[sims] SIMS Crashes constantly

[Edenost]

Hi all,

 

We are using SIMS in my school and it is constantly crashing.

It has been doing this for years (apparently).

I have recently joined and decided I would try to figure out why.

 

The server it self it less than 12 months old and could handle much more than just SIMS (but all it does is the SQL and SIMS), so perfectly good for the job.

 

Anyway, the instance it self has been moved from server to server (to preserve the data). It is running on Server 2012 R2.

SIMS seems to crash mostly when reading messaged. You get the error like this:

 

 

Has anyone had the same problem, or similar? And been able to fix it ?

 

Thanks,

 

Phil

 

(P.S. I am very tired and have written this quite quickly, so there could be all sorts or grammar and spelling mistakes!! Sorry!).

[creese]

Apparentley:

This is caused by two users attempting to update the same SQL table at the same time. Re-try the process at a later time and the error will not occur.

 

The solution is try later. But I would check who it is happening with and why they are trying to save the same things. Maybe a duplication of roles?

[Sdrawkcab]

Is this using the built-in internal messaging system, or are you using InTouch? Does it occur anywhere else in SIMS?

 

Either way, as creese says, the issue is that two processes are trying to update the same row in the database simultaneously. As this is impossible, the system picks one of the two processes to kill off in order to allow the other one to make the requested changes. If it occurs really frequently and in a lot of different areas of the software, something is seriously wrong with your database. Have you raised this with your support unit? This shouldn't really occur regularly enough to be a problem because the database shouldn't lock rows for long enough that two users will hit the same row with any kind of regularity.

Edited May 20, 2014 by Sdrawkcab

[Edenost]

Hi, many thanks for the quick reply!!!

 

Well the error you see above is actually from my screen (IT Admin for the school).

I haven't read my messages on SIMS for about a month and have around 60. Opening each one and deleting them in turn eventually causes SIMS to crash on my workstation (as it does for many other uses doing the same thing, or things like registers).

In my mind, I'm not actually DOING anything (not saving...etc), just deleting messages from my own SIMS in box.

 

I'm not going at a great speed as I do read the messages people send me, so it's not like I'm opening, deleting, opening, deleting...etc. There are pauses between each action.

The crash can occur either when opening a message or deleting one.

 

I watched "pulsar.exe" and it takes no more than 64mb or RAM (seen some of the crash errors about high memory usage).

 

I'm not really one for SQL, so not sure what to look for, sorry!! .

 

Hope this makes sense.

Phil

[Edenost]

It is the built in system and mostly occurs in messaging, but it has been happening else where like registers...etc.

[creese]

If it is constantly crashing, I suggest you get your support team involved quickly. This kind of problem can seriously undermine user's confidence in the system. Capita will probably ask for a copy of the data to test. The sooner you get it to them the sooner the problem will go away.

[Guest Guest]

Had this happening to us for years, mostly in messaging. Everyone and their dog has looked at the issue but have got no further forward. Solution - stop using the messaging system. We've gone from all users having several dozen crashes per day to a couple per week.

[Edenost]

From what I've been told, Capita have been involved, but as j17sparky has said, no resolution to the problem has been found.

We are trying to get users to use email anyway, so until we get a chance to do a complete re-install (which would be huge I'm guessing as it would need to be from scratch), I think maybe disabled messaging (if possible???) and force users to email?

 

Phil

[CAM]

Have you given the server an overnight restart? That should clear out any processes that haven't died and are hanging around.

[PhilNeal]

Please drop me a note and I will assign someone to solving the problem.

[synaesthesia]

Had someone perchance cocked up an SQL migration or similar and left the SQL database in single user mode?