SOLUS3 - It is possible that the deployment service has stopped

[HannahBuist]

I tested the use of SOLUS3 for upgrades for the Summer release of SIMS .net with 3 schools. All upgraded fine. Tested them again for Autumn. Again all fine. Upgraded Discover on these schools. All fine.

Then I got excited, and set up a deployment plan covering 28 schools for the Autumn release of SIMS. Exciting. And guess what happened? Failed and rollback. That's ok, I can redeploy. So I did, and it took 8 hours last night to upgrade 24 of those machines. I've set a timeout, which it seemed to ignore.

The main problem I seem to be facing is the lovely SOLUS3 Deployment Service seems to have stopped error. No it hasn't, it's definitely running. And I've rebooted about a hundred times, and I still get the same error. It spends more time with that error up than not.

What I'd like to know is - has anyone else had this problem when deploying? Is there anything I should be checking to stop this error coming up?

To say I've had enough is putting it mildly.

And don't even get me started on the fact that you can't cancel a deployment once it's verifying the deployment plan, or stuck part way through a deployment but isn't doing anything. That one's been clogging up my system all day.....

So much for the festive spirit!

If anyone has any suggestions for what I can try to get rid of this intermittent message I'd be very grateful. I have 80 schools to upgrade by Friday and I don't fancy spending my whole Christmas watching the new blue screen of death.......

[Rawns]

I've seen the message that the service has apparently "stopped" a few times, usually when pushing out a full upgrade. Usually it appears when the deployment server is running at full speed. As far as I can tell, it appears to be a faulty report that makes an appearance when the server is under strain or when SOLUS3 has a large deployment to process. As long as you can see the service is still running on the server, there should be no problems....however as it is SOLUS3, I've come to expect nothing BUT problems!!!

 

We've experienced roll-backs too. However, these roll-backs have only been actioned against databases that actually upgraded successfully!!! the deployment service gets itself in a state and stays in a permanent state of rollback preventing any other upgrades going out until you have killed off the SOLUS3 deployment service for 10 minutes! It also tells you to look at the deployment logs which you can't actually do as the button is grayed out during the rollback process!!! Once the service has been restarted, you can push out the same upgrade again and it skips the database as it's already up to date and then upgrades the additional components.

 

SOLUS3 truly is a god-aweful piece of software and I loathe it with a passion!

[HannahBuist]

Well that's interesting if it is a faulty report - I was hoping that the system taking 8 hours to upgrade was due to there being a lot of 'downtime' with it being stopped, but if it wasn't really stopped and it still took 8 hours for 28 schools? Ouch.

Thanks for the tip about getting rid of the rollbacks though - that will come in handy to sort out some of my 'stuck' deployments and hopefully tidy up my now very messy deployment history screen!

I should've known better really - after successfully upgrading 3 schools for both SIMS .net and Discover so quickly I thought this was going to be straightforward. No Christmas miracles here!!

[Rawns]

Well that's interesting if it is a faulty report - I was hoping that the system taking 8 hours to upgrade was due to there being a lot of 'downtime' with it being stopped, but if it wasn't really stopped and it still took 8 hours for 28 schools? Ouch.

Thanks for the tip about getting rid of the rollbacks though - that will come in handy to sort out some of my 'stuck' deployments and hopefully tidy up my now very messy deployment history screen!

I should've known better really - after successfully upgrading 3 schools for both SIMS .net and Discover so quickly I thought this was going to be straightforward. No Christmas miracles here!!

 

8 hours for 28 schools?!!! Nasty! Do these schools have their own SOLUS3 deployment environments on site, or do you push it out to them from a LA SOLUS3 Deployment UI?

 

Also forgot to mention (but you may already be aware) the fact that the SIMS Autumn upgrade will try and apply every available update from Spring 2011 first! Unless your there to hit the "Deploy now" button constantly, that will add an extra 30-60 minutes on top!

[HannahBuist]

I push it out from an LA Deployment Service. So I expect it to be slow - but I'm not exactly demanding ridiculous work from it which makes it a bit frustrating.

Yeah I love how you have to backdate so far.

At least now I'm on this side of it I know what I'm moaning about and can empathise with others - whereas before I started I just got nervous of it. Now I can get cross about it!

[Sylv3r]

Ours appear to roll out succesfully on our workstations and server upgrade, but I must admit the 'service has stopped' message did keep appearing for me but never did appear to stop.