Jump to content
Server Maintenance This Week. ×

Sudden Failure


This topic is 6114 days old. Please don't post here. Open a new topic instead.

Recommended Posts

I have been hosting a FM server 5.5 on my Mac (10.4.9) for some time. All of a sudden, no networked computers can access the shared files. They simply do not show up in Open Remote > Local Hosts.

Any ideas as to what may be going on? I have trashed 5.5 and re-installed it. No help.

Thanks

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Any idea what changed?

Does the Server Admin show everything as normal? Does the event.log show anything? Is the FileMaker port open on the firewall (port 5003)?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Bad hardware? Bad NIC card? Bad router/switches? Lots of stuff could be happening here.

Steven

Good point.

Do other network apps work on the computer? Does the Network Utility show any errors?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think there are any hardware problems. Port 5003 is open. other network utilities are working fine.

I have noticed that when I attempt to stop the server it says, "FileMaker Server is stopping . . . this may take a few minutes". It gets stuck there and I must force quit.

Nothing odd seems to show up in the event log.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Actually, thats a really weird thing... I can never seem to get FMS or FMSA to shut down gracefully unless the Server itself shuts down (nothing ever turns up in the logs, the shut down is always graceful). I always close the files down first if i have to close down FMS for some reason..

On different installs, different machines, all above minimum requirements... Though i'll admit they're not dedicated as they should be i've tried on a dedicated machine and it still don't shut down properly...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Any version of Server should run on a dedicated machine.

This is very true.. but at the same time... I fare quite well when FMS is installed on a non-dedicated machine, i.e. a File Server, Exchange Server etc. Don't really see why FM should get its own machine when SQL doesn't lol.

But no, the performance I get is decent, but if I go above 15 clients, I use pretty much enforce a dedicated machine.

Please note, that as much as I have told my clients the issues they'd experience with having it on the same server, most seem to think that the performance is great nonetheless -- thats their issue not mine.

Anyway, idea is: It will work fine for a small amount of clients with a small amount of transactions, but if you want high client / high volume on a non-dedicated server, lol, well it might die :.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'll stick with my "dedicated machine" recommendation. But I'd also suggest reading knowledge base article #5874 on filemaker.com for a good description of their recommendations for optimizing performance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I may be getting somewhere. I reinstalled a new system on my server machine and FMServer 5.5 worked great. Then I went through software update and updated my system. Now I am back to not working. Not only that but when I open a file with FM 6 on the server machine, I cannot open it from a remote machine, it doesn't see it. Could it be that some update to OSX is troubling server 5.5 and FMP 6?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is an update causing the firewall to close a port FMS uses?

Why not install the OS, then the patches, THEN install FMS. In that order.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Could it be that some update to OSX is troubling server 5.5 and FMP 6?

Could be. Apple keeps adding security updates to fix some security hole or another. You might just stick with a stable OS version. 10.3.9 was good, and was known to work with Server 5.5. What's the hardware this is installed on?

Also make sure you update to 5.5v4 (leave the FileMaker Server 5.5 folder on the root directory until the update is done).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Vaughn, when you say "the patches", do you mean the updates?

How would I figure out if the update is causing the firewall to close a port?

The machine is a single core MacMini

I might go back to a previous version of OSX and ignore the security updtaes.

Edited by Guest
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Newbies

I see the identical problem. I was hoping not to downrev the server. However, Apple support told me there is no way to uninstall an upgrade. I may try to install QT 7.1.5 and Airport 2007002 before I give up and reinstall the system. I'll let you know what I find

Since my Mac OSX Server 10.4.9 did a software update for QuickTime to 7.1.6 and to Airport Extreme to 2007003, when I start FM Server 5.5, it appears to load. But, when a client goes to look for a remote database to open (and it can't see any), the fmserverd process begins taking up "300%" of the CPU time (the Xserve has 2 dual core processors so this is really 75%). The wayward process never exits when running fmserverd STOP. I can only stop it with a Force Quit (kill -9).

I have tried reinstalling FMServer 5.5 and loading a minimal database. Nothing seems to work.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...

Just to confirm what everyone else is saying:

It is the 10.4.10 update and the associated security patches. I have a client that had the same issue and I restored back to 10.4.9 and all is fine - except, as noted, the server does not alway shut down.

I turned of the updates until we can get him upgraded to FM9. Not looking forward to that!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know about Mac, but with Windows, I NEVER activate the auto-update feature because it never fails that they cause major problems and sometimes even crash FMS. I manually run them on server when I can test it thoroughly and I usually wait until many people have ran it and I don't hear horror stories about the results.

LaRetta :wink2:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This topic is 6114 days old. Please don't post here. Open a new topic instead.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

By using this site, you agree to our Terms of Use.