OSX and FM Server Stable Combinations

[xochi]

Have you had stability problems with FM Server and Mac OS X? I had big trouble with OS X 10.4 thru 10.4.2 and FM Server Advanced 7v2 and 7v3. My machine would become unresponsive every 2-3 weeks, requiring me to force-reboot and restore from the latest backup.

I've been running OSX 10.4.3 and FMSA7v3 now and have 56 days of uptime without issue. So if you are looking for a stable combination, I'd suggest you try this.

[Ender]

How many clients? What's the total size of the databases? What's the hardware specs for your server machine? Local connections or WAN connections?

[Reed]

I've been running OS X 10.3.9 with FMSA 7v3 for nearly a year now with no major problems (sound of wood knocking in the background)

Just got my new CDs for Server 8 and Server 8 Advanced, but I'm going to wait until a slow period to update. (I hate to do it since I have a stable system right now... in any case, I'm just going to do a fresh install on a new HD and leave the old system on the old drive until I'm sure everything's OK.)

[John May - Point In Space]

We've found FMSA to still crash occasionally - every 2-3 weeks here or so - hopefully FMSA8 will help minimize this further. We wrote a shell script to monitor and restart it when necessary.

- John

[xochi]

How many clients? What's the total size of the databases? What's the hardware specs for your server machine? Local connections or WAN connections?

10.4.3, FM Server Adv 7v3. Around 5 LAN clients, 5 WAN clients, and 5 IWP clients. Database is about 300MB. 1.5 GHz G4 with 1 gig of memory. FM Server Cache set to 220MB.

[Ender]

Just a couple suggestions if you still have problems:

1. 1G RAM is kind of minimal for running Server Advanced. I'd suggest 1.5G if possible.

2. Server 7v4 update is now out, and fixes some stability problems for certain circumstances.

3. I've discovered an apparent problem running a slow WAN connection with the server's network speed on gigabit Ethernet. It creates some sort of bottleneck and connections time out. Setting the server's network speed to 100Mb fixed the problem.

[xochi]

Just a couple suggestions if you still have problems:

2. Server 7v4 update is now out, and fixes some stability problems for certain circumstances.

Sorry, I mis-spoke. I'm using FMSA 7v4, and have been since it came out.

[xochi]

After 65 days of non-stop operation, I'm going to upgrade my server today.

The configuration I was using, and very happy with:

FM Server Advanced 7v4

Mac OS X 10.4.3

I'm upgrading to:

FM Server Advanced 8v2

Mac OS X 10.4.4 (with all security & quicktime updates).

I'll report back with any issues or problems I find.

[xochi]

Update -- 36 hours of uptime later.

I'm using FMSA8v2, OSX 10.4.4 with all ancillary updates (quicktime, etc.) everything is going well. I had trouble getting my FMS and WPE settings to transfer from 7 to 8. This may have been my fault, or it may be a bug in the documentation / settings programs. I ended up just recreating the settings from scratch, which is not that bad, since it needs to be documented anyway.

I'm finding that FMSA8v2 still has some annoying IWP bugs, but overall it seems as stable as the 10.4.3 / FMSA7v4 combination.

I'll report back when I have more uptime.

[xochi]

So far, I've been very happy with Mac OS X 10.4.4 and FMSA 8.0v2, over 20 days of uptime with zero problems.

Anyone out there tried 10.4.5?

[xochi]

I've updated to 10.4.5 (Security update 001) using FMSA 8v2 and so far so good (about 48 hours of uptime).

[xochi]

Update: 11 days uptime with FMSA 8v2, OS X 10.4.5 w/Security Update 2006-001. Rock solid so far.

I will probably do 2006-002 this weekend.

[xochi]

Anyone tried 10.4.6? It's a big update... will someone else please be the guinea pig? :D

[xochi]

I upgraded to 10.4.6 (PPC) and FileMaker Advanced 8v2 (client) is working fine.

My server is still on 10.4.5 for now.

[xochi]

I upgraded the server.

Now using OS X 10.4.6 and FileMaker 8v3 on both Server and Client. 3 days of uptime, with light use of the database, and everything seems good.

[xochi]

12 days of uptime with OSX 10.4.6, FileMaker 8v3 (server and client).

I did have one mysterious "lost connection to host" when I was doing a largescale "replace field contents" step, but was unable to reproduce it and haven't seen any other issues. I think that this also happened very rarely using 8v1 and 8v2, so it may not be any worse in 8v3, but may be something to keep an eye out for.

[John May - Point In Space]

A few of our FMSA boxes are on 10.4.6 - they seem to be just as stable as the 10.3.x boxes.

I'd highly suggest upgrading your FMSA install to 8.0v3.

- John

[xochi]

Already there: "12 days of uptime with OSX 10.4.6, FileMaker 8v3 (server and client)."

[xochi]

Update: I was running OS X 10.4.7 on an Intel mac mini with FileMaker Server 8v4 and FM Clients 8v3, with excellent results. Rock-solid with over 25 days of uptime. Seemed like a very stable combination.

I'm going to upgrade to OS X 10.4.8 and see how that goes...

[Steven H. Blackwell]

I'm going to upgrade to OS X 10.4.8 and see how that goes...

I'd hold off on that if I were you. This OS has a nasty bug that returns unexpected results for FMP users. See the other thread about the math bug.

Steven