oexplore.exe hangs on Windows 2003 TServer

Hi All

My environment is as follows: OneWorld B7333 XE (SP23), AS400 for enterprise server, and Server03 SP2 for Windows Terminal Server.

About two weeks ago we replaced the hardware our WTS is on to something with a bit more resources. About a day into the new server, users reported that OW would just freeze after some time, but not always. The event logs for the server confirmed this. Another strange thing i noticed was that a lot of .pak files where accumulating in the Spec folder of the installation. The names are dstmpl_xx.pak, gbrlink_xx.pak, and where xx is what seems to be a random number. After enabling debugging on one of the users profiles, the very last entries before OW hanging is as follows;

** 12768/13388 Doing AutoInstallSpecs.
** 12768/13388 Compressed 173 RDASpecs for Version.
** 12768/13388 Compressed 146 RDAText for Version.
** 12768/13388 Compressed 6 GBRLink & 1228 GBRSpec for Version.

From another post on The List, i discovered that those .pak files are from when someone submits a UBE with specs, OW creates those files. They get cleaned after the UBE runs, but if interrupted the pak can be left behind.

A full client and server packages where built with out errors, and successfully deployed.

I did run R98CRTGL and R92TAM to generate full spec and data dictionary tam files using a dev machine with the new package, which where then copied across to the WTS.

The anti-virus has been configured to exclude the B7 folder.

I have also set, for each user, "TAMMultiUserOn=1" and "InstallSpecs=N" in the jde.ini.

How do i stop the AutoInstallSpecs from happening as i suspect this is the culprit. As it seems to be locking/modifying the spec files. Even though OW is suppose to be WTS aware and automatically disable this type of behavior. None of this happened on the old server, which was also Server03 SP2.

Your comments and suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Rob

Try placing the InstallERSpecs=N under [NETWORK QUEUE SETTINGS] in the client JDE.INI. This was meant to drastically reduce the amount of information transmitted when submitting a UBE. This setting doesn't exist in 8.9+ because it's done automatically in those releases but you have to manually specify it in XE.

Thanks cncjunior1. But the problem is still there. I've added that to all the thin clients ini file, and it still hangs. This week has been fairly quiet on our T/Server, so the application hangs haven't been that frequent.

When checking the jdedebug.log, AutoInstallSpecs is still being done. The weird thing is that it doesn't hang all the time. This is probably timing related, when other users are running UBEs and their client performs AutoInstallSpecs there by locking the spec files.

My testing involves (while on the TS) submitting a short UBE (displaying what orders are ready for invoicing) in 10 second intervals. As oexplore.exe hangs, a quick look in the spec folder reveals freshly created pak files.

Anything else i could try?

Thanks again!
Rob

Hi All

This has been resolved! It turned out to be a Windows Server 2003 issue. From SP1, MS decided to implement a security enhancement in the TCPIP.sys file. This involved limiting the concurrent half open connections made by the host to 10 (previously it was unlimited). This was in response to the modus operani of some viruses/worms. To check to see if your Server03 SP1+ (also XP SP2) install is reaching its half open connection limit, open up your event log and look for event ID 4226. Officially MS does not offer a work around for this. Unofficially there is one

The weird thing was that i wasn't receiving this event ID. I came across a similar issue some time ago where comms slowed down after the SP was installed. Out of desperation I applied the patch with success.

To find out more about this, google 'EventID 4226'. For the unofficial patch, google 'EventID 4226 fix'. The first result should be what you are looking for (.de). This is unofficial so safety first, backup before you patch

Rob