Sims Database Error- any hope of recovering data?

[philjones2000]

Hi

 

We had the following error on sims last night when trying to log on after the password screen:

Item has already been added. Key in dictionary: `HOY` Key being added: `HOY`: system.argumentexception

 

Fault code: 1953-2999-0200

Nice. tried all the usual suspects- restarted database service, restarted server, detattched and reattached sims db etc.

 

In the end I had to roll back to the virtual snapshot from the night before. Everything is now fine but we have obviously lost Wednesdays data.

 

I still have a clone of the machine from Wednesday afternoon, does anyone have any ideas of how I can get in at least just to grab registers etc?

 

It seems to have been caused by our sims co-ordinator putting in a new behaviour type? This seems a bit weird to me.

 

Thanks for your help

 

Phil

[Sarconia]

That's an odd error indeed, however I have seen it happen on a few rare occasions. Those types of errors generally occur in the Reporting Module and they roughly mean that there is an entry that already exists in the SQL table(s) somewhere which is conflicting with the new data that has been entered. (in your case a new behaviour type).

 

The only people who would be able to fix this error and prevent it from happening again would be the devs at Capita!

 

Unfortunately in regard to restoring the lost data, the only way would be to manually enter it all in again. If I were in this situation, I'd create an attendance report to detail all of the marks recorded on that day which were not present marks, I'd then use the enter a code over a date range routine to mark the whole school present and then use edit marks to fill in the other marks.

 

As for other data such as behaviour & assessment, it's manual entry all the way.

[matt40k]

For future ref, you should have logged it with Capita, it'll been a P1 and would have been resolved within 1 business day (I believe).

[philjones2000]

Can I log things directly with capita? I think I have to go via county lea support...

[matt40k]

Not unless you get TopUp Support, still, your LA shouldn't slow it down, if anything, it's extra people poking the developer to work faster.

[vikpaw]

So no user can log in?

 

If you have it as a VM and can afford to break it, you could try searching the SQL for the entry and removing it, though it's highly dangerous and would stop the snapshot from being usable live again, though you'd probably never go back to it now anyway.

 

You should still be able to take the database files and send them to Capita, and they could fix it for you, whether or not it's worth the time is up to you. Once fixed, you could run the patch on the snapshot and recover the registers.

 

When i say send to Capita, it could be via LA if need be. I used to find the LA was actually a hindrance, poking questions at me before they'd log it forwards with Capita, despite my extensive troubleshooting. Either way, there is a solution.

[philjones2000]

Yeah, nobody can log in.

 

I'm happy to risk breaking the vm, I can always clone it. How would I go about going through the sql? I'm used to mysql and phpmyadmin! sorry!

[vikpaw]

Install SQL Management Studio if it's not already installed, you can connect to the db with sa user and then browse the tables.

i have a script somewhere that searches for keywords in tables, i'll have to dig it out