Odd behavior in NAS and ADCS - v5.0

Fisherman

I'm trying to install a new NAS for testing, and I'm running into a strange error. I have installed, configured, created the encryption keys, and started the services under windows users with sufficient priveleges to both the network and the database.

However, whenever I try to connect to the VT100 plugin from a VT100 terminal (I'm using Hyperterminal), I'm immediately disconnected, and the following error message appears in the Windows Event Log. Any ideas for resolution?

"Something went wrong when trying to reply to internal key 4032828. Object reference not set to an instance of an object."

This is such a wonderfully informative message, I find myself why I didn't go to work at Microsoft when I was 12. Of course, I had only a moderate command of the English language, and I had never seen a compute..... oh, wait. Dammit - I could have!

Seriously. Has anyone seen this before.

Fisherman

anyone?

Jorge_Torres_[MSFT]

It seems that you are having an invalid XML document sent back to the VT100 plugin.

On the CU 7700 on the SendXMLReply function, try to dump the XML document to your hard drive.

Something like:

xmlout.save('c:\navision\ADCS-out.xml');

before the 'SaferStream.SendEncryptedData'.

Your XML document should contain an <ADCS> as root, and a child called <Header> which should contain the following properties: ID, Sequence, LoginID, UseCaseCode, StackCode, FormTypeOpt, NoOfLines, InputIsHidden and PluginVer.

If the ADCS and Header are not encounter in the replied document from the NAS, the plugin will fail with this error.

Hope this helps.

Fisherman

Jorge -

Thanks for the reply. I've actually gotten MS involved at this point. They have confirmed the error on their end, and they say it has something to do with the inner workings of the VT100 plugin. As I understand it, it sounds like there is a serialization issue around the Socket object - almost like the object is locked by a process that hasn't been disposed yet. This seems to be borne out by the facts that this usually happens in high-traffic periods, and the system event log references issues in waiting for the socket object to respond.

God save me - if they ever decide to drop VT100 and move to XML/SOAP messages directly to a full-GUI, interactive .Net application, I might just jump to the moon out of joy.

They are working on a hotfix for me. I'll let you know what I find.

Phae

Hello Fisherman,

I want to ask you, whether you got a fix for your problem.
It's because I now have exactly the same error message with NAV2009 SP1.

I already checked the xml-files which where generated when debugging the communication between VT100-plugin and NAS - seems ok to me.

PlugIn-PlugIn To CSS-SendHello4032828.txt:

<ADCS>
  <Header ID="4032828" Sequence="0" UseCaseCode="hello" />
</ADCS>

CSS-SendToNAS 1 - 4032828.xml:

<ADCS>
  <Header ID="4032828" Sequence="0" UseCaseCode="hello" PluginVer="VT100 no CSS" />
</ADCS>

Maybe someone else has a hint, whats wrong?

best regards
Phae

Fisherman

Phae -

I'll tell you that solutions have been iterative. We've been through several rounds of this.

We have received multiple hot fixes from Microsoft dealing with this issue. Every time we perform an upgrade (4.0 to 5.0, 5.0 to 5.1, 5.1 to 5.1 upgrade 1), the problem comes back, and every time, they give us another hotfix for it.

From my discussions with Microsoft Support Engineers, I have learned that the underlying issue appears to be thread management and synchronization. My understanding of the issue is that the VT100 plugin is multi-threaded, allowing it to accept multiple connections at a time, but obviously the NAS is not. As such, the VT100 plugin has to maintain state of which connection is bound to which thread and perform the translation from the XML documents passed between the NAS and the VT100 plugin to and from the VT100 protocol supported on the terminal interface for each individual thread request.

In any system that supports multi-threaded input and that performs scheduling of those inputs into a single-threaded resource, it's almost a requirement to have some sort of internal queue that maintains unactioned requests and marshals them to/from the single-threaded resource when it's available.

What I don't know from my discussions with MS is whether this is breaking in management/synchronization of that internal queue, whether the translator from XML to VT100 is a shared resource that must also be scheduled and there is a synchronization issue there, or whether there is some other sychronization problem. I have asked, though, and have been told that it is an thread sychronization/locking issue, and that the hotfix that they almost inevitably give me will fix it. At minimum, it usually does diminish the problem dramatically.

I would pass the hotfix that I received along, but it required a password to open, and that password was only good for 7 days. Your best bet is to contact your support partner and have them forward to MS for you. They collected data interactively through a browser session on my server and sent back the hotfix.

menats

Hi fisherman

I'm having the same problem and I'm in touch with Microsoft but we're not solving the problem. Can you send me your MS Suport Case Number so I can tell them. Maybe with this they find a solution.

Thanks in advance!!

froewis

We had the same problem in a Austrian Version of NAV 2009. In our case it was a simple but stupid "language" Problem, maybe in your case too.

The NAS is talking local language but the VT100 Plugin does only understand english. That's it.

Remove the translations of your local language in all the option fields in the tables

7700 - Miniform Header
7701 - Miniform Lines
7702 - Miniform Function Group

and it will work.

Greetings from Austria

froewis

Sorry, I posted to fast. Didn't saw that you - in all probability - work with an US-Version. So for you the language problem will not occur.

crisnicolas

froewis wrote:

We had the same problem in a Austrian Version of NAV 2009. In our case it was a simple but stupid "language" Problem, maybe in your case too.

The NAS is talking local language but the VT100 Plugin does only understand english. That's it.

Remove the translations of your local language in all the option fields in the tables

7700 - Miniform Header
7701 - Miniform Lines
7702 - Miniform Function Group

and it will work.

Greetings from Austria

Thanks a lot. I had the same problem working with the spanish version. Removing the translations solved the problem

xinxo

Thank you very very much!!! =D> =D> =D> this solved the same problem in Spanish version