Macola 6.2.100b Printing Problem

[dwg23]

Hello,
I am attempting to fix a printing problem with our Macola 6.2.100b system.
When you go into C.O.P and print a pick ticket this flashes on the screen:
Invalid Drive In Search Path
Invalid Drive In Search Path
Invalid Drive In Search Path
Bad Command Or File Name
Then the screen goes back to the regular C.O.P. screen and nothing ever prints. this was working fine until recently.
We are printing to a Dot Matrix Printer.

Thanks
Dave

 

[dgillz]

I remember 6.1....DOS Product.....Reagan was president....I weighed 30 lbs less....

Can't remember how to fix this though, maybe one of the other people here will have a better memory than me. Good luck.

At $350 per user, why on Gods green earth wouldn't you upgrade to a supported windows product?

Software Sales, Training, Implementation and Support for Macola, eSynergy, and Crystal Reports

http://www.gainfocus.biz

"If you have a big enough dictionary, just about everything is a word"
--Dave Barry

 

[abaldwin]

Reagan was the president......I weighed 50 lbs lighter....Al Gore was unheard of......Novell ruled the networks, Flex was a pipe dream (one thing they did right) and dot matrix printers were da ting.

Check the setup to insure that your COP module is pointed to the right location.....If I can remember those blue screens..... Also check that you have a properly mapped drive to being with.

What network you running on? What OS on the desktop?



Andy Baldwin

"Testing is the most overlooked programming language on the books!"

Ask a great question, get a great answer. Ask a vague question, get a vague answer.
Find out how to get great answers FAQ219-2884.

 

[dwg23]

dgillz,abaldwin
We are running on Novell 3.11 and the OS is Win XP Pro.
"Why are we running this system?" If you could see my paycheck you would know the answer to that question.
I have been begging them to change for the last 3 years!
All I can hope is they change before the whole thing craps out. I have checked to make sure the drive is mapped correctly. The thing that I don't get is that the other two work stations on the system print fine. It is only the one that won't print.
Thanks
Dave

 

[dgillz]

My lord I didn't know 6.2 would run on XP Pro.

Software Sales, Training, Implementation and Support for Macola, eSynergy, and Crystal Reports

http://www.gainfocus.biz

"If you have a big enough dictionary, just about everything is a word"
--Dave Barry

 

[kscheeler]

Did you verify the drive mapping on the one workstation. Are there other things that are different from the other two workstations, like the user logging in, etc..


Kevin Scheeler

 

[dwg23]

dgillz,
Yes it will run on XP Pro but you have to jump through a few hoops to make it happen. The most important thing is to install a program called tame it is available at

http://www.tamedos.com/

This allows a Dos based program to run on an NT platform with out eating up all of the CPU time.

kscheeler,
There are no differances in the other workstations. If by verifying the drive mapping, I did go to it and make sure that the work station was mapped to the correct drive in Windows. If there is other drive mapping to check please tell me how.
Thanks in advance.
Dave

 

[abaldwin]

On the one workstation did you capture the lpt port for lpt1 to that printer. I remember that in 6.2 and win2k or so, you had to capture a printer port for the printers to work properly.


Andy Baldwin

"Testing is the most overlooked programming language on the books!"

Ask a great question, get a great answer. Ask a vague question, get a vague answer.
Find out how to get great answers FAQ219-2884.

 

[dgillz]

This could be a rights issue. Log in to the offending workstation as one of the users that is not having a problem, and see if it works then.

Software Sales, Training, Implementation and Support for Macola, eSynergy, and Crystal Reports

http://www.gainfocus.biz

"If you have a big enough dictionary, just about everything is a word"
--Dave Barry

 

[dwg23]

abaldwin,
The port is properly captured but still no print.

dqillz,
Logged into station as different user and still no print.

Thanks
Dave

 

[abaldwin]

Sorry,

Taken this one about as far as I can remember. On top of that I have never run Macola 6.x in a "Tame" environment which I suspect is unsupported anyway (as a matter of fact your entire configuration is unsupported).

Although TAME may have something to do with the printer capabilities since 6.2 used the local printer ports. You many need to look for some setting in TAME that was missed on this workstation.

I wish you the best.

Andy

Andy Baldwin

"Testing is the most overlooked programming language on the books!"

Ask a great question, get a great answer. Ask a vague question, get a vague answer.
Find out how to get great answers FAQ219-2884.

 

[dwg23]

abaldwin,
Thanks for trying.
Maybe I can talk the powers that be into getting a new system. Just to clarify TAME it is only a program that makes a DOS program behave its self in a NT enviroment.
There are no settings to adjust on it. Also the printer has been working for a couple of years using TAME so I doubt that is the problem.

Again thanks for the effort.
Dave

 

[kscheeler]

Go to a DOS prompt and type PATH and verify that all of the folders listed actually exist. Also, try running a program called filemon.exe which you can google. It will show you all of the different files and the paths that the computer is opening at that point in time. It also has a filter and a search I believe. It can be helpful in seeing what path it's coming up with that it doesn't like.

I'm not sure one of us asked but are other reports in COP or other modules like IM or AR working from that computer?

Kevin Scheeler

 

[dwg23]

kscheeler,
Sorry to take so long to get back to you I had a few fires to put out.

I can print other C.O.P. reports and as far as I can tell from using the PATH command and FileMon everything is working that way.

I did get one pick ticket to print and then it would not print any more.

Thanks
Dave

 

[MacolaHelp]

Wow, you are taking me back in the time capsule. I remember strange problems w/Novell 3.12 after users started adding win98 & w2k workstations. Some problems were due to the login capture statements. Others were due to needing an LM hosts file on the problem workstation. It also depended on btrieve versus microfocus. Are you still having the problem or have you thrown in the towel?

 

[dwg23]

MacolaHelp,
Yes I am still having problems and tring to solve it off and on when I get the time. You mentioned an LM hosts file
That sounds like an interesting place to start what do I check?

Thanks
Dave

 

[MacolaHelp]

In XP the hosts file can be found in c:\windows\i386. You put in the IP address of the server, then the server name.

However, the thought just occurs to me that novell 3.11 server probably doesn't have an IP address since novell didn't have tcp/ip protocol until v5 or maybe 4.11. Are you using spx protocol on your workstations to address the server? And are you btrieve or microfocus? We may have to try something different.

Can you ping the server? Can you run a btrieve maintenance from the problem WS to the server if you are btrieve? If btrieve, what version are you specifically using? Can't be higher than 6.15 if I remember correctly.

 

[dwg23]

I apologize in advance for my ignorance if I don’t answer your questions fully or accurately. I have never been trained on Novell or Macola and inherited the job when our real IT person left. So here goes…

We are using as near as I can tell Btrieve 6.0 (when I dig around on the server I find Btrieve files, not microfocus)

When I go into the Nic card properties I see that we are using the Windows client service for NetWare. This also includes NWLink NetBios and IPX/SPX/NetBiosCompatable Transport Protocol.

I can Ping the server and connect to it by mapping a network drive.

How do you run the Btrieve maintenance?

Also, I can use Macola from the workstation and print other reports from C.O.P., The only one that won’t print is a pick ticket. I can also print a pick ticket from other workstations.

Thanks
Dave

 

[MacolaHelp]

Go ahead and try the hosts file edit. It won't hurt anything, but may not help. You can tell what version of btrieve you are by going to the server console & typing:
modules b*.*
it will return the version of the btrieve.nlm you have. I dearly hope it is at least 6.15. Version 6.0 was dead in the water by at least 1994. I have no docs left on it anymore.

I did find my old brtieve 6.15 installation and operation manual, though. Look for yours: it is a bound paperback around 200 pages with light green and purple graphics on it. It explains the butil procedure in there. Basically, you run the butil from an attached workstation to the server to be sure you have proper connectivity. It will return information to you about the file you are querying including indexes, number of records, field lengths, etc. I just found a pdf for the manual as well if you want it via ftp.

There are various utilities you can use to see what btrieve components are loaded on the workstation when you are running an app. Macola distributed qedllmgr, which you may find in your macola directory or be able to download from somewhere. I have a copy, but you'd need to give me an ftp site or something to transfer it. There is another called "modules" that I believe I got from crystal's website. I have a copy I can ftp to you if you give me a site. Novell had one, too, as I recall that may be downloadable from their website.

All that said, there must be some variance between your workstations that work and the one that doesn't, and those dll monitoring tools might point to which ones are the problem. There may be a couple of btrieve components extra or missing that are taking up just enough RAM on the workstation that it will bomb out on the printing. Order Entry was always the place that our DOS machines or early windows machines would choke becuae of the number of files open at once. We used to have to set a files= in the config.sys and add extra parameters to use extended memory in the final days of using that DOS product. Also try pervasive's website to see if the PSA (pervasive system analyzer) will search for old components. I have a copy of it, too, if you don't and want me to ftp.

Another thought: we had problems with the newer faster machines printing to legacy printers. The CPU would push the print data out faster than the printer could respond. Is this dot matrix attached to the server or a workstation? You should be sure that the server or workstation is processing the output only as fast as the printer can handle it. There is a setting on the workstation printer where you can tell it to start printing after the last page is spooled which helps with long reports and "think and print" reports like pick tickets that are doing file updates and selecting based on criteria as they go.

When you say it was working fine until recently, was it fine on this workstation as well? If so, what changed? Did you install new software? Automatic windows updates?

You should probably have a bti.ini on your local workstation even if you are on btrieve 6.15 (can't remember honestly), I think. The bti.ini would tell the workstation to use ipx/spx protocol to send requests to the server even in DOS. If you have some other legacy apps running on this workstation, you may have newer or older btrieve components than what you should.

Other than that, Goldstar-sw.com has been a btrieve partner forever and they still offer support and sales of 6.15 up, support for older products, but I'm sure they would charge. They do have a pretty extensive forum that you can search for free. Maybe someone else has a similar problem with a legacy DOS app. Nelson Software Solutions also has btrieve tools and forum support, I believe (

http://www.nssdd.com).

Good luck to you. Time to move off that BSOD. Your problems will only get worse. If they won't buy an upgrade for macola windows, maybe it's time to look at quick books or peachtree in a box? You're lucky the server is still running. I haven't had a client on novell 3.11 since 1995. Isn't it amazing, though, how novell just ran and ran and ran? If you get 5 years out of a server today you've already been on borrowed time.

 

[dwg23]

MacolaHelp,
WoW!, You have given me a ton of things to check! Thank You.
When I get in on Monday I will start checking things out.
And yes everything was fine on this work station as well.
I did think of checking to see if anyone had installed anything on the work station with out asking me and found out that the person that uses it installed service pack 2 and when things did not seem to work it was uninstalled. I have had problems with service pack 2 messing up a work station that was using Macola. This was why it was not installed on this work station. So it looks like your advice on checking with those dll monitoring tools might just be the answer. I did have the files set higer but now that you meniton it they could have been messed up on the service pack update.

Again thanks and I will let you know how it goes. if I need the info you offered I will setup an FTP folder.

Dave