Profiles in Terminal Server being corrupted by FMS

[James Dunn]

I have a unique situation here. We have G-4 hosting or FM database. It has FMS 5.5 running with OS9. We are then using Terminal Services (remote desktop connection) for our users to access the FM app over a WAN. We have a problem here. After we suffer some kind of "Hiccup" or crash of the G-4 (happened a few times now) our user profiles in the Terminal Services Server (WIN2K Server) somehow get corrupted and the CPU in the Term Server maxs out and we crash. We found we can Rename all the profiles (effecifally removing them) and once new profiles are built as users log on everything is great......untill the G-4 hiccups again. Has anyone seen this before? Can we fix this by just moving the FMS and FM apps to a WIN2K fileserver? any help would be nice. Thank you.

[Will]

While you could move your FileMaker apps to a Windows 2000 Server it seems like the simplest way to approach this is to try and determine why the Mac is crashing - any ideas?

Beyond that are there any relevant event log entries on the Terminal Server?

Is it the FileMaker process that is using all the CPU cycles?

What version of FileMaker client is running on the Terminal Server?

Will

[James Dunn]

We are running FMP 6 as the client. As far as the MAC goes..... we have had an outside consultant working on it and he cant figure that out. Im not a MAC guy at all and am trying hard not to let my prejudices cloud my thinking here..... in that light Im still wondering why it corrupts my user profiles. Its not the filemaker process that uses up all the cycles on the cpu....what happens is once the profiles get corrupted (not all will corrupt just some and no pattern as to which) when that profile logs on the CPU maxs out. This one is causing a headache for sure.

[Will]

Hi -

A few more questions -

When the CPU maxes out what process is using all the cycles?

Are there any Windows event log entries?

What service pack is installed?

Do you get any error messages when a user logs on with a corrupted profile?

Have the profiles always gotten corrupted when the Mac crashes or is this a recent occurance?

[James Dunn]

The processes that are maxing out the CPU are simply logon. Once the profiles are corrupted trying to logon maxes out the cpu and crashes the system. No error messages. We are up to date on SP's. This has always been a problem since the the FM has been on the MAC.

[Wim Decorte]

Bizarre problem for sure. Anything interesting in the event logs? Can you narrow it down by looking in the event logs to the same sequence happening all the time?

Wim

[James Dunn]

The only thing so far we can trace it to is when the G4 server locks ups or (for some reason) lags (lose of connectivity to it) for 2 minutes or more. This is the only common occurance we can trace.

[Will]

James -

Terminal Server profile issues are hard enough to troubleshoot without a Mac in the mix. I don't really have any ideas for you. But it seems trying to fix the Mac would still be the simplest solution - your consultant doesn't have any ideas what is wrong with it? Have you tried re-installing FileMaker or reloading Mac OS9? What about a hardware test of the Mac? If that goes no where it might actually be easier to migrate everything to Windows but might have to a seperate FM server for Windows license. I have the name of a terminal server consultant I can give you but I'm not sure how much Mac experience he has.

Will

[James Dunn]

Will-

Our consultant tried installing OS10 and that was a huge failure so he reloaded OS9 and upgraded the memory on the G4. But yet we are still having the problems. Not as frequent as before but they still happen and its many hours of lost production time everytime it occurs. I too am leaning toward moving on to a Windows file server if for nothing else to give me a uniform platform to work with taking cross platform issues out of the equation.