- in other words, you might run into another problem in terms of front of house and back of house communication once it's done doing EOD.

FYI- never in my 12 or so years an Aloha guy have I ever used or seen Force End of Day fix anything.... I've never done it, I just heard clients tell me they've tried it and it didn't fix anything. And I want to say a time or two, it even made the problem worse. So in general, don't do that

 

[mcf747]

It sounds like I have 2 problems, which makes sense since now that I think about it do recall being the red border around the screen for a split second before our screen saver comes up and it starts to process end of day.

What is the best order to atack the two problems. I would think I need to first have it stop running EOD in redundancy mode and then recover the file server. Is that correct?

If so I am still not sure how to stop the EOD cycle. Is sounds like its still a system date thing. Can someone please post the steps to confirm I am running with the proper date. Also is there a way to manually force it to skip or cancel EOD with a file marker or something, because I don't usually need it to run EOD just stop doing it.

Thanks,
Matthew

 

[99GuinnessLover]

I think you were on the right route with changing the Aloha.ini date. But it is possible that you were ending the task while aloha was still working on EOD. So when you started back up it overwrote any changes you may have made.

Wait for Aloha to finish 1 EOD and then log off. As it is coming back up close out of the batch file that runs or end task in ALoha if it gets that far. Now, go in and change the date in teh aloha.ini and re-launch the iber batch file which is likely in all users\Start menu\programs\Startup.

If that does not work you could also try editing your events from the ALoha MAnager window to remove EOD on the server side and then copying the Events.cfg from the Newdata folder on the server to the terminal DATA folder.

Both ways should get your terminal to a floating window at which point you can take it out of redundancy.

 

[mcf747]

Should I change the aloha.ini in the DATA folder or the NEWDATA folder?

I am a little fuzzy on what you mean about removing the EOD on the server and then copping the new events.cfg to terminals myself. won't that just stop the automatic EOD at 4am? I guess what I am not understanding is what exactly tigers an EOD other than the event.

Also looking in to the future here, what do I do if recover file server does not work. I don't care about any of the data so I don't think I would have to copy over any of the dated subs but is there a file marker I can change to pull it out of redundancy.

Thanks,
Matthew

 

[99GuinnessLover]

At the terminal level is where you will need to make the change to the Aloha.ini.

When terminals are in Redundancy they are running entirely on their own without any connection to the server. So any change that you want to affect how that terminal is running needs to take place at the terminal.

In regards to the event file. I would wait to try that route until you have exhausted your possibilities with the .ini.

Once you have done a Fileserver recovery the terminals will be running off of the BO Server. At that time the terminals will pull information from the DATA folder on the server. Make sure that your Aloha.ini on the server also has an accurate date.

The only way your terminals will go back into redundancy is if you force them into it. There is a process for putting them into redundancy. I am guessing that the former owners left it in redundancy before the left.

 

[mcf747]

Hey everyone, I just wanted to post an update.

Everything is fixed now.

I changed the date in the Aloha.ini in the DATA folder of the master terminal. That resulted in it stop trying to do a EOD.

Once it stopped EOD I pulled it out of redundancy using the "Fileserver Recovery" and then there was something I wasn't expecting. It ran an EOD automatically (I am assuming as part of the fileserver recovery) and then restarted ending up 1 day ahead of the actual date now.

I simply changed the date in Aloha.ini again and deleted the dated sub and restarted the terminals. I was finally up and running with the proper date and time now.

Thanks for everyone for the help,
Matthew Forman