Groupcall issues

[synaesthesia]

Has anyone else had/noticed issues with Groupcall since the SIMS Update?

2 schools on Summer both had Groupcall crash the night after SIMS was updated, and in the case of our main site corrupted our SIMS database. The other just had the Groupcall service crash and stop.

Coincidence or has anyone else noticed something? @GREED ?

[vikpaw]

Ouch. How/What is it corrupting?

[synaesthesia]

I suspect the corruption was down to the server hard-locking; after a reboot the sims database was in "Suspect" mode and wouldn't open, restore or detach. Just deleted it and restored from last night's backup; didn't really please our vice head who spent hours around midnight sorting out timetables and cover for the day

[vikpaw]

Dang! I used to have a rule that they couldn't work past midnight. Backups at 00:05

[GREED]

Has anyone else had/noticed issues with Groupcall since the SIMS Update?

2 schools on Summer both had Groupcall crash the night after SIMS was updated, and in the case of our main site corrupted our SIMS database. The other just had the Groupcall service crash and stop.

Coincidence or has anyone else noticed something? @GREED ?

Please get in touch with me and/or our support team right away, if not already.

 

Which product is this - Emerge or Messenger? There should be no way for either to corrupt SIMS as both use established SIMS interface routes, and always has.

 

We have tested both products against the Summer release of SIMS, without any issues.

 

Email me on [email protected] with any details.

[synaesthesia]

To clarify I sincerely doubt it was Groupcall that did the corruption, as said in last post it was more than likely the hard crash that caused it.

I'm still trying to cross reference all the info I have before raising a call, I can't say for sure that groupcall caused them both but it's a common factor and the very last thing that ran before crashing the server/stopping it's own service. Doesn't appear to be an issue on machines I have yet to upgrade.

[GREED]

To clarify I sincerely doubt it was Groupcall that did the corruption, as said in last post it was more than likely the hard crash that caused it.

I'm still trying to cross reference all the info I have before raising a call, I can't say for sure that groupcall caused them both but it's a common factor and the very last thing that ran before crashing the server/stopping it's own service. Doesn't appear to be an issue on machines I have yet to upgrade.

Let's us know as soon as you know anything and we will jump on it. Always possible something slips through but we'll get on something as potentially big as this asap. Also happy for transparency for discussions here (as always) - for the benefit of all.

 

For information around the possible corruption, our source code for the integration with SIMS is checked and verified each year by Capita as part of the process of being a partner. Doesn't guarantee anything of course, but it does mean we always used the approved data access paths.

[Koldov]

Not sure if it was the SIMS update, but I've just looked on the server and these services have stopped and won't start again...

 

[GREED]

Not sure if it was the SIMS update, but I've just looked on the server and these services have stopped and won't start again...

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]44542[/ATTACH]

Thanks for this. Please get in touch with our support team and they will be able to take a look at this for you.

 

For information, the Emerge service (connected to Groupcall Emerge) does not directly connect to SIMS and so should not affect anything to do with SIMS issues, it is likely a coincidence more than anything. However, the support team will be able to assist you to see why our services have stopped working.

[splattthecat]

Graham, we experience minor, but annoying issues with each SIMS upgrade at schools we support where Groupcall exporter is in use, where the SIMS client upgrade on the server always fails due to the exporter holding open files. Is there any guidance from Groupcall on how we can manage this situation better?

[GREED]

Graham, we experience minor, but annoying issues with each SIMS upgrade at schools we support where Groupcall exporter is in use, where the SIMS client upgrade on the server always fails due to the exporter holding open files. Is there any guidance from Groupcall on how we can manage this situation better?

 

Hi, sorry I completely missed this. I have put this to my dev team to respond to and will get you something as soon as I know.

[GREED]

Graham, we experience minor, but annoying issues with each SIMS upgrade at schools we support where Groupcall exporter is in use, where the SIMS client upgrade on the server always fails due to the exporter holding open files. Is there any guidance from Groupcall on how we can manage this situation better?

 

OK I have had responses (quicker than I thought!) - Xporter should not be locking files in SIMS, it technically doesn't touch these. Can you confirm you are on the latest version of Xporter (5.6.0.1610)?

 

You can always try stopping the Groupcall services (Groupcall SIMS Server), however you should not need to do this, and so if it does keep happening we'll probably need to have a closer look for you.

[synaesthesia]

Just to put minds at rest and especially for @GREED I've not had any recurrences of this issue and I'm now 99.99% certain it wasn't Groupcall related. Still, I appreciate your openness and response in regards to this as well as GDPR etc.

[GREED]

Just to put minds at rest and especially for @GREED I've not had any recurrences of this issue and I'm now 99.99% certain it wasn't Groupcall related. Still, I appreciate your openness and response in regards to this as well as GDPR etc.

That's great news, thanks for letting me know. Always happy to converse publicly these things will always help others, and we have nothing to hide!

[splattthecat]

OK I have had responses (quicker than I thought!) - Xporter should not be locking files in SIMS, it technically doesn't touch these. Can you confirm you are on the latest version of Xporter (5.6.0.1610)?

 

You can always try stopping the Groupcall services (Groupcall SIMS Server), however you should not need to do this, and so if it does keep happening we'll probably need to have a closer look for you.

 

Hi Graham, the Xporter version is 5.6.0.1610, and each upgrade we are having to stop the Groupcall service before re-deploying the workstation upgrader to the server to get it to apply after it fails to upgrade initially.

[GREED]

Hi Graham, the Xporter version is 5.6.0.1610, and each upgrade we are having to stop the Groupcall service before re-deploying the workstation upgrader to the server to get it to apply after it fails to upgrade initially.

 

I will get this looked into. To be clear, is this the database upgrades or the application upgrade on the server? How long has this been 'a thing' for?

[Esteban_Child_of_the_Sun]

Graham, we experience minor, but annoying issues with each SIMS upgrade at schools we support where Groupcall exporter is in use, where the SIMS client upgrade on the server always fails due to the exporter holding open files. Is there any guidance from Groupcall on how we can manage this situation better?

We get that with 1 school (but have other schools using Groupcall who don't have the issue), I've never really bothered investigating as they are getting a new server (and have been for 12 months now, it just keeps getting delayed) and I assumed it was a Windows 2008 issue. They have now finally got their new server and I'll be transferring everything on to it next month. I'll let you know if it still happens on the new server.

[GREED]

We get that with 1 school (but have other schools using Groupcall who don't have the issue), I've never really bothered investigating as they are getting a new server (and have been for 12 months now, it just keeps getting delayed) and I assumed it was a Windows 2008 issue. They have now finally got their new server and I'll be transferring everything on to it next month. I'll let you know if it still happens on the new server.

 

Please do. We are interested to hear experiences as well.

[GREED]

Hi Graham, the Xporter version is 5.6.0.1610, and each upgrade we are having to stop the Groupcall service before re-deploying the workstation upgrader to the server to get it to apply after it fails to upgrade initially.

 

Hi

 

Would you be able to get in touch directly so we can schedule a session with you to look more closely at this? Drop me an email at [email protected] and we'll go from there?

 

When reviewed/resolved, I'll post the analysis here (any Xporter fault that is!), for others.

 

Thanks

[splattthecat]

The database upgrades fine, it's the application upgrade on the server that fails, with dll files being locked and left at the old version. I will drop you an email.

Thanks

Adrian

[vikpaw]

Not sure if it's relevant, but I know some integration products used to require the application to be installed as they used it, or some of the files it came with to access SIMS. I presume this is different with direct API calls, however I'm sure we used to have a few things that 'required' the SIMS app to work. Does Groupcall work like this?

 

SIMS always used to be a pain with releasing control of linked programs, e.g. you want to rename a file like a report template that you've used from SIMS, or a spreadsheet you've imported from and it doesn't release it and it appears in use. I wonder if it's something related to this. It would need a force restart of the app before the files being used are released. It could be Groupcall or something else...thinking out loud...

Edited August 6, 2017 by vikpaw

[splattthecat]

Thanks Graham and Tim from Groupcall, following a remote session with Tim we have now pinpointed that it isn't Groupcall Xporter holding open files - it's another 3rd party product ZiNET that is.

You have both been very helpful - very much appreciated.

[GREED]

Thanks Graham and Tim from Groupcall, following a remote session with Tim we have now pinpointed that it isn't Groupcall Xporter holding open files - it's another 3rd party product ZiNET that is.

You have both been very helpful - very much appreciated.

 

You are welcome - we were worried if it was Xporter doing this! It might be worth other users experiencing this to check to see what other services (data extraction or otherwise) might be in play?