[SIMS] SOLUS3 RAGE!!!

[Rawns]

Raaaawww!

Currently rolling SOLUS3 out to schools. Been provided with a CSV file from a secondary with a list of their SIMS workstations and imported it into their SOLUS3 instance. During the agent roll-out, the S3 Deployment Service died resulting in over 100 machines stuck with a status of "install active" and a message of "no connection could be made". Restarting the service has left the devices stuck in this state in SOLUS3. As (apparently) the install is active, I have no option to re-install the agent or to remove the workstations from the UI!!!!

Guess the only option is to manually amend the SQL database entries for each agent to make them appear as "Install failed" to enable the reinstall agent button!!!

/Rant over.

[matt40k]

HAHAHA!!! When I talk to schools about SOLUS3, I tell them to be smart, ie don't add 100's of workstations at once

Did you know the crooked Capita ESS guys (not be confused with the lovely people at Capita CES) have pretty tool that can sort that out for you:
http://www.capitaess.co.uk/home/ESSUpgrade.exe

[Rawns]

HAHAHA!!! When I talk to schools about SOLUS3, I tell them to be smart, ie don't add 100's of workstations at once

Did you know the crooked Capita ESS guys (not be confused with the lovely people at Capita CES) have pretty tool that can sort that out for you:
http://www.capitaess.co.uk/home/ESSUpgrade.exe

Cheers for the sympathy Matt.

Good job we don't have a central LA SOLUS3 system where all schools are added. Capita's guidance says:

For LAs and regional centres, it is possible to include multiple establishments in a single CSV file. For example, an LA could create a single CSV file that defines all the SIMS workstation targets across all the establishments under the control of the LA.

Could result in 8000 devices getting stuck if the service stopped!!! :P

[matt40k]

8,000 devices.... one central domain? Mmm, sounds like fun

[winng]

Welcome to the hideous world of Solus 3, what a load of %%$£

[Rawns]

Welcome to the hideous world of Solus 3, what a load of %%$£

Unfortunately, I've been part of the SOLUS3 world for longer then I care to remember!!!

[matt40k]

Might put my "magic touch - SOLUS3 edition" on ebay

[superfletch]

The ESS tool is wicked for this problem, so straightforward and easy to use.

I have to say S3 is getting way better with each update - we have it across almost all schools now and IMHO upgrades are (on the whole) a much less painful experience. The main snag I'm finding is when something database related does go wrong it's harder to troubleshoot simply because the software is new and you don't know the error messages. With SOLUS 2 we'd had years of practice troubleshooting it and when something went wrong you just knew what it was straight away.

It's getting better Capita.

[PhilNeal]

Thanks for the feedback - this has been harder to pull off than we expected. Around 16% of our schools are now on S3. We are now implementing the final backstop - if the client detects it isn't up-to-date go to S2 mode and upgrade youself.

[vikpaw]

Thanks for the feedback - this has been harder to pull off than we expected. Around 16% of our schools are now on S3. We are now implementing the final backstop - if the client detects it isn't up-to-date go to S2 mode and upgrade youself.

Could you get it to do that without the hassle of a S3 implementation. So the client just checks if there is an update available and does it silenty, overnight say.

[PhilNeal]

Vik one of the key objectives was to make it possible to push SIMS onto new PCs so the idea of the client pulling can only be a back stop.

[matt40k]

@vikpaw - your describing was the first phase, every 5 mins it would check for updates - which is WAAAY over the top, current way is the server will tell it when it needs to update, next version still does that, but has the fall back - ie the client kicking servers and going "Oi! Update me!"

PS: Would love to see that in the logs

Anyway, back towards the light.

[timlineuk]

Just to add to the Solus 3 rage - we've got an issue on a fair number of clients where it messes up the resolution on their machine making it flash between high and low res and therefore making it unusable!!! Is this something that anyone else has come up against?
The only resolution we've found so far is to uninstall the client.

Thanks

[Rawns]

Just to add to the Solus 3 rage - we've got an issue on a fair number of clients where it messes up the resolution on their machine making it flash between high and low res and therefore making it unusable!!! Is this something that anyone else has come up against?
The only resolution we've found so far is to uninstall the client.

Thanks

I can say this is a new one on me! Not seen this at all. Does the resolution change when the Agent notification bubble pops up?

[timlineuk]

Around that time, yes - it also potentially happens when outlook is launched, but this could just be coincidence as it'll be one of the first things for staff to run.
It's also worth noting that we run netsuppot school which could also be causing a conflict