Help with Sims Individual reports

[Demerton]

Hi All,

 

I am having and have had the issue below for several months now.

 

When we open sims and run an individual report, we can get to the stage whereby we print them off, but when printing more than one off at a time, SIMS crashes.

 

I have checked printer spoolers, drivers, system services, sfc scans (suggested by capita), updating SIMS, hundreds of patches it seems by this point.....

 

We are an RM school and havent encountered any issues with SIMS before version 7.184.0 updated in October last year..... but Capita maintain its not a SIMS issue.....

 

Capita have been looking at this for ages now and cannot fix the issue, Has anyone had this issue and can someone help?

 

event log shows two events at crashing:

 

Application error:

Faulting application name: Pulsar.exe, version: 7.186.31.0, time stamp: 0x5c8f958fFaulting module name: KERNELBASE.dll, version: 10.0.16299.820, time stamp: 0x917adac5Exception code: 0xe0434352Fault offset: 0x001045a2Faulting process ID: 0x3410Faulting application start time: 0x01d4eea23392ce53Faulting application path: C:\Program Files\SIMS\SIMS .net\Pulsar.exeFaulting module path: C:\Windows\System32\KERNELBASE.dllReport ID: 5896a3e5-41a8-487f-b6b5-23e89de9c9e9Faulting package full name: Faulting package-relative application ID:

 

.Net runtime error:

Application: Pulsar.exeFramework Version: v4.0.30319Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception.Exception Info: System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException at System.RuntimeType.InvokeDispMethod(System.String, System.Reflection.BindingFlags, System.Object, System.Object[], Boolean[], Int32, System.String[]) at System.RuntimeType.InvokeMember(System.String, System.Reflection.BindingFlags, System.Reflection.Binder, System.Object, System.Object[], System.Reflection.ParameterModifier[], System.Globalization.CultureInfo, System.String[]) at SIMS.Processes.ExternalApplication.doPrintingForMSWord(System.Collections.ArrayList) at SIMS.Processes.ExternalApplication.doPrintingForMicrosoft(System.String[]) at SIMS.Processes.ExternalApplication.PrintDocuments(System.String[]) at SIMS.UserInterfaces.ASMDlgGenerateReport.processThread() at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart_Context(System.Object) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.RunInternal(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object, Boolean) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object, Boolean) at System.Threading.ExecutionContext.Run(System.Threading.ExecutionContext, System.Threading.ContextCallback, System.Object) at System.Threading.ThreadHelper.ThreadStart()

 

Regards

 

Daniel

Edited April 9, 2019 by Demerton

[bfelton]

How does it behave when you preview the report? have you tried the upload option?

[Demerton]

How does it behave when you preview the report? have you tried the upload option?

 

Hi There,

 

I can preview and the upload works fine.

 

When i select export, there are no issues either, however printing xml files in bulk is an issue too

 

The issue lies only when print report is selected, the first report prints and then SIMS crashes, all reports generate fine, just will not print

 

Please advise,

 

Regards

 

Dan

[bfelton]

One thing to try would be to completely simplify the report down to a simple table and see if that prints ok, then build the report back up, testing as you go. The issue may be a picture in the letterhead or something similar.

[Demerton]

when printing as a simple template, no headers, footers or text, just the table, the same issue occurs.

[Cache]

All workstations or a single workstation?

 

We've had various odd issues occur on a single workstation.

 

Is your SIMS server a trusted zone/Intranet zone in Internet Options? Past experience with various parts of SIMS shows this can help a lot of things.

Edited April 9, 2019 by Cache

[Demerton]

All PCs / Workstations are affected

[David44]

Firstly, this clearly is a SIMS issue. Decent software doesn't display errors like that to the end users.

 

Probably an obvious suggestion but as you are an RM school, do you know if the problem only effects one user and if so have you tried a profile reset for that user in RMMC?

 

The other method of printing these reports is to generate them as files and then drag them all on to the attached VBS file. This is probably quicker than SIMS printing them anyway.

 

 

Print.vbs

Edited April 9, 2019 by David44

[Demerton]

Hi David,

 

Yes as we are an RM school, I have tried profile resets through the RMMC.

 

I will try the vbs method now and update the thread.

 

Cheers

 

Dan

[BKGarry]

Just some ideas.

 

Do you know if you are using the HP Universal Print Drivers, something in the back of my head says there are some issues with them, I know there deffo was with Nova T4 and Assessment Manager 6, but not sure about 7 (the version in SIMS)

 

The other thing to try, in your homedrive (my documents) there will be two folders created by SIMS "My Sims Documents" and "tempSIMSRpt" try deleting them and logging back into SIMS and see if that does it.

 

Also, do you know if there are any addons installed withing Word, there was a problem many years ago with the Microsoft MFL and Chemistry addons causing issues, but I don't think they exist anymore, but it worth a shot there.

 

I have had it before where the table itself has become corrupt in the word document, and no matter what you do, you end up recreating the table from scratch, which is frankly rubbish, but it has happened

[Demerton]

Just some ideas.

 

Do you know if you are using the HP Universal Print Drivers, something in the back of my head says there are some issues with them, I know there deffo was with Nova T4 and Assessment Manager 6, but not sure about 7 (the version in SIMS)

 

The other thing to try, in your homedrive (my documents) there will be two folders created by SIMS "My Sims Documents" and "tempSIMSRpt" try deleting them and logging back into SIMS and see if that does it.

 

Also, do you know if there are any addons installed withing Word, there was a problem many years ago with the Microsoft MFL and Chemistry addons causing issues, but I don't think they exist anymore, but it worth a shot there.

 

I have had it before where the table itself has become corrupt in the word document, and no matter what you do, you end up recreating the table from scratch, which is frankly rubbish, but it has happened

 

We are using Kyocera printers and Print drivers are not universal

 

Tried to delete the two folders as stated, no change, issue persists

 

Is there a possibility that the issue lies in the report itself and can the individual report be recreated? or is it the template that is corrupt?

[BKGarry]

We are using Kyocera printers and Print drivers are not universal

 

Tried to delete the two folders as stated, no change, issue persists

 

Is there a possibility that the issue lies in the report itself and can the individual report be recreated? or is it the template that is corrupt?

 

You can recreate the template, but you are going to need to sit there and do it. When I refer to the template, I mean the individual report template that is created in word and not the Template for the marksheets themselves, I know it gets confusing with Ass.Man. Terminology at times.

 

Can you check to see if word has any add-ons within it?

[bfelton]

I would try creating a new basic template from scratch to see if the problem persists, if it does then it could possibly be the base template that is causing the issue, there is a patch available that restores the base template, it might be worth a try.

[Demerton]

You can recreate the template, but you are going to need to sit there and do it. When I refer to the template, I mean the individual report template that is created in word and not the Template for the marksheets themselves, I know it gets confusing with Ass.Man. Terminology at times.

 

Can you check to see if word has any add-ons within it?

 

Add-ins listed in image below

[BKGarry]

Those are all fine, I would do what @bfelton has said

[Demerton]

I would try creating a new basic template from scratch to see if the problem persists, if it does then it could possibly be the base template that is causing the issue, there is a patch available that restores the base template, it might be worth a try.

 

you wouldn't happen to have the file and or the patch number?

 

Thanks

 

Dan

[bfelton]

The patch number is different for each version of SIMS, you should be able to request the "assessment base template file" patch from your SIMS support team.

[Demerton]

The patch number is different for each version of SIMS, you should be able to request the "assessment base template file" patch from your SIMS support team.

 

The other message we get when we try and reload the report is this:

 

Unable to download base template file

 

I take it that this is the issue then? or is this just a standard message for when the report crashes?

[bfelton]

This usually means that the template is stuck open in the background, a restart of the workstation will fix that issue.

[Demerton]

This usually means that the template is stuck open in the background, a restart of the workstation will fix that issue.

 

That has been what we have had to every time, just checking the message was related to that.

 

I have emailed our support team...... again, let's see if they come back with anything remotely useful.

[BKGarry]

sudden question, what version of Windows are you running?

 

It may be that the default printer isn't being recognised as set correctly

[Demerton]

sudden question, what version of Windows are you running?

 

It may be that the default printer isn't being recognised as set correctly

 

Windows 10 version 1809 on my machine

 

versions of 1709 and 1803 on others

[clarkejst]

Hi, I am experiencing the same problem with windows 10 version 1709 on CC4. I have had this for about a year now. Capita have said it is a system problem not SIMS and RM had said it is obviously a SIMS problem. I have noticed that we seem to have a very large docstorage area (approx. 73 Gbytes), I am trying to work out if this excessive and if it could be the problem. Could you post a message to tell me how large your docstore is.

 

Regards

 

John

[Esteban_Child_of_the_Sun]

Most of our larger high schools have a docstorage of around 20-40 GB. Have you run the regular docstorage housekeeping on a termly basis as advised by Capita? (Tools | Housekeeping | Document Management Server | Maintain Orphaned Documents)

[clarkejst]

Thanks for this suggestion. we have our support for SIMS through our local council, and I had never come across this routine, I will run it at half term and see what happens.

 

Again Many Thanks

 

John