theriver

Has anything changed - e.g. location of the data? Is all the kit plugged in where it was before?

Yaay, AKA "The Fridge"!

No it's . . . I'm . . . . fine . . . . it's . . . . I've just got a bit of grit in my eye . . . [sniff]

I'm sorry, I really can't remember the exact message we used to get.

I last worked with Successmaker about 11 years ago (can't remember the exact version) and while I don't recall this exact error it sounds like it might be related to one that was a problem for us too. Or it might even be the same one, it was 11 years ago now after all! If I recall correctly (it was 11 years ago - did I mention that?) the app monitored its own concurrency by having a centralised licence file maintained by the clients. This was a file on the server that contained the total number of authorised users, and when a user logged in their client would open the file and deduct one from the number stored in it. Thus when all users were logged in the figure would be 0, and nobody else could use the application. When a user logged out the app opened the file and added one back to the available licence count. The problem came when users didn't log out properly, or as far as the app was concerned didn't (i.e. turned off machine, network problem etc.), because the licence never got handed back in. And of course this happened a lot, because out of a class of year 7s at least one or two each lesson is just going to hit the power button, and this meant that we would often have subsequent lessons where one or more students couldn't log in. Disruptive. Once we realised that this was how the application was working, I made a copy of the file in question and set up a scheduled task on the app server to delete the current one and copy the copy into its place. This ran every break and lunch time and after school, and 'fixed' the problem. As I've said, while this sounds different to the problem you're experiencing, given that you've mentioned log out as a trigger then this could be it or a similar mechanism in play - depending on how gung-ho you're feeling I'd monitor the files on the server and see if you can identify which change and if any are clearly serving a similar function (as opposed to being, for example, the data files (!)). Do take a backup first ;-) Also, I'd demand a written report from the support company, or at least to get the ball rolling a request that their tech talks to someone technical at your end - "it's the network" is either a garbled message from your colleague or a cop-out from the support guy. Good luck.

Fingers crossed!

@sted - this is on a new 16Gb phone, works well. That is to say, once I deselected the entire school diary and just sync'd my personal diary (oops). I did see references to a similar problem elsewhere so I don't think you're alone with this. Why not call your phone company? ;-) @Domino - no Exchange here, sadly. @X-13 - the feeling of dread and resignation as your hand lifts the receiver to call the number . . . Will probably experiment with Google. One thing that's come to light here over the last couple of months (there's been a crop of new phones here) is how painful syncing seems to have become. HTC and Samsung Android apps will sync with Outlook, but only contacts and diary, not tasks, and Windows Mobile now seems to want either OneNote or the cloud in order to do what the last version did using ActiveSync. Expected more by now . . . .

I've a new Samsung phone. I run my life in Outlook so the first thing I did, apart from change the ringtone to , obviously, was to install Kies to sync the two. Now, I suspect that they’ve attempted some marketing nonsense here and that that should rhyme with ‘keys’ (the icon looks a bit like a keyhole), but I’ve today repeatedly embarrassed myself by making it sound like ‘pies’, which frankly it deserves. Problem? Doesn’t recognise the phone, claiming that it’s not compatible ("This device is not supported by Kies 2.0") – this despite having installed the latest version from their website. Because I am a good boy I run as a standard user, so I tried logging in as Administrator and lo! it works, recognising the phone with no problems. Had a quick go as my standard user with procmon, loads of ‘access denied’ on various HKLM keys. Oh look, it’s 2001 again. So, just for fun and to register my annoyance, I phoned the tech support line at my mobile provider - and had a conversation along these lines: Me: Hello, I’m blah blah blah, and it’s behaving like blah blah. Tim: Yep, all programs are like that. Me: Sorry? Tim: Any program, if you install it as Administrator you can’t use it with a guest account. Me: [wondering if I’ve slipped into some alternate reality] Erm . . . can you say that again? Tim: If you install a program as ‘Administrator’, you have to use it as Administrator, you can’t use it with another user. Me: [Where now? Benefit of the doubt . . . .] Well, I am not sure that’s the case . . . for example I’ve just installed Microsoft Office on this computer, as Administrator, and I can use my normal user account to run Word Tim: Yeah, that’s right, but that’s made by Microsoft. Microsoft let you do that, but you can’t do that with 3rd party applications. And so on. I wondered where to go from here, and plumped for the ‘life is too short’ option – polite acceptance and hung up. I then did the sensible thing of course, which was to promote my account to admin, run Kies once, then demote the account, and now it works fine. But, honestly!

I support a piece of software that gives a "communication link failure" from time to time, and to be fair the problem is between the SQL DB and the SQL client, outside of the control of the application itself. What it does do is trigger a sequence of increasingly hysterical error messages, but the problem there is poor error trapping in the app, the issue is still the link failure. And that's exactly what it means for us. Always found it to be a network problem of some kind, whether it be a drop out (good call on the wireless question) or a dodgy NIC (is it always one client? Does it affect multiple machines at once?). I've also read of people having problems where servers are starved of resource, but never come across that one myself.

@maniac, it's YOUR data, so you're in the driving seat. If they were halfway decent they should be asking you what *your* standards are, and how they can accommodate *you*. Shoddy. Just because none of their other customers have raised this as an issue (they say!) doesn't mean that it isn't one, just means that you're ahead of the game. If you're feeling uncomfortable about it now, imagine how you'd feel if it all goes pear shaped and you find yourself having to answer questions about what happened in the aftermath. At this moment in time all you're having to do is explain to your boss why a supplier is ****, if the worst happens you're potentially explaining why you went against your better judgement . . . . .

On what he describes as "the most humble day of my life", Murdoch eats pie.

You won't find the BMJ's article of course, as it's paywalled. However the NHS has written here: New report discusses health impact of wi-fi and mobile phones - Health News - NHS Choices. Seems a little less overly cautious, and has a WHO comment too.

First thing I'd say is are you sure it's the device itself, or posture related? If you think about how you sit, are you balanced, leaning, right heightaware of any tension, bad posture etc? The other thing is that some time ago I started getting numb hands after prolonged typing sessions. My Dr told me that the diagnosis of RSI is quite complicated and it's often something else. As it happens a bendy keyboard fixed it . . . . .

I've come across permissions errors similar to this where IIS is installed after the .NET framework. There's a fix/reregistration tool that's worth a shot if that's what's happened: Installing IIS after .NET framework

Nice work :-) On my way home this evening I encountered some lads leaping around an overhang in a two level car park, was quite scary to watch. Skillful though.

Sorry, obvious question - what was the performance like before the p2v, or do you not have stats for that?

Be careful setting the amount of RAM allocated to SQL, as if you set it too high then you run the risk that SQL Server will rob RAM from the OS. Then things will get REALLY slow. HCC, note that the table in that article is for x64 machines, which would see a full 4Gb of RAM. There's some interesting stuff about RAM limits in the comments section ("I am going to write another post that covers x86"), which I think will explain why upping your limit to 3.5 Mb won't appear to make a difference. High CPU on DB servers can hint at index problems - not familiar with SIMS, does it ship with any utilities or recommendations for reindexing or checking the indexes?

Test them now, before it's too late!

They've got form for this kind of thing: image[7].png (image)

What error is coming back when you try to connect? And per glennda's message, what's in the event log?

Never mind all that, top marks to the staff, both for having the nerve and also for having a school where they feel that they can do that! Great stuff!

Also, what's the error that's coming back?

And much of the time, makes your face cold.

I'm just looking around at the reports now and Sony themselves are stating that user information has been accessed: "Although we are still investigating the details of this incident, we believe that an unauthorized person has obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained." from Update on PlayStation Network and Qriocity – PlayStation Blog

Hello. Watch out for those nulls. 'NULL' is not the same thing as NULL, which is to say that one is the word 'NULL' and the other is a black hole. For example, I'm going to create a table and insert two lines, where the first one contains 'NULL' and the second contains NULL: create database edugeek go use edugeek go create table test (ID int, name varchar(10)) insert into test ( id, name) VALUES (1, 'NULL') insert into test (id, name) VALUES (2, Null) The following selects return different results. SELECT * FROM TEST where name = 'NULL' SELECT * FROM TEST where name is null Hope that helps.