Universal Driver 5.2 released

Universal Driver NUL v5.2 for OpenInsight 10 – This is a 64-bit server side installation for use with OpenInsight 10.  The Universal Driver NUL 5.2 allows files from OpenInsight 10 and OpenInsight 9.4 to share the same Universal Driver.  This version has been updated with the latest ACE libraries.

Management of the Universal Driver is done via the Management Console.  When paired with OpenInsight 10.0.4 and above “child” processes launched from OpenInsight can be configured so that they do not consume additional license seats.

Universal Driver NUL v5.2 for OpenInsight 9.4 – This is a 64-bit server side installation for use with OpenInsight 9.4 and a 32-bit client side installation for use with OpenInsight 9.4.  The Universal Driver NUL 5.2 allows files from OpenInsight 10 and OpenInsight 9.4 to share the same Universal Driver.  This version has been updated with the latest ACE libraries.

Management of the Universal Driver is done via the UD Manager.

Software downloads can be found on the Universal Driver page.

An important date for your diary.

Mark your calendars! On Thursday, June 7, 2018 11 am PT / 2 pm ET Revelation Software in conjunction with DBTA will be hosting a webinar on “An Introduction to the Features and Benefits of OpenInsight 10”.

Click HERE to Register for this event.

In April, 2018, Revelation Software proudly announced the official release of OpenInsight Development Suite (OI) 10.0. OI 10 has been re-engineered for 64-bit in this new release. We have rewritten nearly every bit of code in the product, from the interface with the user, to the reporting tools, and the speed of the indexing routines. OI 10 provides the following new and/or improved components:

• New IDE – OpenInsight 10 includes a brand new IDE, visually similar to modern application development tools, yet still designed for the MultiValue developer. Each of the product’s designers, for forms, tables, reports and all others are now contained into a single, cohesive workspace.
• Arev64 – The next generation of our Advanced Revelation emulator, utilizing the full power and capabilities of modern 64-bit architectures.
• User and Data Security – With increased concerns about security and privacy, including upcoming GDPR requirements, a number of enhancements and changes have been made to strengthen data security.
• Management Console – The OpenInsight Management Console is a browser-based database management tool for system administrators.
• Git Integration – OpenInsight’s repository based environment is integrated to the Git source code management system.
• Universal Driver 5.1 – 64-bit and VSS capability.

In this webinar Mike, Bob and Bryan will provide an overview of the new features and benefits of OpenInsight 10.

OpenInsight Crashing and Not Responding Issues.

We have recently received a number of support requests from clients reporting that OpenInsight has stopped responding or OpenInsight has stopped working and crashed.  This is sometimes the message that OpenInsight has stopped working because it is addressing illegal memory, or that OpenInsight has stopped responding and you can opt to close it, ask Windows to correct it or carry on waiting for a close.  On further questioning, we sometimes find that there is an associated FS1030 or and FS231 error message.

In 99% of cases, the issue is the result of something environmental or that the UD has been incorrectly installed or some has changed something on the network, such as replacing the server and not reinstalling the UD correctly.

If you should be faced with an issue such as those above, we recommend that you thoroughly check the Universal Driver installation and even uninstall and reinstall the Universal Driver, whilst ‘closely’ following the installation manual.  We also suggest that you check for DEP running on the system because this also causes issues on older OpenInsight based systems.

However, below are a few specific things to consider:

• FS1030 – This is usually a result of the SYSTEM USER either not being configured correctly with full permissions during the installation, or someone has decided to delete the user.  The latter is common where a server administrator (or outside IT contractor) is running a user audit and removing old users.  They don’t recognise the SYSTEM user or don’t understand the significance and simply delete it as no longer needed, or reset the SYSTEM user with restricted permissions.

• FS231 – This error message is often attributable to an issue within the REVPARAM file, or where the REVPARAM file has been deleted or created with an extension, such as .txt.  One of the most common configuration issues is the SERVERNAME= parameter in the REVPARAM file not matching the name in the registry that was input during the installation wizard.  Sometimes, if you try to run the UD Manager that will fail with an FS231 error message, this is often a result of the servername being incorrect in the UD Manager’s REVPARAM file.

• FS1019 – New server and workstation deployments often contain default firewall rules that block OpenInsight from communicating with the Linear Hash service on the server.  When this occurs a FS1019 or similar message will appear during OpenInsight start-up.  Revelation have published a white paper (knowledgebase article) on this issue and an accompanying Port Checker.  Both are available on request or from OpenInsight Knowledge Base (revelation.com).

• OpenInsight Is Not Responding – This message often shows in the top of the OpenInsight window or in a message.  Three options are offered and one is to allow the program to run until completed. OpenInsight is actually working but the Operating System, often Windows 7 or later, thinks that it has stopped responding because OpenInsight is busy and not ‘currently’ communicating with the Operating System for a time.  Often waiting for the OpenInsight process to complete will result in the message closing itself (or going away) and everything returns to normal.  Some likely causes could be a resize or creation of a large file or a large indexing run. If this becomes an issue for users, it is often necessary to identify which process is taking the time and then to add some code to let the Operating System know that OpenInsight is working.

• OpenInsight has stopped working and Will Close – This is a more serious issue because the operating system will forcibly close down OpenInsight.  We have recently experienced that running OpenInsight with a profile log eradicates this issue and that OpenInsight again crashes when the log is removed.  This has been an issue invoked by the driver in NETDRV being incorrect.  One recent installation of the Universal Driver 4.7.2 was being run with the UD 4.6 driver set in OpenInsight.  This was because the 4.7.2 driver was not amongst the options in NETDRV.  We completed the Universal Driver installation correctly by running the UD Client Install and the system immediately began to run correctly.  If you experience ‘any’ OpenInsight crashing or not responding messages, we would advise that the client driver is checked and make sure that the UD and the client are running as a pair – i.e. 4.7.2 server and 4.7.2 client.

Sprezzatura have a useful blog article which discusses the OpenInsight Not Responding issue in much more detail.  Click Here for the SENL article.

Of course, if none of the above help to eradicate your networking or OpenInsight crashing issue, please contact your local Revelation support person and they will be happy to investigate the issue further.

Finally, if you are running an older version of the Universal Driver, please consider an upgrade to version 4.7.2 which has some important enhancements, including a memory leak fix.  The upgrade from 4.0 is free and your local Revelation representative will be happy to process the supply of the upgrade for you.

Universal Driver Heavy 4.7.2 now available

The UDH 4.7.2 is an upgrade from UDH 4.7.  It resolves a significant issue with corrupted table header counts and sizes, a potential memory leak/overrun issue when running in ‘debug output’ or logging mode, and eliminates “hanging” when shutting down the service.  This should allow sites to terminate and restart the UDH without requiring a server reboot.

This is a free upgrade to anyone who owns a license for the UDH 4.7.

Please contact Martyn to receive your upgrade.

Universal Driver 4.7.2 now available

The UD 4.7.2 is an upgrade from UD 4.7.  It resolves a significant issue with corrupted table header counts and sizes, a potential memory leak/overrun issue when running in ‘debug output’ or logging mode, and eliminates “hanging” when shutting down the service.  This should allow sites to terminate and restart the UD without requiring a server reboot.  This upgrade is available for both the “NT” and “NU” versions.

This is a free upgrade to anyone who owns a license for the UD 4.7 or UD NUL 4.7.  Please contact Martyn to receive your upgrade.

Universal Driver NUL v5.0.0.5 for OpenInsight 9.4 released

Version 5.0.0.5 for OI 9.4 contains bug fixes, an improved UD manager, and a client installer which exposes more UD5 features.

A bug which caused a client to hang upon repeated toggling of the resize service is fixed.

Version 5.0.0.5 supports passing REVPARAM information via a volume pointer or call to ATTACH_TABLE.

Some core system routines including RTP57, RTP49, FIX_LH and RTI_LH_INFO are updated.

The UD client installer replaces the REVBOOT file and installs the UD_MANAGER and supporting components into your OpenInsight. With these changes, the UD manager displays lock and session details in a format of MACHINE*USER*PROCESSID.  This format lets you determine lock holders in a terminal server or O4W environment.

The UD manager window ( MANAGE_REVLH_SERVER ) provides access to sub windows displaying statistics, statistics history, size lock and remake table information.

This version also resolves a long-standing issue with corrupted table header counts and sizes, and includes new options to disable or re-enable automatic resizing of tables.  It also resolves a potential memory leak/overrun issue when running in ‘debug output’ or logging mode, and eliminates “hanging” when shutting down the service.  This should allow sites to terminate and restart the UD without requiring a server reboot.

This is a free upgrade to anyone who purchased a license for the UD NUL 5.X.

Nice way to start the week

When starting a brand new week, with new challenges and goals, there is nothing better than opening your email, clearing out the spam (and I get ‘a lot’) and finding a really nice positive message from a client.

This morning was one of those days.

The Universal Driver (UD) 5.x was originally only planned for release with OpenInsight 10, but because of customer needs Revelation decided to roll it back to support OpenInsight 9.4 and we now have customers upgrading their sites for the brand new reconnect (failover) and Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) capabilities.

Last week, I supplied a key for Aaron to upgrade one of Sprezzatura’s clients who are upgrading their UD 4.x licenses and their UDH 4.x to the UD 5.0.0.4 for VSS and failover.  On checking my email this morning I found the following email, the client’s name has been removed for confidentiality reasons.

“Just to let you guys know, Company is installing the UD5 on their main servers and we’re just in the middle of basic testing now.  Initial impressions from Company are:

1. With encryption, it seems faster than the UD Heavy.
2. They dropped server connection for 10 seconds and it stayed connected.
3. They like the look of the new UD manager over the old one.

All in all, everyone there seems really impressed with it so far.   Good job guys.”

Like I said, it is always nice to come into the office and receive nice positive statements from clients (end users) who are feeling the benefits of what Revelation do.

Things just got a little quicker.

This will be my last posting of the day with regards to the new Universal Driver (UD) releases, I promise, no more interruptions to your day from me 😉

Everyone keeps talking to me about performance these days and I wanted to share with you that I have heard a whisper that a test using the UD 4.7.2 (and I believe the UD 5.0.0.4 because that has the same enhancements) is performing better than previous versions during a mammoth testing project.

Testing is on going and loads are increasing, but I’m hearing about 17,000 reads being completed in around 3 seconds.  Obviously different systems will perform differently, but if performance is important to you, then maybe now is the time to take a look at what OpenInsight 9.4 and the Universal Driver 4.7.2 or the 5.0.0.4 can do for you.

UD 5.0.0.4

For me, the release of the Universal Driver 5.0 for use with OpenInsight 9.4 was one of the best enhancements in recent times for people running OpenInsight.  It had new features that were sought after by many VARs and end users, and now it just got better with the release of 5.0.0.4.

Now available from www.revelation.com, this new version replaces all previous versions of the Universal Driver 5 and it is available at no cost to anyone who has purchased the Universal Driver 5.  Don’t feel left behind if you have an older version of the UD because we have an upgrade path for anyone running the UD and a new purchase option if this is your first time using the UD to enhance your deployed system.

So what’s all the excitement about?

The Universal Driver 5.0.0.4 resolves a potential memory leak /overrun issue when running in ‘debug output’ or logging mode.

It has also been enhanced to eliminate ‘hanging’ when shutting down the service.  This should allow sites to terminate and restart the Universal Driver without requiring a server reboot.

The new version addresses an issue that recently came to light where the record count and alpha values in the file header can get corrupted when several incomplete latent select / readnext are followed by a complete latent_Select/readnext.  This corruption has the side effect to cause the LK to expand rapidly.  A later complete select/readnext can repair the header and cause the UD to resize the table to normal size.  From the outside it looks like the service is bogging down for no reason.  In extreme cases the resize can crash the service and leave a huge file on the server.  It appears that this is a long-standing issue which may explain some of the issues witnessed by large sites.

The Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) feature now pauses the resizing thread and flushes all buffers.  Before 5.0.0.4 there was the possibility of a file being resized during the snapshot and of some new header record counts / alpha values not being written to disk.

Revelation have implemented the ability to pause the resizing thread.  The idea is to let the UD continue to queue files for resizing, pause the resize thread during the day so it does not slow the server, then release the thread in the evening to let the files catch up.

Revelation has also implemented a set-sizelock call inside the UD.  Prior to 5.0.0.4 the fix_lh program must OSBWrite the new sizelock into the header, which is not compatible with using a sharename to isolate the rev files.  The next UD Manager will support this feature.  The goal is to provide fine-grained control of resizing.  In theory you could pause the resizing thread, then view which files are going to resize, and control the order of the resizing by locking or releasing individual tables.

A “feature” where the UD will clear a sizelock of 1 has also been identified and removed in the new version.  Revelation has always stated that you presize a file, set sizelock to 1 and load it with data.  But, the UD clears the 1 on any select / readnext, making the feature less useful.  They have therefore removed this feature from the UD so that it is easier to pre-size tables and to leave them set to expand only.

The Universal Driver 5.0.0.4 software can be downloaded HERE.

UD 4.7.2

Following several weeks of intensive research, working with one of our key users here in the UK and reviewing many thousands of lines of code, Revelation have now released the Universal Driver 4.7.2.

So why should a new point release be of such interest?

The UD 4.7.2 is a minor upgrade from UD 4.7 but it resolves a significant issue with corrupted table header counts and sizes, a potential memory leak/overrun issue when running in ‘debug output’ or logging mode, and eliminates “hanging” when shutting down the service.  This should allow sites to terminate and restart the UD without requiring a server reboot.

The UD 4.7.2 has been released for both the “NT” and “NU” versions.  This replaces all previous versions of the Universal Driver 4.7 and 4.7.1 and it is available at no cost to anyone who already has the Universal Driver 4.x.

The Universal Driver 4.7.2 fixes an issue where the record count and alpha values in the file header can get corrupted when several incomplete latent select / readnext process are followed by a complete latent_Select/readnext process.  This corruption has the side effect to cause the LK to expand rapidly.  A later complete select/readnext can repair the header and cause the UD to resize the table to normal size.  From the outside it looks like the service is bogging down for no reason.  In extreme cases the resize can crash the service and leave a huge file on the server.  It appears that this is a long standing feature which may explain some of the issues witnessed by large sites.

The Universal Driver 4.7.2 also now enables system administrators to more gracefully close down the Universal Driver in the event of a system crash. In such a situation the UD appears to have simply hung and most people are finding it necessary to aggressively terminate the Universal Driver before restarting the system.  This new version addresses this issue.

Please contact your system author (VAR) or your usual Revelation Representative to obtain your UD 4.7.2 upgrade or to discuss upgrade options if you are running an older Universal Driver (1.5 2.x or 3.x).