Macola ES Problems 2

[pronet74]

We went from Progression to Macola ES. Ugh. We are on batch 360. We are having major problems printing order acknowledgements. They were suppose to have 'fixed' the issues in the latest patch last week, yet we still have th ese problems.

First problem is the slowness. Takes about a minute for the order ack. to come up on the screen.

Second we get random crashing on multiple machines when trying to run an order ack.

Third once the report appears on the screen it defaults to the paper size A4. If we change it to paper we get an error. We then have to back all the way out of ES.

I am very disapponted in Macola over the ES product. When we converted we couldn't even scan for an entire week until they pushed code out into 360. We had to go from Progression to 340, to 360 to patches on top of 360. I am really tired of being the guinea pig here!

Anyone else who has ES and having major problems?

 

[kscheeler]

For the A4 paper issue, look for a file called exactusr.ini which should be somewhere on the local workstation. On my computer it's in c:\windows. If you see the A4 paper in there, change it and see if it helps. I'm not sure which screen is used to update that file with ES however.

It's interesting that it's just the order acknowlegement and not other crystal reports that are slow. Do you have Crystal 8.5 components on the workstation. Batch 360 is installing Crystal 10 components and maybe there's a conflict.

Kevin Scheeler

 

[maems]

On the A4 issue, try the following:

Go into File - Printer Settings. Within this screen, click on the Settings button. Then change the size to any size other than A4 or Letter. Save and exit out of Macola. Then go back in and change the size to Letter and exit Macola agian. It should now come up as Letter every time. We had this problem a while ago and Exact told me to do this. It works every time.

 

[NEmacGuy]

There A4 paper issue should be resolved by the above mentioned fixes for the one report, but overall, this is an issue that has been dragging out over several months, and I am starting to wonder if it will it ever go away.
The move from 340 to 360 / Crytal 8.5 to 10 has been a mess in my opinion.
When you run a report, the following things generally take place : (from my limmited understanding)

1 SQL view is created (not all reports, mostly financial)
2 crystal report is called
3 ado connection string passed <changed 8.5 to 10>
4 select statement passed <changed 8.5 to 10>
5 report option passed (ex. paper size)
6 report runs

Many of the reports are still not being passed the paper size and will then run at default A4. Payroll, Shop Floor...., some reports will truncate data as the design of the report is A4, but being they are rendered at letter when it works. I am starting to think we should tell clients to buy A4 paper. (GL processing report as of 6/6/06 ES360)

I also wonder where the data is going each time a close a crystal report, and the export window flashs by. Must be extra data passed into the report telling to export on close.

I have given up on calling support for performance issues, when you update to 360, you just have to wait longer, maybe get a coffee when you launch a report. The lastest challange has been printing receivers. Cobol has never looked better.

Sorry if I am venting, just finished??? converting third account over from progression to ES in the past three months.

 

[NEmacGuy]

Think I see where the reports are being exported to. Had not heard of this but looks like a nice feature. Just did not understand. They are exporting them into eSynergy. I guess they are going to create a report archive.

Anyone heard of this ?

 

[pronet74]

Thanks for the replies. Glad to know that I'm not the only one going nuts. Management is on my case, but there's nothing I can do. Calling support is like going to a judge. Trying to *prove* to them that it's not 'our' fault but something on their end. Since they could 'never duplicate the problem'.

The slowness is on all the reports, seems to have gotten worse from 340 to 360. Progression reports just flew by.

I tried your suggestions, actually tried them with a call to exact support awhile ago and still no help. They told me to click Printer settings and click 'restore to default'. It works 50% of the time.

Half the time it won't even show on the screen. Just gives me an ExactApp error. Thing is if we try it on other machines it'll work. However it happens randomly to all machines.

Another issue I am having is when I do a database backup on ES (sql server 2000) and do a restore to the same machine, it works fine. However if I try to restore to another sql server it'll restore however once I go into ES, if I open some screens up such as OE, PO, etc.. I'll get weird errors. For example for OE I get 'SYSMESSG_SQL is not open'. For the PO screen I get 'Screenset: Schema C, Macola not found in POSCRFIL.DAT'

Exact support isn't much help and I know the backup-server worked fine when we were on 340.

I have 2 backup servers and it's happening on both. Anyone successful in doing this?

 

[dgillz]

I resolved the ExactApp error by running the following from a cmd prompt:

from C:\Program Files\Common Files\Crystal Decisions\2.5\bin,

For %1 In (*.dll, *.ocx) Do Regsvr32 /s %1

This registers all the .dlls and .ocxs. Have you tried this yet? You must do this on every machine you are having trouble with.


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

http://www.gainfocus.biz

"making predictions is tough, especially about the future" - Yogi Berra

 

[pronet74]

wow.. it worked. I couldn't print an acknowledment, however after doing what you suggested it printed. I put this on all the machines. I'm waiting to see the results. Thanks!!

 

[dgillz]

Pronet,

Silly question but did you email acreen shots of the actual error messages to Exact tech support? Or to your business partner?

I have gotten the best results by emailing the actual screen shots.

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

http://www.gainfocus.biz

"making predictions is tough, especially about the future" - Yogi Berra

 

[pronet74]

Yes, I emailed those screenshots to them a few times. The person I am working on this problem with is Micah Rettig.

 

[kscheeler]

Don,

Good call.

Pronet74,

Your restore issue is interesting because I've taken copies of my clients SQL backups and restored and used them on my laptop (XP with SQL 2K) without issue in both 340 and 360.

You could try running the db optimizer function in c:\program files\exact software\bin\MacDBOpt.exe which would create the exactcrystaluser in SQL if it didn't already exist on the backup server.

Have you tried creating a demo company on one of those servers to see if you get the same errors in them as well?

Kevin Scheeler

 

[NEmacGuy]

On the restore issue, restore the Msllockdb from the production server on your backup server. Perhaps its a 340 version and needs 360 updates or is just missing. You could also use ES and create a demo company on your backup server. This should create the MSLlockdb.

 

[pronet74]

Thanks for the advice. I tried creating a demo company on the backup-server, however when it executed Demo686.sql I got the following error:

[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Invalid object name 'BacoWebTitleLayout'.
SQL State: S0002
DB error: 208
EDL error: An error has occurred with the execution of the SQL statement 'DELETE FROM BacoWebTitleLayout
'.

 

[pronet74]

I got it to work! I created a 'new' company and let it run it's sql processes. I opened up the new company & it worked. I then crossed my fingers & opened up the restore copy and so far is looks good.

You guys should be hired by Exact Software. You were able to help me in such a short time. Where as with Exact Technical Support they have not been able to help me even though they've been working with me the past few weeks with these problems.

Thanks again!!

 

[abaldwin]

Most of us are either current Macola vendors, been consultants in the past for macola vendors, or currently have many years of working with macola in a LIVE environment.

thanks for the kudos though.

Andy

Andy Baldwin

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

 

[dgillz]

I will probably regret posting this, but here goes. I could never go to work for Exact because I could not handle the pay cut.



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

http://www.gainfocus.biz

"making predictions is tough, especially about the future" - Yogi Berra

 

[abaldwin]

Oh come on Don, Macola is a great product. Nothing that 10,000 hours of reprogramming could not solve.


P.S. This is my "I may regret this post" for the month.


Andy Baldwin

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

 

[pronet74]

May I ask what your yearly salary is? Reason why is I am a Network Admin with 10 years of experience, MCSE certified, have done countless Access, SQL, VBA, ASP projects and my overall experience in network/server applications is pretty good.

My salary is only $40k a year. Granted I'm from Central PA but just trying to get a comparison. I do consulting work on the side but only charge $40/hr.

 

[dgillz]

Pronet,

As a consultant you should be charging much more than that. However this discussion is not what tek-tips is for, so I would feel more comfortable if you contacted me offline to discuss this.

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

http://www.gainfocus.biz

"making predictions is tough, especially about the future" - Yogi Berra

 

[Fishhead714]

Pronet,
We did the 360 upgrade in at the begining of the year, BEFORE they puled the rollout and tried to retool. What a mess, reports either took forever to generate or wouldn't work at all, machines were getting locked up, and management was pissed that when they got word we upgraded right after the rollout.

Most of the real issues were with the Crystal change, which our VAR was able to indentify almost the next day. However we have learned that every upgrade with Exact is a crap shoot, last weeks brought encrypted credit card numbers which after you hit F2 and enter the password become visible. Of course after you finish with that card and go to another the CC field more often than not completly disappears.

Because we are an importer from China, we take possesion of inventory when we get the documents which is well before the goods arrive. With last weeks upgrade we can no longer voucher anything that has not been recieved, and now have a huge stack of container invoices awaiting entry. Becuase this is the second time this has happened in an upgrade we didn't have to spend alot of time explaining why this is bad and could you please fix it again.

It is nice to know that there are others out there with the same issues and get the same treatment from Exact. That's what I had hoped to find when they started a users group here in the Twin Cities. However most of the user are of course on Progression, whatever that is.

Bill