Mercator 6.71 map crashing with windows error

[shelts]

Any help much appreciated on this!!

I have a map that is crashing with a Windows error (on Windows 2003 Server)on specific data files, but only in the Production environment.

The map is being run by the Command Server (command line call from Java), only has file inputs and outputs, and only creates an audit log 'on error'.

Lots of data is passing successfully through this map every few minutes, but very occasionally (usually, but not exclusively, larger files - e.g. 8MB) it will fall over with a 'mercnt.exe has caused a failure' windows error. Obviously, as it has crashed, it does not create a full audit log of the error (left as a .tmp file).

My best guess at the moment is that this is being caused by some bug (maybe a memory leak) that is being linked to the Workspace Settings (of which I've tried a variety of Memory/File, PageSize/PageCount combinations).

The most infuriating thing is that I cannot replicate this error in any other environment - even the test environment that is virtually identical to Production - which makes troubleshooting extremely hard!

If anyone has any ideas, then I can provide more info!

Thanks

 

[eyetry]

You need to display an example of the log file and the command line you use to execute cmd server. I can't tell by your message if its a windows issue or a map issue.

 

[shelts]

The log file doesn't get beyond the first line, and remains as a .tmp file (as the map has 'crashed' rather than completed in error).

I've managed to track the problem down to the input type tree. Adding an <OWSP> to a few of the intiators and terminators (it is an XML type tree) appears to sometimes trigger a bug that leads to the map crashing.

 

[eyetry]

Sounds like the command line you are using to execute the map has issues. It's either formatted poorly or too long. In 6.7.1 you need to keep it under 250 bytes to be safe.

A 'dos' command server line might looks like this....

'command_server' + 'cntl_map' + input command + ' + control map input + ' +log file + close command_server command

or

path\mercnt path\map_name -if1 'path\file_name' -ae log_file_name -b

or

path\mercnt path\map_name -ie1 'data' -ae log_file_name -b

 

[shelts]

This problem seems to have surfaced again for a different map. The problem is that sometimes the data will process fine through the map and sometimes the identical data will cause the map to crash.

I'm completely unable to replicate the problem locally.

I could switch the Workspace settings from 'memory' to 'file', and this may solve the problem, but unfortunately that in turn leads to another problem - even if the filenaming is set to 'unique' we sometimes get 'unable to open workfiles' when this map is run concurrently.

Any thoughts on either of these 2 issues appreciated!

 

[eyetry]

Have you tried bursting the data?

Files over 8mb? How big do your work files get?

 

[shelts]

I found the issue - I had had rule that did a calcualtion on 2 different values, both surrounded by a TEXTTONUMBER() function. This seemed to trigger a bug in Mercator that crashed the map.

Chaning it to TONUMBER() fixed the issue.