problems so far

[barryfl]

Ok everyone, Well, I am nearly at the end of my tasks of this, Heres a little walk of the problems i had...

 

Problem 1) Wasn't setup as the main contact (Not their fault in honesty)

 

Problem 2) Wrong CD Set, Had to be resent

 

Problem 3) Installed it on the server, Didn't add the right NTFS permissions

 

Problem 4) APS Wouldn't load in IE....Would help if i saw that bit about trusted sites at the back

 

Problem 5) PLASC file needed to be converted 3 times before actually getting the year 9 pupils, This took an hour

 

Problem 6) Needed to create path rules to run the plasc utils, And the updated version RM sent via email

 

Problem 7) We're at deployment now, Wasn't to bad but for some reason wasn't picking up the DPSconfig file, even though it was in my rm package (Yes we are CC3 *sigh*) so had to copy to a few hdd's manually

 

Installed the tests and 2 rooms were done....Now for the teacher training :twisted:

 

I did the level 5 just for kicks and my first thought was OMG kids are going to be so confused by this UI, It took me a few minutes to work out that the F8 n F9 buttons did things. This is going to confuse kids aswell as teachers, Makes me wonder if im going to see kids helping teachers with this UI rahter than teachers helping kids.

 

Hate the UI, I know it has to be universal and can't be an exact mock of MS but at least some menu resemblance would have been nice.

 

Just think...Im RM get the go on this, Its going worldwide....There evil plan has only just begun

 

Barry

[beeswax]

for some reason postmaster put his feet up and stopped working this afternoon. once re started could log on to aps again, but this is going to be a real problem if it keeps cropping up, though it doesn't take a moment to get the service running again. has anyone else experienced this intermittent problem on their server?

rather like the actors who take 1 percent of a film's gross rather than a flat fee, I think I'll ask RM for some sort of donation to keep edugeek up and running. ethics? that's east of london.

beeswax

[russdev]

did you get an memory error message or something

 

if so log call with rm over it as have had several sites with it common factor rm has found between us all rm auditor....

 

so if not got or if have log the call....

 

 

if not got log and say there should be a second level call with several other sites with this problem and that you dont have auditor installed...

 

russ

[beeswax]

when you say auditor, do you mean the audit log? There are quite a few of these messages -

THRESHOLD_LIMIT_EXCEEDED [scheduler][Threshold limit of failure of task scheduler exceeded for task 7.]

but they aren't solely for yesterday. I've done a random check back over the 10 days or so that this software has been installed and they crop up all the time.

I'm going to call RM as soon as I click submit

beeswax

[russdev]

no software from rm called rm auditor by fact that dont know what i am going on about says you dont have it..

 

in which case log call and if pm me call ref number i will pas it along to second line tech as seems like you are having same problem but not got auditor installed...

 

russ

[beeswax]

I'm on the phone to them now. they say that auditor is part of cc3(?) RM managed, and not for self managed networks. there is an app on the cd called State Audit, which has to be copied to the QCA folder on the server and then run. This will produce an audit of the software's operations since installation. copy and email to them with ref number.

"postmaster service is known to be unstable...and unpredictably shut down."

 

bit like me on a friday night.

beeswax

[russdev]

lol yer and they was assuming it was rm auditor yes rm auditor is part of cc3...

 

postmaster service was upgraded this year to resolve problems and until now it is apparantly due rm auditor as that was common factor between all sites..

 

hnce why i want to notify second line person as it seems like noty just auditor anyway yes good old aps state its first thing they ask you to do..

 

russ

[beeswax]

just got an email back from rm. they've received my audit and escalated it to 2nd line support. I await their reply.

 

beeswax

[russdev]

your not cc3 there are you?

 

russ

[beeswax]

no.

 

beeswax

[russdev]

thats the interesting thing you first site to say got problem and not have cc3

 

russ

[beeswax]

that probably means I've cocked it up then.

 

beeswax

[broc]

I have had to restart postmaster and tomcat at least once, and we are not RM. I looked on the APS audit log and we are seeing the same THRESHOLD_LIMIT_EXCEEDED events logged too.

[beeswax]

I have had to restart postmaster and tomcat at least once, and we are not RM. I looked on the APS audit log and we are seeing the same THRESHOLD_LIMIT_EXCEEDED events logged too.

 

thanks for that broc, I was getting a little paranoid there.

I'm sure you've been checking the previous posts to see where everyone's up to up to here. very useful when rm have gone up the wooden hill.

 

beswax

[glensc]

If you decide to use the msi to deploy the DPS client software via group policy, watch out for issues with .NET!

 

Watch out for RMs instructions which ( from memory ) tell you to right click the .NETinstall file & choose open then change destination address. In my case choosing open attempted to install .NET it on the local sever in it's default location, instead I had to right click and choose extract to. Not a major issue but easy enough to miss with 3 students demanding printer paper and floppy disks while doing it.

 

Another gotcha I had was installing the APS to a partition with quotas enabled, setting users tomcat and postgres to unlimited did not solve the install problem, after several attempt I noticed that in the quotas list there became several instances of the postgres users ( not sure how this can even happen but it did ) It seemed to create a new instance everytime it tried to install. I eventually hit upon a simple solution.

For the purpose of installing, on the drive with quotas I took the default quota up to 10GB then once installed returned it to a more sane value.

[beeswax]

LOL.

 

....£50 note you say?

[_Bob_]

Been having lots of fun with this! Finally got the software and test deployed and most of the time it connects to the server ok. We could do with a test pupil for the so that staff can run hrough the practice tests. (Getting a room full of students to attempt it before staff have even seen it would a recipe for disaster). Trouble is the crummy validation script on the 'Add user' page won't let me put one in without a valid UPN. Anyone know a way round this, or at least what format the UPN should be in?

 

This might help if i can get the macros to run...

 

http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/management/ims/datamanagement/upn/

 

:?

[_Bob_]

Ah managed to con it into accepting one i found embedded in the excel file from the above page. Time to let the teaching staff loose on it, estimated time to breakage ... 30mins!

[SteveT]

Why not let staff use the Anonymous log-on for the practice tests??

[beeswax]

I would have said this too if I hadn't been called away

[_Bob_]

Dohh!

[beeswax]

I think you'll find that curry and beer will solve most problems

[_Bob_]

OK next problem. I've hit the same problem barry was having. The software installs but doesn't copy the dpsconfig.ini file over so the workstations are asking for the IP of our server. I think my best bet is going to be to do this manually. Where abouts is the file supposed to go?

[SteveT]

It sits in the DPS config file on the server. (Something like \\servername\APSinst\Admin Point System\DPS Config)

 

Just edit it in notepad and fill in the details you require.

[_Bob_]

Yes, but i think the install (we rolled it out with MSI packages) is supposed to drop this file onto the workstations. It isnt doing this, and even when i put the details into the workstation manually i cant find the file it stores them in.