FM 9 Server Adv Admin Utility Freezes

[rez]

Since 9 was released I have had to reboot our Windows 2003 Server because the FM server admin tool locks up. This issue occurs about every 2-3 weeks and requires a server reboot to get the admin tool working again. I even reinstalled FM9 Adv twice.

Does anyone have a similar issue on the Windows 2003 Server?

Thanks!

Edited September 19, 2007 by Guest

[Steven H. Blackwell]

First, don't leave the AUC open for extended periods of time. it may become unresponsive.

Second, an occasional rebooting of FileMAker Server machines is generally a good idea, although there is no general consensus on the desired frequency.

Third, do you have SP2 of Windows Server 2003 installed?

Steven

[John May - Point In Space]

An occasional reboot of a server being a good idea? No server should need to be occasionally rebooted. This recent recommendation going around shows that there are some serious things amiss with FMSA.

- John

[Steven H. Blackwell]

Actually there has been a standing recommendation for an occasional reboot since at least FileMaker Server 5.5. And the server should always been rebooted anytime there has been an updater applied, either at the OS level or at the FileMaker Server level.

Steven

[John May - Point In Space]

We have dealt with FileMaker engineering on a number of bugs, and this recommendation has never been made to us. Even when we did implement occasional reboots as a test, they never helped with bugs like this.

Of course the server should be rebooted after updates though.

I stand by my statment that no server of any type should ever require an "occasional reboot" - if it does, that's called a bug. Not one of any of our other server applications ever requires such.

- John

[FMDuck]

I agree that a server should never be shut down without cause.

I'm having this problem about every week. Also, it doesn't matter what computer I access FMSA from, the console doesn't work AND I can't even stop the FM process manaully.

I think this is a HUGH issue. My backups stop working and (real question, not retorical) how are you supposed to close a hosted file to update it?

Edited October 2, 2007 by Guest

[Genx]

I dunno, I don't make my clients reboot their FMSA 8 servers... most of them run for about 4 months at a time before they're shut down for a hardware upgrade or OS patch by their Network Admins. Come to think of it I haven't actually had issues with FMS 8 except manually stopping the service takes a few minutes rather than a few seconds.

Its sort of weird that FMS(A) 9 requries this when nothing else that runs as "server software" does.

Anyway, all i'm saying is that if all Server software required an "occasional restart" there wouldn't really be much point in a server - might as well just host everything off some guys pc, it'd probably get rebooted the same number of times.

... and on that note, is FMS 8 still available?

[KnoxIan]

Does anyone have a similar issue on the Windows 2003 Server?

Somewhat. After a certain interval (seems to be more than a week but less than two weeks), FMSA semi-hangs. It continues to serve databases, and I can connect to it via the Server Admin Console, but clicking on various functions (Clients, Schedules, General Settings, etc.) has no effect, and the Server Admin app seems to hang.

Other times, I can get to, say, the "Clients" page, but the list of connected clients isn't anywhere complete (my user account doesn't appear, for example, and I've got open databases on my screen).

When the Server Admin isn't responsive, I can't use it to close databases or stop the server, and the only solution seems to be restarting the machine itself, which, of course, does not let the databases close properly.

The basic configuration:

FMSA version 9.0.2.151

Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition, SP1

Dual Pentium 4, 3.2 GHz, 1.5 GB RAM

[tgilders]

I have that issue on our development server, but not on our production server. Both are Windows 2003 Server, but a few differences between the two:

The Development Server has Trend Micro Virus scanner on it (however; set to omit the FileMaker Server folder and database directories), I have heard there might be issues between Trend and the Java Virtual Machine. This seems to be logical because the Admin Utility utilizes the JVM.

The other difference is our production server has twice the RAM. Still not as much as I'd like, but our DEV server is very low. (below recommended), so when I noticed this issue, I didn't dare post the problem, because we are operating below spec on the RAM (hopefully more RAM approved soon). So far our Production Server is running just fine. It has Symantec AntiVirus on it.

One thing to note, the command line operations still work even when the Admin Util doesn't, so you can safely close the databases and then reboot if necessary.

[Steven H. Blackwell]

For Server 9 on Windows Server 2003 use SP 2.

And you can use the command line interface to close the files and stop the services.

Steven

[KnoxIan]

Thanks for the feedback. I'll give that a try.