eOLF 5: services down, saved EP1001 drafts with pdf slow

[Olaf]

We have a server installation of eOLF 5 on Windows XP SPIII. After booting the machine, OLFfm.exe service does not run automatically and must be started manually. Moreover, sometimes even further/all eOLF services stop without any reproducable reason.

Linking OLFfm.exe via the auto start directory to get it started after reboot is not working either and does not solve the problem anyway.

Furthermore: reopening EP1001 drafts containing pdf file(s) takes up to 5 or even 10 minutes(!).

The previous eOLF version 4 worked fine on the same machine. Thus, it is hard to determine the cause of our problems, such as that there may be other services on the computer that may interrupt.

[caryg]

I have also had two instances of all the services modules shutting down overnight for no obvious reason. This is running on a server installation on Windows Server 2003 SP1. I cannot see anything in the Event viewer that I recognise as belonging to the epoline installation. When restarted using the Server manager all works fine with no obvious errors.

I do not have a speed issue as far as I am aware but this is a quite powerful server which epoline hardly strains.

[Oliver]

...you're not alone!

We have encountered both of these problems with eOLF version 5; the services stopping during the night randomly, and EP1001 application taking ages (over 5 minutes) to open (with the correlating service hogging a lot of the CPU for a long time). This was on Windows 2003 SP2 on a dedicated DL380 with Quad Core Xeons and lots of memory. I could put any of my server based systems on that server and it would run pretty quick – yet eOLF seems to be slow. We’ve got lot of user complaints regarding the time it takes to open applications. Very bad PR for my dept.

I just ran up the installation on the virtual machine (ESXi - decent spec with nothing else running on it), and got exactly the same problems.

I’m about to run up a virtual image of 2008. I will let you know if this eliminates/minimises the issues.

Oli

[Oliver]

Fyi, an installation on Windows 2008 seemed to make no difference.

Oli

[D. Van Haken]

On the topic of:
"Furthermore: reopening EP1001 drafts containing pdf file(s) takes up to 5 or even 10 minutes(!)."

The forthcoming update, which has to be installed anyway to take the procedural changes in to account for 1/4/2010, will address this slow reloading of drafts for EP1001.

The issue on the not starting of services is being investigated. Not all users are confronted with it, cause/effect is not clear yet.

regards,

Dirk Van Haken,
EPO Online filing team

[caryg]

Thank you for keeping us up to date.

[Oliver]

Just until the next update - here is a .vbs script I wrote that that should help with the stopped services problem. Run it regularly on a scheduled task on the same server where 'Server Manager' is installed. It will check for stopped services and start them if it sees them down. Obviously if you use different forms than just EP and UK you will have to edit the service names.

Oli


On Error Resume Next

' list of services EP and UK sevices we use
startEOLF("EPO_OLF_EP1038_Service")
startEOLF("EPO_OLF_EP122K_Service")
startEOLF("EPO_OLF_EP2000_Service")
startEOLF("EPO_OLF_EPOPPO_Service")
startEOLF("EPO_OLF_FMMNGR_Service")
startEOLF("EPO_OLF_FMGRDN_Service")
startEOLF("EPO_OLF_IBR101_Service")
startEOLF("EPO_OLF_UK177E_Service")
startEOLF("EPO_OLF_UKNPUK_Service")
startEOLF("EPO_OLF_UKSFDE_Service")

' function to run for each service
Function startEOLF(strServiceName)

strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")

' get the status of the service
Set colServiceList = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
("Select * from Win32_Service where Name = '" & strServiceName & "'")

For Each objService in colServiceList

' if the service has stopped
If objService.State = "Stopped" Then

' start the service
objService.StartService()
Wscript.Sleep 4000

End If

Next

End Function

[MatthiasStolte]

Just a "mee too" reply. Usually the EPO OLF*-services are restarted at 03:00 am on the SBS2003 machine, but they did not restart on 01 Mar. Maybe a leap miscalculation like reported with other software?

Greets,
Matthias

[ThomasR]

Same issues... services stopped and EP1001...

Watching the services, I see that the services are first stopped at 03h00 then restarted then restopped...

Isnt it strange?...

Thx for investigations.

[patentjens]

I just wanted to confirm that we also randomly encounter the "stopped service" problem overnight. We run Epoline 5 on a decicated WinXP (32bit) SP3 machine.

Thanx for posting a .vbs script to be executed automatically on a regular basis. For less experienced users could you briefly comment on how to prepare an executable .vbs ´script on the local machine?

Thank you

Jens Vorberg