RR and Schedule Monitor

[stevericks]

Can anyone help??
We have rr on 2 machines as a backup, win 98 and NT 4, normally if one doesnt work the other will and we back up the mdb so we should be covered. Sunday, Schedmon stopped working. On the win 98 machine it will launch but as soon as it runs a report it freezez the whole PC and I have to reboot. On the other machine I dont even get past the splash screen. I have tried opening thr db in MS Access and it looks fine (tip from this forum). Tried installing on another PC, tried different databases (old backups). Ive run out of ideas now......
Its ver 2.1 by the way.

Hope this makes sense,

Steve.

 

[chris13]

At first: I 've no quick solution for that. But we use this bastard still, too So here comes a big bag full of questions and tip...

Anything to see in the RR logfiles?

What might have happened before sunday? Might the PCs have 'suffered' from any updates by automatic software distribution or during network-logon like patches, new registry-settings (policies) ?

Is there any other software on these machines that shows unusual behaviour?

Try to find out why it freezes up. And for how long, perhaps itself or a called driver waits until a timeout... be patient for 15mins or so...
If possible, use Filemon (

http://www.sysinternals.com)

to see what the program tried to do before it falls asleep.

Some time ago I had a really bad day 'cause the local sqlnet.ora and tnsnames.ora where replaced by new ones which forced the use of an oracle names server...
And again when they distributed the Oracle9-client. It does not support connecting to Oracle7 (ACD 7.x,8.x), it works up to Oracle8-client...

Check DB-connectivity:
- tnsping to your acd, login using sql-plus.
- ODBC, try accessing the ACD with odbc-test, ms-access, ms-query or something else.

Remember, RR is old 16bit-stuff, the ODBC-config could be corrupt even if you can use the programs to test the connection. If you installed the Oracle7-client provided by Aspect there should be a 16-Bit ODBC-admin in the folder of RR in the start-menu, and an ODBC-test-program, too. Or look for the binaries in the RR program-folder and oracle-client.
I hope you don't need to fiddle around with ODBC-manager and drivers. Their configuration is stored in the registry and in odbc ini-files in the windows directory. Best case is when you have a clean installed base system

Last resorts: deinstall RR, kill his files in c:\cvr or where it was installed, delete its ini-files from the windows directory (look for crw.ini,cvr.ini, crd.ini, runner.ini(?), I could look for exact filenames at work tomorrow).
Then install the bastard again. To make shure the mdb is ok, don't use your backups. At first just try to run one of the example-reports already defined in the fresh installed mdb provided by RR.

Perhaps one of the components/dlls of the system have been updated by another piece of software or are corrupt. For example msvcrt.dll is often kept in the directory of an application, but sometimes an installer updates the version in \winnt\system32. ODBC-installation, jet-engine, libraries for common controls/dialogs are other candidates, too.

As I said, no quick solution. But I hope it helps to find the solution Let us know what's going on...

bye,
chris

 

[stevericks]

Thanks Chris for replying,

tried your tests and they all passed OK. Then someone turned up who actually knows how to use RR, created a new report and it worked fine.
So the database looks like it has become corrupted, even though I tried repairing it and opening it in MS Access.

Thanks again,

Steve.

 

[chris13]

Hi Steve,

what version of Access are you using? Some months ago I opened the mdb in Access (2000/2003) and got a warning that the mdb is created by an old version of Access... don't save it in this case.
You remind me storing a clean and tested mdb in the backups, just in case of the daily copy refuses working...

Whish that you won't have to redefine and schedule toooo many reports...


bye,
chris

 

[stevericks]

Access 97, and it gave me the same message about it being created by an older version.
new development though...They started running the reports manually from Report Writer and this looks to have corrected the problem as schedule monitor is now running the reports OK???

I used to have a little batch file that saved the mdb to a network share, think I will dig that out again and start backing up regularly.

Thanks again,

Till the next time,

Steve.

 

[IndianaSkinny]

What happened is daylight savings time. There was an issue where computers left on during the time change could become confused and need a fix. Aspect had a procedure to correct this that involved renaming runner2.mdb and placing a substitute file in its place. When the procedure was complete, the original runner2 could be restored.

You could check with your support organization to see if anyone still has that procedure.

 

[stevericks]

Thought of that, spoke to Aspect who said that it only affected a certain database and shouldnt have affected us.
But it does look very coincidental.
I did get the document and the attached runner2.daylight_savings file, but didnt go down that route after talking to Aspect.
Daylight savings did affect our BPE server again as it does every time, so TCS wasnt working either.
Think we will shut down RR next time the clocks go back, if we remember.

Steve

 

[chris13]

hmpf... daylight savings time was an issue with our RR, too. But as it occured last weekend of march, not first of april, I didn't think about that.
Our RR didn't crash and the mdb was fine after that weekend, too. We just missed some reports.

chris

 

[Sirgordo]

The biggest issue facing the RR problems is using updated OS and Hardware that will not function with RR. We have built a cost effective ETL for Aspect along with the folios for Aspect if anyone is interested please let me know.

I have been supporting RR and RW for Aspect for over 7 years and the biggest issue being faced is now the end of life of the machines that will run it cleanly and software support for the Operating System and other programs required to run RR and RW. In any event feel free to contact me through here if you want more information.

Sergio

 

[stevericks]

Hi Sergio,

Not sure what an ETL is, but the rest sounds interesting and worth knowing.
You can send the info to steve.ricks@freemans.com if you like, or just post it here.

Any way much appreciated....

Steve.

 

[nekkira]

I'd be curious to find out what ETL means as well. Please post here, as I do not want to post my email address.

 

[chris13]

Hi,
I searched for ETL and found multiple sources which say:

ETL is short for tools that move data from one database into another, using "extract, transform, load".

That means data is drawn from the ACD into another database (Access, Oracle, MySql, whatever...) by the ETL tool. Then you run your reports against that other database.
This way you keep load away from the ACD, usefull if many users run different reports frequently.
Transformation can be an important part of the process. For example, I pull the calldetail table to a local db. During transformation 2 fields are appended which contain talk-/wrapuptime from corresponding records for some calls. These different records are not identified by track number and sequence, I have to search for them. Using a customized dictionary and ODBC-datasource, I can use the modified table in my existing RR-reports.

Shure, using some other reporting tools (Access, Seagate/Crystal Reports) where I can use my own SQL code, I could get the same results directly from the ACD. But we needed a quick win...

When you need to consolidate data from the ACD with data from other systems, ETL is the method to feed your data-warehouse.

Chris