On 02:19 PM 2/05/2001 +0100, Jason Morgan said:
>Hi,
>
>We are experiencing serious instability in Protel 99SE+SP6.
>
>We have three users continuously using Protel on a shared database
>physically located on
>a remote NT file server.
>
>There are three machines, all P3 > 600MHz with at least 256Mb DRAM and >1G
>remaining disk space.
>
>Two are running W2K Pro and the other Win 98.
>
>Here are some of the problems we are experiencing.
>
>A user trying to update a library that they don't have Design Explorer
>privileges caused protel to crash
>setting the database backup to a length of 174 characters and killing the
>database copy.
>
>Opening a document reported that the access record is in use, crashing the
>machine.
>Any other machine opening the same sheet now crashes with the same error.
>
>When editing a sheet it not automatically write protected by the database,
>so another user may
>open, edit and save before the first is aware a change has been made.
>(There is a lock file option, but its manual!!)
>
>+Various exceptions, and "protel has caused an exception" messages.
>
>Are we the only people with these problems?
>
>Twice now, we've had to send the file off to Premier to have them check it
>out.
>
>Corruption can happen in a file within a database that may not get looked at
>for several days,
>by then its often too late to resort to a backup (which we take every 2
>hours, upto three days
>deep at present)
>
>Jason
>
Jason,
I just noted that no-one has responded to your post. There is almost
always at least one reply so this was a bit rude of us...
I am running Win2k and 99SEsp6 and I have very very few exceptions these days.
There is known problems with ATI based video cards. Are all of the
machines similarly configured (hardware wise)? Do you use ATI-based cards?
The database corruptions sound serious. On this list we have had very few
reports of DDB corruption even in the very early days of the DDB. I am
aware of a few but I cannot recall the details of any and I am not aware of
any pattern. Have you had any comment from Protel or Premier (the UK agent
aren't they?)? Sounds like you may have info for us - if you hear anything
pls let us know.
At one site we use shared libraries (NT/Win98 peer-peer network) and we
have had no corruptions - but I am not aware of any attempts to update the
library without privileges.
I do not suppose you have tried to replicate the issue in a controlled
manner have you?
>Opening a document reported that the access record is in use, crashing the
>machine.
>Any other machine opening the same sheet now crashes with the same error.
What do you mean by this? Is this related to the library save crash you
mentioned prior - or is this a completely separate event?
As for write protection for documents opened by one user to prevent write
access by another - this issue was slightly improved by SP6. At least there
is a warning - I agree that the lock should be automatic. As well, a
second user opening the document should be warned that it is read-only and
the document title bar should reflect this (a la Word).
Have you noticed under Client Menu (the
arrow-to-the-left-of-the-file-menu-that-I-hate-having-to-type-out-like-this)
|Preferences there is the Notify When Another User Opens Document
option. Although not a forced lock it is useful so you know who is doing
what and you can then coordinate actions.
I assume you are confident the network and server are all reliable.
Not much help above I suspect - database corruptions seem very rare if the
traffic on this list is a reliable measure. And I think most people are
finding that the number of exceptions has gone done a lot with sp5 and now sp6.
Anyone else using DDB permissions on shared libraries in similar ways to
Jason? Is it reliable for you? Anyone in a position to try some
controlled trials? Jason, can you elaborate the sequence of events more
clearly to allow others to try? **Warning**: based on Jason's experiences
I would suggest doing this with well backed up data only.
C'mon list - we can do better than the response so far to Jason's
problems. This is exactly the sort of issue that we all want to know about
- database corruption - yikes!
Ian Wilson
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