NAS crashes every day

Mindie

I am having a problem with the NAS. It is crashing about once a day. The codeunits that the NAS and Job Queue are running create Sales Orders. I crashes at random times but always on a the commit statement that is after the release of the Sales Order. I have found no pattern on the data records or anything else. If we use the exact same data and run the processes manually it goes through fine with no error messages or any other messages. It usually crashes between 5 am - 10am but there is nothing special going on at that time. It run 22 hours a day every 15 mins. A week ago we rebooted the server and then it skipped a day before it crashed again.

In the Job Queue is shows a start time and no end time. When I go to stop the NAS I get an error message saying that the NAS timed out and the process couldn't be stopped but it does stop the service. Once restarted it is fine again for about 24 hours. In the error log it usually shows an application error but no additional information.

They are using NAV 5.0 sp1 on a 2003 x64 Server.

Any idea why this is happening?

ta5

Do you use the Navision Timer component? I've heard (but I'm not sure) there are problems with it on x64 OS.
Thomas

Buba

Check the event log on the X64 server. Might find the cause there?

Mindie

The event log doesn't give any useful information. Nothing is shown at those times.

We are using the Job Queue to specify the timing. There is no other timer being used that I'm aware of.

DenSter

NAS is a 32 bit application, I don't know if you need to set it to run in a certain mode on a 64 bit server.

Mindie

Where should I look for information regarding running it on a x64 server?

DenSter

I don't know, I'd start with a google search "how to run 32bit applications on 64bit Windows".

ara3n

Mindie wrote:

Where should I look for information regarding running it on a x64 server?

You can also try to do an exe upgrade to newer version 2009, just to test with a test database and see if the issue is resolved.

Mindie

I haven't figured out how to replicate the whole process to make it work on a test database. It relies on data being fed to a table every couple of minutes. The codeunits process those records in the table. If there are records to process then it wouldn't do anything.

Last night I commented out the commit statement to see if that was causing the problem. The process ran fine until this morning where it crashed. This time it crashed on the line of code releases the sales order. The strange part is that it is the line immediately before the commit (that was commented out)

The other strange part is the times of these crashes:

01/01/09 07:37 AM
01/02/09 02:00 AM
01/03/09 10:48 AM (Saturday)
01/04/09 07:07 AM
01/05/09 07:17 AM
01/06/09 08:12 AM
01/07/09 05:51 AM
(server rebooted on 1/7 so no crash on 1/8???)
01/09/09 05:30 AM
01/10/09 04:30 AM
01/11/09 10:47 AM (Saturday)
01/12/09 05:45 AM
01/13/09 05:45 AM
01/14/09 05:30 AM

Going through the logs I can find nothing happening on the server at these times. The times look too consistent though. The process runs from 1am - 10 pm 7 days a week, every 15 mins.

DenSter

Is there a network backup at 5:30? I've seen that interfere with NAS.

Mindie

No the backup is at 11 pm

ara3n

I suggest this. Run NAS on the server from command prompt and see if it writes anything.

Mindie

What do you mean "if it writes anything?"

ara3n

on the command prompt if it crashes you will see any messages

Mindie

39/40 it doesn't crash so should I run it manually every 15 mins for 24 hours?

I feel like I'm missing an important step in your suggestion.

ara3n

when you run command prompt with the parameters it will stay and run for ever until you hit ESC. You don't need to run it multiple times.

Mindie

OK. That sounds like an excellent suggestion. I will try that. Thank you.

ara3n

Mindie wrote:

OK. That sounds like an excellent suggestion. I will try that. Thank you.

Great. Let us know what you find. I would try and look at knowledge base at partnersource for any updates.

Mindie

We've run it from the command prompt with and without sending the output to text. Both ways there are no error messages.

I did find that if we reduce the memory, or increase it, then it crashes more often. It also seems that it wasn't the commit that is causing the crash. It happening some time during the creation of the XML file. It just rolls back to the previous commit statement.

I'm very frustrated so any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

i4tost

Can you write a little bit more about your solution.
* How you create orders (from where you take data)
* Are there any other application that access same database?
* When windows update is running?
* Are you sure, that no GUI object is called to be shown (no item on stock, customer credit limit...)?

Mindie

A SQL script takes data from another SQL database and places it into two new NAV tables. The code unit, that is called by the Job Queue, takes the new records in this table and creates Sales Orders. Then an XML file with the Sales Order information is exported.

The server does not have the automatic windows updates turned on. The job queue is set stop before the back ups are performed and restart many hours after the backups are finished. I can't find any system function that is running during the time of the crash.

All stock out and credit warnings are turned off. We have run the exact same Sales Order through manually and we get no error, warning, or pop up message of any kind. It goes through without a problem.

ara3n

Are you using xmlDOM to create the xml file? have you thought about using xmlport instead? the connection to the other database is done through ADO?

Mindie

The XML is created by an XMLPort called by the codeunit. I don't know enough about SQL to know how the script accesses the other SQL database.That stored procedure runs independently of the anything happening in NAV.

ara3n

One option is to get the 2009 NAS and test it test environment and run it for a couple of days.

Mindie

It's not really going to be possible to create a test environment.

ara3n

Then I suggest to contact MS or your solution center. There is a hotfix released for 5.0 sp1 that might fix your issue.

Mindie

I thought I looked through all of the hotfixes. I'll go look again. Thank you.

Mindie

I've looked through PartnerSource and there is no hotfix for 5.0 SP1 that affects the NAS.

Any other ideas?

ara3n

Here is a link to all the hot fixes released for sp1.

http://www.waldo.be/



I would try and get the latest executable version for 5.0 sp1 and test it.

Mindie

OK I'll do that but I don't know why that will help since none of the changes apply to NAS.

ara3n

Several of them have a new nassql.exe version. It's worth getting a new version.